@article{YE2025, 
author = {Tuo YE and Yan ZENG},
title = {Market Competition, Compliance Supervision, and Performance of Public Service Outsourcing: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Outsourcing of Sanitation Services in Shenzhen City},
year = {2025},
journal = {China Public Administration Review},
volume = {7},
number = {2},
pages = {115-137},
keywords = {market competition, compliance supervision, public service outsourcing, performance, sanitation services},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/CPAR.2025.9680205},
doi = {10.26599/CPAR.2025.9680205},
abstract = {Public service outsourcing is both an important trend in guiding public management reform and an important tool in promoting public service innovation. Achieving the performance objectives of public service outsourcing requires both adequate market competition and astute government oversight. Proponents of market competition argue that a fully competitive bidding market would naturally lead to high-quality performance in public service outsourcing. From the perspective of compliance supervision, the market mechanism often has inefficiencies, necessitating the government to rigorously monitor the suppliers' actions in delivering public services and ensuring that services achieve set goals. Furthermore, scholars propose that market competition and performance supervision may either be a substitute for one another or complement one another in influencing the performance of public service outsourcing.The existing literature offers valuable insights, but there are still some limitations. On the one hand, existing studies have not yet reached consistent conclusions regarding which of the two factors, market competition or compliance supervision, has a greater impact on the performance of public service outsourcing, and whether they serve as substitutes or are complements to one another. On the other hand, due to difficulties in obtaining performance data from public service outsourcing, quantitative analyses in the Chinese context are notably scarce. Although a few scholars have attempted such analyses, they have not focused on the research questions addressed in this paper. Given this context, the current study aims to empirically assess the impact of market competition, compliance supervision, and their interplay on the performance of public service outsourcing, utilizing 2018—2022 data from Shenzhen's sanitation services outsourcing.This study reveals the following. Within the dimension of market competition, a greater number of suppliers in the bidding process is positively correlated with the performance of public service outsourcing, but it is negatively affected by portfolio outsourcing. Within the dimension of compliance supervision, positive gaps in historical and peer performance notably enhance the performance of public service outsourcing, whereas negative gaps in such performance notably reduce such performance. Further analysis of the moderating effects indicates that market competition and compliance supervision exhibit only limited complementarity, rather than substitution, in influencing the performance of public service outsourcing.The findings elucidate how market competition and compliance supervision influence the performance of public service outsourcing, thereby enriching our theoretical understanding of this field. They also offer valuable policy insights for refining the management of public service outsourcing. In addition, we suggest that future studies encompass a broader spectrum of cities and a wider variety of public service outsourcing examples in their comparative analyses, thereby enhancing the scalability and adaptability of their findings.}
}