Model Selection and Cultivation: Honorary Incentive Mechanisms with Countermeasures for Grassroots Civil Servants — A Sociological Analysis of Symbols

Shasha Du

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¹ Department of Social and Cultural Studies, Jiangsu Administration Institute, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu, China,

ssr 2026 , 8(6), 140–156; https://doi.org/10.26689/ssr.v8i6.15084

Abstract

Taking Model Selection and Cultivation as examples, this study re-conceptualizes honorary incentives for grassroots civil servants as a process of symbolic production through field research. The findings show that occupational organizations encode abstract ethical commitments into advanced models via naming, narrative, and ritual empowerment. Through sequential mechanisms, including meaning circulation, psychological transformation, and dynamic reproduction, honorary symbols are transformed into symbolic capital that shapes civil servants’ incentives. The efficiency of honorary incentives depends on the model narrative anchored in real job scenarios, ritual generation, shared emotional focus, and meanings remaining connected to actual performance, after repeated negotiation within peer networks. When model selection slides toward perfectionist narratives, rapidly developed, and neglects subsequent supporting, the effectiveness of honorary incentives tends to diminish incrementally. De-template standards, regular procedures, diversified types, and verifiable linkages between awards and career development channels are required for grassroots civil servants’ honorary incentives.

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