My superior’s appreciation, my subordinates’ promotion: experimental evidence of a promotion decision model of middle-level bureaucrats in China

Previous scholarship on bureaucratic promotion acknowledges that both political and meritocratic criteria play important roles in deciding who is promoted among candidates. However, how the preferences of decision makers’ superiors may shape promotion decision making receives less attention. To address this gap, we propose a three-tier hierarchical structure where middle-level bureaucrats employ three criteria to determine the promotion of subordinates: appreciation from middle-level bureaucrats’ superiors, merits of lower-level candidates, and candidates’ social ties to middle-level bureaucrats. Looking at middle-level bureaucrats offers a basis for the cross-layer role of upper-tier superiors in shaping middle-level bureaucrats’ decisions for lower-level candidates’ promotions. A conjoint survey experiment among a nationwide sample of Chinese bureaucrats reveals that bureaucrats not only prefer candidates with meritocratic attributes and social ties to themselves, but also prefer candidates appreciated by upper-tier superiors. Moreover, although political concerns are important determinants of promotion choices, merit of candidates (especially client evaluation) has the greatest influence.