Research on the mechanism of grassroots civil servants' blame-avoidance behavior under various goal-setting and accountability pressures has been a hot topic in academia. However, previous studies have mainly focused on exploring the avoidance behavior of grassroots officials in crisis situations, relying on qualitative research methods, such as case analyses of crisis events, while neglecting or not empirically testing the intermediary role of perceptual accountability as a psychological mechanism. To explore this “black box, ” we constructed an explanatory framework for the blame-avoidance behavior of grassroots officials in the context of the goal-responsibility appraisals, which includes both the institutional and psychological influences, such as the reasonableness of the goal-setting, the matching of authority and responsibility, and the felt accountability. We then employed the theory of planned behavior and the job demand-control-support model based on 247 valid samples collected in China to explore how the reasonableness of the goal affects blame-avoidance behavior. Using a combination of questionnaire experiments and interviews, we proposed and tested our theoretical model.

The interesting finding is that the moderating effect of power-responsibility matching on the relationship between felt accountability and blame-avoidance behavior is not validated. The following are possible reasons. First, to measure felt responsibility, we look at felt responsibility from two dimensions: goal perception and relationship perception. But power-responsibility matching is only a minor part of the relationship perception, thus weakening the moderation of power-responsibility matching in the relationship between felt accountability and blame-avoidance behavior. Moreover, the subjects in this study are grassroots civil servants who hold very little power, and the effects of power-responsibility matching on their felt accountability are weak, thus likely not moderating their blame-avoidance behavior. Finally, studies have found that personality traits significantly affect felt responsibility, and self-control personality traits are less affected by power-responsibility matching than are external control personality traits. Therefore, power-responsibility matching may not effectively moderate the link between felt accountability and blame-avoidance behavior.

This framework may have some significance in suppressing and correcting the avoidance behavior of grassroots officials. In terms of the target responsibility assessment, we find that problems exist in the incentive assessment mechanism and the improvement strategy of grassroots officials whereby they only pay attention to construction of the system and to the design of the incentive mechanism.. This study suggests that the incentive assessments of grassroots officials should focus on different gender and personality characteristics as well as on their various motivations for public service.