A Comparative Study Of Government 's Horizontal Inter - Departmental Cooperation

Nowadays, inter-organizational relations have become increasingly complex. When facing the wicked issues, it is often difficult to achieve an effective solution only by relying on a single government, organization, agency or department. During the existing governance process, different government agencies act independently, competing for possible interests and shifting blames when wicked issues happen. This phenomenon happens even more usually than the collaboration between them. In fact, interviews indicate that agencies wish to collaborate with each other but it is rather difficult to realize it due to obstacles and challenges between them. In order to achieve effective governance and to improve the efficiency of public services delivery, public managers need to seek boundary-spanning governance to achieve cooperation and collaboration between government agencies.Cross-horizontal-sector collaboration referred in this dissertation means not only the cross-departmental collaboration within central governments but also the cross-departmental collaborations within one single local government and across different local governments at the same level during the same business. In this dissertation, the core issue is how to achieve the cross-horizontal-sector collaboration between government agencies, which means in what kind of institutional space; how they interact and what strategies they select.Based on the resource dependence theory, holistic governance theory, theseamless government theory and game theory, this study will conduct the research by four analytical dimensions from macro, meso and micro levels, including the institutional space, collaboration mechanism, motivations and strategic combinations. This study contains not only static analysis of the collaboration actors, institutional rules, and action space, but also the dynamic analysis on collaboration motivations, interaction process and strategy selection.A full set of the basic logic of this dissertation is on what environment (institutional space), through what kind of methods or institutions (collaboration mechanisms), for what purposes (motivation), choose what kind of strategies (strategic combinations), to forma the cross-departmental collaboration action.The first chapter is the introduction. By analyses of non-collaboration plight, the research question of this dissertation will focus on the logics of cross-horizontal-sector collaboration. Then this dissertation defines the core concepts and object of analysis. After the existing literature review and the summary of theoretical basis, this study finally forms the whole analysis framework. The research methods will take a combination of theoretical analysis and case studies, by combining use of literature research, case studies, and secondary data.Chapter Two is the analyses of institutional space, including analyses of the historical evolution of cross-departmental collaboration, the institutional rules, and action space from a macro level. In this part, the author first reviews the historical evolution of cross-departmental collaboration by reviewing the previous administrative reform. Then this research further analyzes the institutional space, including the institutional rules (formal rules, informal rules and unspoken rules) and the administrative system. After that, this study reviews and summarizesthe possible factors that influence cross-departmental collaboration, and taking the development of City M’s Public Administrative Service Center as an example, to examine those factors in practice. As a conclusion, in the Chinese context, institutional settings, organizational boundaries, sectionalism, cooperation consensus, superior-subordinate relationship, the degree of business associated, historyinteraction between agencies, and trust are the key elements that could affect Chinese cross-departmental collaboration, although some of them are different from the studies of western scholars.Chapter Three is to study the existing cooperation mechanisms from the meso-dimension. Cooperation mechanism is the arena for cross-departmental collaboration action. This chapter first summarizes the existing cross-departmental cooperation mechanisms, such as theSmall-Groups-Oriented Mechanism, Public Administrative Service Center, Inter-Ministerial Joint Meetings, and other local government innovations on cross-departmental collaborations. Then, taking the Small-Groups analyses as an example, this dissertation studies the operation process of cooperation mechanisms and their effectiveness. Based on the obstacles of those mechanisms regarding to their settings, the operating process, and the actual effects, this study argues that to improve inter-departmental cooperation mechanisms, the construction of auxiliary supporting mechanisms is required, including incentives and accountability mechanisms, information sharing and integration mechanisms, leadership and coordination mechanisms, and trust relationships between organizations.Chapter Four is the motivation analysis of government agencies from micro-dimension. Cross-departmental collaboration is the result of interaction between organizations, showing the characteristics of resource exchange and interestsbalance. In resource exchange domain,due to the scarcity of resources, government agencies need to cooperate with each other to get key resources. Resources are the main reason for cross-departmental collaboration. From the interests balance perspective, departmental interests are the main driving force for government collaboration. Interests of different departments conflict with each other, which leads to the direct interest’snegotiation during collaboration. The balance of interest is the starting point for further cross-departmental cooperation.Chapter Five is about the study of strategy options of administrative actors, and is also from the micro-level. Based on Game Theory, actors in cross-departmental collaborations are called "the players", including individuals, organizations, and coordination agencies. These players might act differently and choose different strategies relating to their different characteristics. In essence, strategic combination of departments is the outcome of their interaction.In Game Theory, there are several typical strategic combinations, like "Prisoner’s Dilemma" and "Clever Pig Game", which could be used in the analyses of government collaborations. This dissertation further analyze the process of cross-departmental collaboration within one single government by taking cross-departmental food safety regulatory system as an example, and across different local governments by taking the collaboration platform construction of air qualitymonitoring in the Yangtze River Delta.The last chapter is the conclusion. The main logics of cross-horizontal-department collaboration is that it is the process of mutual adaptation in the fuzzy boundaries of different departments, and it is also the result of coordination mechanisms, which shows as the key resources sharing and interests balance, as well as the outcomes of strategic combination in a given institutional environment. This dissertation further compares the inter-departmental collaboration process within central government level and local government level, and the applicability of thoseexisting cooperation mechanisms. Finally, this study provides some suggestions and recommendations for optimization of cross-departmental collaboration.