The Bright & Dark Side of Overfulfillment on Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Wellbeing

• In Event: Evolving Governance Strategies in Policymaking in China

Abstract

A main focus of policy implementation literature centers around the effectiveness of policy implementation, particularly why and how policy can be successfully translated into effect. Existing literature has identified numerous factors influencing the success of policy implementation, along with strategies to bridge the implementation gap between policymakers and implementers. Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs), serving as local implementers, play a crucial role in shaping actions at the frontlines of policy implementation. While considerable attention has been devoted to studying factors such as policy understanding, perception, professional knowledge, and frontline discretion that enhance SLBs' compliance and performance, there has been a lack of focus on the reverse relationships. Specifically, the impact of the “amount” and “degree” of policy implementation on the wellbeing of street-level bureaucrats has been underexplored. Drawing insights from burnout literature, the core question this paper examines through an empirical investigation is whether and how over-fulfillment of targets in policy implementation affects the three components of job burnout differently for SLBs. Burnout is most typically conceptualized as a three-component construct including exhaustion, cynicism, and efficacy. Although the burnout literature assumes no differences in the three components, empirical studies have presented mixed and conflicting evidence regarding the interactions between these components and the contributing factors of burnout.

To address these research gaps, we examine the distinct roles that over-fulfillment plays in each dimension of local anti-poverty officials’ burnout and delve into the underlying mechanisms that explain these different roles. Our empirical context is the policy implementation of leveraging solar photovoltaic technologies to mitigate poverty in rural China. Through three surveys among local anti-poverty officials and rural residents and employing structural equation models, we find that over-fulfillment in policy implementation increases the exhaustion level of SLBs, but it enhances the level of efficacy. In this case, we further find that the difference is driven by the effectiveness and meaningfulness of the anti-poverty jobs. While implementing Photovoltaic Poverty Alleviation Program requires over-fulfillment and increases local anti-poverty officials’ exhaustion, we find that local anti-poverty officials’ popularization and promotion of solar energy technologies significantly increase the likelihood of installation by in-poverty households. Moreover, it is associated with higher satisfactions regarding the adoption compared to other adopters influenced by alternative promotion methods. This indicates that job meaningfulness and effectiveness could explain the disparate impacts of over-fulfillment on different dimensions of burnout, particularly where efficacy serves as a protective factor against the exhaustion components of burnout, resulting in a lower overall level of burnout.

Authors

• Xue Gao, Florida State University

• Shu Quanfeng, Tsinghua University

• Wendong Wei

• Hongtao Yi, Florida State University