Embeded Self-organization: A Study On The Mechanisms And Means Of Chamber Of Commerce’s Systematization

Re-organization of society is the key issue to the theory and practice of socialtransformation, and with growing emerging merchant groups, chamber of commerceas an important organizational form of businessmen re-organization suddenly rises,and the generation and development of it demonstrate a unique developmentalmechanism and pathway of social organizations. Owing to the main focus on tradechambers of commerce in southeast coast of the academic and the lack of focus onregional chambers of commerce in inland regions, we can not grasp the completepicture and nature of chambers of commerce further. At the same time, availablestudies focus on the relationship between chambers of commerce and governments,paying little attention to the relationship among different elements in chambers ofcommerce and.less attention to the interplay between the two kinds of relationships.From the sociological perspective, this paper selects the regional chamber ofcommerce in J province located in Northeast of China as the research object, andempirical researches are conducted with the help of participant observation, indepthinterview, documentary and other research methods. Under the local situation, thispaper studies the operation logic, mechanisms, dynamic and organized means byusing embedded self-organized theory.Firstly, emotional factors and geo-cultural identity, included in geographicalrelations, are the basis for merchant self-organization. At first, outsiders in J provincefollowing geographical relations established Hometown Association, the predecessorof provincial regional chamber of commerce. Then, under the impact of geographicalemotion and culture, the informal Hometown Association is transformed into formalthe chamber of commerce and shows obvious self-organized traits: continuous supplyof market resources offers sufficient self-organized costs to regional chamber ofcommerce; and the key group constitutes relatively stable and ordered governancestructure, and during the process of continuous evolution, the transition of self- organized basis is gradually from geographical emotional relations to the mix. Themechanisms of self-organization mainly show on elite who burden initial costs andachieve making up their own rules and self-supervision. Meanwhile, trust andreciprocity produced by geographical relations promote the cooperative behaviorinside the regional chamber of commerce.This article also reveals the self-organization of regional chamber of commerce isembedded in local situation in J province by organization, politics and personnel.Local governments heavily rely on regional chamber of commerce in attractingexternal investment, boosting local public welfare, managing merchant groups is thekey to embed successfully for chamber of commerce. By embedding the local power-interest network in J province, chamber of commerce can do better to safeguard theinterests of J province fellow businessmen, while merchant groups are also able toimprove their own social status and access resources which are under governmentalcontrol.The self-organization and embeddability influences each other during thedevelopment of geographical chambers of commerce in J province. For one thing,geographical chambers of commerce have changed the weak position when dealingwith the government and have gained more voice and is gradually independent tosafeguard in activities in right defense instead of relying on external force throughembeddability. For another, geographical chambers of commerce continuouslyinfluence or compel government to improve the intangible environment of economicdevelopment and governmental functions following the development of the self-organization of geographical chambers of commerce in J province.Moreover, this paper argues that the process of chambers of commerce’ssystematization actually contains two different types of relationship patterns in Jprovince: interaction among chamber of commerce’s members, constituting the initialdynamic of organizational establishment; interaction between members andgovernments or other social subjects, constituting external environment oforganizational development in some sense. Distinguishing these two relationshipmeans the chamber of commerce’s development and operation, on the one hand, areequal to the quite independent self-organized process based on culture symbol,geographical tradition and community of interest; on the other hand, keep in touchwith local social situation--level of economic development, power-interest pattern andrelationship pattern between politics and commerce, embedding independent political and economic pattern in the social areas.On this basis, we believe that proposing "embedded self-organization" ismeaningful in three aspects, first, regarding Chinese social organizations’development in transitional period as a continuous process containing certainindependence where chamber of commerce and other types of social organizationsand developing self-organized mechanisms are embedded in the local situation leadby power-interest network pattern; second, trying settling conflicts between officialsand citizens in the social organized development, i.e. not discussing whether there isChinese society or citizen society from the perspective of organizational entities butbelieving social self-organization and national structural limitation can coexist in thesame organized process; finally, embedded self-organization being a kind of modelanalyzing social organized development on the background of powerful nation state,trying mixing relationship between nation and society, as analyzing background, intothe analysis of social organizations’ specific developing mechanisms and means.Practical value of this research is exploring how to integrate emerging merchantgroups facing the "atomic dilemma" during the later unit society period based on thestudy of J Province chamber of commerce. Facing this challenge, geographicalrelations provides a feasible organized means. Merchant groups from the same nativeplace are effectively integrated into organizations by regional chamber of commerce,which becomes the basis of merchant groups self-organization. Meanwhile, regionalchamber of commerce, on the one hand, transmits national policies to merchantgroups; on the other hand, represents the merchant groups’ appeal for profits to thenation. Regional chamber of commerce plays an important part in the new type ofsocial organizations, and also makes it possible to achieve social governance andgenerate harmonious social order. Therefore, researches on the generation andoperation of regional chamber of commerce in this paper will help us understand thisorganized issue and provide references and a feasible inspiring and learning forovercoming atomic dilemma in later unit society.