Promoted for What? The Effects of Dual-target Performance Feedbacks on Local Officials’ Turnover in China

Performance feedback theory posits that organizational performance gaps significantly shape managerial incentives, yet the link between multi-goal feedback and bureaucratic promotion remains underexplored. Drawing on a 2013–2019 panel dataset from 284 Chinese prefecture-level cities, this study examines how conflicting targets—economic growth emphasizing social comparison and environmental protection highlighting political targets—jointly influence officials’ promotions. We find that enlarging a positive environmental gap and narrowing a negative GDP gap substantially increase promotion likelihood. But bridging a negative environmental gap even attenuates the economic effect. Moreover, both horizontal (e.g., span of control) and vertical (e.g., patronage ties) institutional factors lessen the positive influence of performance feedback. By integrating performance feedback and promotion tournament theories, this study advances bureaucratic promotion research through distinguishing “horizontal” logic in economic competition from “benchmark” logic in environmental governance, thereby clarifying the meso-level drivers of officials’ promotion decisions.