China’s Public Human Resource Management
Selecting for Fit in Civil Service Examinations
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
How do governments select the right people for public service? This book examines the evolving logic of civil service recruitment in contemporary China, focusing on the balance between fairness, competence, and political loyalty. Through a detailed case study of Shenzhen, it offers rare insights into the workings of a highly standardized selection system.
Spanning policy, practice, and perception, the book explores how China's civil service examinations function in practice and whether they effectively match candidates with job and organizational requirements. Drawing on interviews with policymakers, examiners, and test designers, as well as a large-scale survey of civil servants, the study introduces a new theoretical concept—person–government fit—to explain hiring practices in state bureaucracies. It traces the historical development of the system, analyzes test content, and evaluates the outcomes of civil service selection using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Shenzhen, one of China's most innovative and reform-oriented cities, serves as a revealing case to explore broader governance trends in the post-reform era. The book also offers a comparative perspective of the civil service examination in Hong Kong, providing practical lessons and policy improvements.
This book will be valuable for scholars, students, and practitioners in public administration, political science, and Chinese studies. It offers a grounded, empirical look at how state capacity is built from the ground up and provides new tools for understanding recruitment and human resource management in the public sector.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half-Title Page
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- List of Figures
- Abbreviations and Acronyms
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Historical development of China’s civil service selection
- 3 Desired goals of Shenzhen’s civil service exam
- 4 Selection process of Shenzhen’s civil service exam
- 5 Selection effectiveness and validity of Shenzhen’s civil service exam
- 6 How selection validity of Shenzhen’s civil service exam affects employees’ perceived fit
- 7 A comparative perspective: Discretion of hiring organization in Hong Kong’s selection system
- 8 Conclusion: Person–government fit in China’s civil service selection
- References
- Appendices
- Index