The impact of accountability on local officials’behavior in the pandemic prevention and control in China based on utility maximization

Background:The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis and an inspection of national governance systems and crisis response capabilities of countries globally.China has adopted a tough accountability system for officials and has succeeded in containing the spread of the pandemic.This study aimed to assess the impact of accountability on local officials’behavior in the pandemic prevention and control based on the official promotion tournament theory and utility maximization analysis framework.Methods:The panel data of 237 Chinese cities were extracted with local officials’characteristics,confirmed cases,Baidu migration index,Baidu search index according to city names,and data were excluded with local officials’relocation or sub-provincial cities between January 1,2020 and May 5,2020.Promotion gain and accountability cost were constructed by adopting promotion speed indicator,and the research hypotheses were assumed based on the utility maximization.It was the first time to apply the interaction model to empirically investigate the relationship between the promotion speed of local officials and the COVID-19 confirmed cases.Results:Our study showed that the promotion speed of provincial governors and mayors significantly affected the number of confirmed cases(β=−11.615,P<0.01).There was a significant interaction between the promotion speeds of provincial governors and mayors(β=−2594.1,P<0.01),indicating that they had a coordinated effect on the pandemic control.Additionally,mayors with different promotion speeds made a significant difference in controlling the imported cases and those who promoted faster better controlled the imported cases(β=−0.841,P<0.01).Mayors with full-time postgraduate education,titles,and majors in science and engineering had a better effect on controlling the number of confirmed cases.Conclusions:Our study provides evidence that the official accountability system has played an important role in containing the pandemic,which suggests that local officials motivated by the accountability system would respond to the pandemic actively for higher utility.Furthermore,provincial governors and mayors have played a coordinated effect in pandemic control.The above evidences reveal that implementing the official accountability system could improve the government’s emergency management capability and the efficiency of pandemic control.Therefore,adopting a strict accountability system could be effective in pandemic containment globally,especially in centralized countries.

Altmetrics mentioned in WeChat articles:Evolution,topic,context and comparison with scholarly publications

[Purpose/Significance]The purpose is to explore the use of We Chat official accounts articles(referred to as We Chat articles)as a type of Chinese altmetrics data source,and reveal the attention and discussion surrounding altmetrics in the social media environment,as well as discover the similarities and dissimilarities compared to that of scholarly publications.[Methodology/Procedure]Using We Chat articles that are relevant to altmetrics as the research object,statistical analysis,quantitative analysis,and text mining were used to explore the pattern of attention and discussion of altmetrics in We Chat articles.Meanwhile,scholarly publications of altmetrics were collected for scientometric analysis.The similarities and dissimilarities as regards the degree of attention,topic distribution and developing trend were compared between these two datasets.[Results/Conclusions](1)Number of We Chat articles that mention altmetrics is increasing rapidly,although there is a time lag between the first We Chat article and the first scholarly publication of altmetrics.(2)Types of We Chat official accounts that pay attention to altmetrics are very diversified and go beyond the academia.(3)We Chat articles relevant to altmetrics mainly focus on 4 topics,i.e.the introduction of the latest publications of altmetrics,information of relevant scholarly activities and scholarly meetings,informetrics research and scientific evaluation that involve altmetrics,and introduction of altmetrics monographs.(4)Four major types of context where altmetrics is mentioned by We Chat articles are identified.They are to introduce the concept,theory,knowledge system,and technical methods of altmetrics,to discuss the data sources and research objects of altmetrics,to discuss the construction and application of altmetrics indicators,and to discuss the meaning and value of altmetrics.(5)In contrast,scholarly publications of altmetrics are more centered on systematic research,including the theories of altmetrics,the construction of altmetrics indicators,the application of altmetrics indicators,impact evaluation,and the relationship between altmetrics and traditional informetrics.These results are useful for further developing the Chinese altmetrics data source and understanding the relationship between altmetrics and bibliometrics.