Research On Construction And Effects Of Project System In Social Service

The social service project is a kind of public welfare project which is outsourced or subsidized by the government and undertaken by NPOs. The thesis, based on investigation of the operating practice of the government’s outsourcing such projects and NPOs’carrying out them in Shanghai and Shenzhen, analyzes the role of the government in outsourcing social service projects, the project mechanisms and logic, and NPOs’project mechanisms, strategies and logic, and studies the system of rules and regulations over project operations and the effects of the project system.The project system is a kind of social service system and mechanism by which the government’resources are conveyed to NPOs through social service projects. So social service projects make a bridge between resources and supply of social services. Therefore, the project system of social services is not only a means of raising or supplying funds, but also a way of supplying social services. More importantly, it is also an approach to establishing stable institutionalized contact between the funding institutions and NPOs. As a kind of system, project system of social services comprises different elements such as actors, regulations and rules of project system, and lifecycle of social services project. Actors include funding agencies, service agencies, and clients. Institutions and rules of the project system of social services are divided into three types of the project system such as institutional backgrounds, institutional arrangements and non-institutional arrangements. A whole lifecycle of social service project consists of four stages which include identifying requirements, proposing solutions, executing project, and ending project.Social macro-environment elements provide the impetus and conditions for the operation of the projects of social services and the construction of the social service project system. Those macro-environment elements, include:the social service pressure and driving force caused by the imbalance between supply and demand of social services, the government’s outsourcing as an institutional basis for the construction of the project system; growing of NPOs laying an organizational foundation for the operation of the project system, and the welfare pluralism and new public management providing a theoretical basis for the government’s social service project outsourcing and the NPOs’project operating.The project system of social services is founded jointly by the government and NPOs, in which the government plays many roles such as the plan and policy maker, the resource provider to and the administrator over NPOs, and so on. The project outsourcing mechanism is the government’s main project mechanism, which involves project bidding, commissioned project bidding and venture capital investment for public welfare. Pursuing efficiency and benefits is the government’s logic for outsourcing projects. Corresponding to the project mechanism of the government, NPOs’project mechanism is the project contracting mechanism, which involves competitive project tendering, accepting commissioned projects and venture capital investment for public welfare. In addition, NPOs take initiative to apply for projects to the government and foundations. NPOs’project operation strategies are as follows: operating projects according to their organizational strategies, mobilizing employees to participate in project R&D, differentiating and integrating projects so as to seek funding, managing and rolling projects, hatching and nurturing organizations through projects, and carrying out the going-out strategy to set up organizations and undertake projects in other places. The multiple project logics of NPOs include:considering mission or survival, enhancing organizations’core competitiveness, increasing salaries and rewards for employees, improving the professional level of their social services, integrating resources, and deciding which project to carry out, short-term projects or long-term projects.There are several functions of the institutions and rules for operating the project system of social services:it can improve coordination between project behaviors and the project order, and between the cost and the benefits, and serve as a key to understand the behaviors and activities of the government and NPOs as the subjects of projects. These institutions and rules of the project system of social services are divided into institutional backgrounds, institutional arrangements and non-institutional arrangements. The institutional backgrounds, which are exogenous variables, are the basic political, economic, social and legal systems which determine the behaviors of the government and NPOs, such as the regulations for government purchasing, the public bidding and tendering system, and the basic regulations for NPOs, the contract system, the market mechanism, the system of professional social work and social workers. The institutional arrangements of NPOs include the organizational system and the rule system, which provide the implementing structure and various norms for carrying out social service projects. Non-institutional arrangements of the project system of social services are informal and non-contractual, involving reputation, networks of relationship, and consciousness of legitimacy strategies, which are set up to facilitate NPOs’efforts to apply for social service projects.As a kind of social service system and mechanism, the project system has some positive impacts on NPOs and the society. With it, NPOs can get more access to the resources and more social acceptance, thus increasing their legitimacy through implementing social service projects. As far as the society is concerned, the project system improves the efficiency of providing social services, meets different and changeable social needs, and creates and accumulates social capital, which will foster and promote the development of the civil society. The project system of social services will be expanded and applied in a broader area.This thesis founds that project system of social services is not continuum, that it can be divided into bid bidding-tendering project system, the commissioned-project system and the project-applying system. This thesis argues that the project is an important hub and key to understand the relationship between the government and NPOs, that the project is a bridge to integrate clients into the public system, that the project system can be considered as a two-track system in providing social services. This thesis proposes some suggestions so as to develop project system of social services, which include:to establish public financial basis for outsourcing social services to NPOs, to expand the scope of purchase items, to develop NPOs, to cultivate professional human resources to operate project, and to improve evaluation system to evaluate social service project.