Chinese personalities

Isabella Bishop, Dr Elizabeth Ross and Vita Sackville West all visited Bakhtiariland between 1890 and 1927. They had very different approaches and very different interests but, taken together, their accounts provide some fascinating insights into the important political and social changes occurring in that part of Iran over a period of some 40 years.     

Putting the Cart before the Horse: Accountability or Performance?

Conventional wisdom argues that a good set of performance measures builds accountability and that improved accountability generates better productivity in the organisation. By way of an analysis of a case study in one inland Chinese county, this article shows that the assumed relationship between performance and accountability is more rhetoric than real. In practice, the implementation of performance measurement in local China leads to an accountability paradox, in which enhanced accountability tends to hinder the improvement of government productivity. The implementation of the Chinese target-based responsibility system risks boosting the short term accountability of public employees while undermining the long term productivity of government agencies. With the deepening of China's market-oriented reform, this choice appears to put the cart before the horse.