It is often argued that employees satisfied with their jobs perform better, which in turn will lead customers to be more satisfied. Private sector studies have found support for this “satisfaction mirror” hypothesis. Our study is the first to provide direct, individual-level evidence of its existence in the public sector. We conducted an original survey of village officials in small, rural Chinese villages, and local citizens interacting with them. Village officials are charged with delivering nearly all types of public services to citizens. They are typical street-level bureaucrats, directly interacting with citizens with a degree of discretion. We focus on the senior village official, known as village director. We link the responses of 949 citizens to their corresponding 96 village directors to test the connection between job satisfaction and individual citizens’ satisfaction with these village officials’ work. Using structural equation models and causal mediation modeling (all N=949), we find evidence in accordance with a “satisfaction mirror.” To assess potential social desirability bias, we conduct a list experiment. Taking this into account and relying on an external performance measure still yields a substantively meaningful estimate of a “satisfaction mirror.” Our study theoretically and empirically identifies the linkage between job satisfaction of street-level bureaucrats and citizen satisfaction as a key aspect of citizen-state relations..

Research question/issue: Previous studies have documented the benefits for firms of building political connections, yet there is a gap in the literature on the information transmission effect of political connections. Our study examines the effect of political connections in a highly asymmetric information environment-private firms in China.Research findings/insights: Using quarterly data on listed private firms in China from 2004 to 2017, we find that political connections ensure such firms have access to reliable political information, which mitigates the risks of policy uncertainty. Further, firms connected to the government are better able to mitigate the negative effects of policy uncertainty than those connected to the legislature, while firms tied to high-level authorities are better able to do so than those tied to lower-level ones.Specifically, political connections are more effective in lower-marketized and peripheral regions, where information asymmetry is higher.Theoretical/academic implications: Our study highlights the importance of political connections in mitigating the negative relationship between policy uncertainty and corporate investment via the information transmission channel. Specifically, officials can more efficiently mitigate policy uncertainty than delegates, and high-level authorities are more effective than lower-level officials.Practitioner/policy implications: We argue that building political connections helps private firms offset the negative effects of policy uncertainty. Our findings provide useful insights for understanding the impacts of Regulation No. 18 of October 2013, which limits the employment of current and retired officials in private firms.

Citizen participation in policy making is essential in democracies, but there is much less understanding of the process and substance of it in non-democratic states. Taking local budgetary process as an example, this article compares three pathways of participatory reform undertaken by the communist regime in China, namely the representative pathway, the consultative pathway and the transparency pathway. All three are initiated and administered by the local governments, but differ in a number of crucial aspects from the level of institutionalisation to the form of state–citizenry interaction. These three pathways provide directions the Party-state might consider for nationwide policy reform.

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