Motivating service improvement with awards and competitions – hygienic city campaigns in China

ABSTRACT Awards and competitions are often used to motivate public servants, and this paper examines how the central government of China uses these to try and motivate cities to improve public hygiene. The authors argue that apart from improving performance,(1) awards and competitions are good at motivating user participation and spreading good practice. However, the design of the schemes used in China tends to prioritize disproportionately the winning mentality, and sometimes causes high costs and social tension.