The Political Economy of Service Organization Reform in China: An Institutional Choice Analysis

Posted: 9 Oct 2009

See all articles by Shui-Yan Tang

Shui-Yan Tang

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Carlos Wing-Hung Lo

Independent

Date Written: October 2009

Abstract

In China, service organizations refer to many semi-governmental organizations that perform social or public functions, partly or fully on a self-financing basis. A key item on China's governance reform agenda is about which service organizations should be integrated into the core government bureaucracy and which should be turned into self-financing enterprises units or private, nonprofit organizations. By examining 12 organizations affiliated with the Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau using an institutional choice perspective, our analysis suggests that although various political and institutional factors have remained key constraints, such transaction cost concerns as probity, accountability, legitimacy, efficiency, and reliability have increasingly been raised as criteria in deliberating institutional choices in China's governance reform, paving the way for the gradual development of a more rational and accountable governance system.

Suggested Citation

Tang, Shui-Yan and Lo, Carlos Wing-Hung, The Political Economy of Service Organization Reform in China: An Institutional Choice Analysis (October 2009). Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol. 19, Issue 4, pp. 731-767, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1484516 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mun029

Shui-Yan Tang (Contact Author)

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Carlos Wing-Hung Lo

Independent

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Abstract Views
338
PlumX Metrics