The Impact Of The Competency Of Village Cadres On Western Rural Development: A Case Study From Shaanxi China

The most difficult task to solve the "three rural" issue is the development of western ruralareas. To better solve the "three rural" issue, in addition to promote the external forces, villagecadres, as a leader of farmers, are the critical internal strength to promote rural economicgrowth and the harmonious development of society in rural areas.Ability and quality of thevillage cadres play an important role in rural development.Our studies carry out a systematic theoretical and empirical analysis on the competency ofvillage cadres and how it affects rural development. This paper based on the theoreticalstudy of the competence theory, human capital theory, rural development theory and socialcapital theory, uses grounded theory and questionnaire investigation determining theelements of the competency of the village cadres, and introduces the village cadres socialcapital as an adjustment variable to build a theoretical model of the relationship between thevillage cadres' competency and rural development. The empirical analysis uses thefirst-hand survey data of415samples from village cadres of7regions in Shaanxi province.Researches include exploring the reasons for the different level of village cadres'competency in western China, measuring the level of the sample rural development by theprinciple componential analysis and entropy weight, testing the reliability and validity ofthe scale and using multiple regression analysis to verify the hypothesis to reveal the impacteffect between the village cadres' competency and rural development. The maincontributions are divided into3parts as following:First, the author analysis on the competency of village cadres in western China using thedepth analysis of the interviews and coding methods based on the grounded theory researchparadigm. The competency model of village cadres includes3dimensions of12competency elements. The three dimensions are achievement motivation, personalinfluence and leadership. The achievement motivation dimension includes: ambition, graspof opportunity, sense of accomplishment and sense of responsibility; The personal influencedimension includes: Strategic, persuasive, personal prestige and coordination capacity; Theleadership dimension includes: organizational skills, decision-making ability,communication skills and ability to create wealth. The study designs the competency scalefor village cadres on the basis of existing maturity scale and analysis of the interviews, and through the analysis of sample data, indicates good reliability and validity of the scalequestionnaire, which expands the areas of competency research, enrich the content of thecompetency theory, and provide a scientific basis for the assessment, selection and trainingof village cadres.Secondly, the study explores the impact of village cadres' competency on ruraldevelopment on the basis of literature analysis and case studies, and introduces thevillage cadres' social capital as an adjustment variable to in-depth analysis the regulationof social network size, network density and network resources between competency andrural development to build a theoretical model of the relationship between the villagecadres' competency and rural development. Based on the model, the paper propose sixtheoretical hypotheses in order to explore the correlation between the competency ofvillage cadres and rural development.Thirdly, the paper conducts an empirical study of a large sample survey data, to verify thevillage cadres' competency positive effect on rural development, as well as positiveregulatory role of the social capital of village cadres. The empirical analysis on the role ofvillage cadres in rural development makes up for the past emphasis on the concept ofinterpretation and lack of empirical analysis. The empirical findings of this study providethe basis and support for in-depth study about the competency theory and ruraldevelopment theory.