Transfer From Direct To Indirect:the Research On The Development Process Of Government Quality Management System In Ancient China

Based on the study of ancient product quality management literatures, we found that many scholars believe that the quality of the product is attached property, including product technology progress, product standards and quality management-related with laws and regulations. These studies are mainly based on microscopic technology issues including production process, standards, rules, etc. Few scholars have studied from the perspective of system, especially the impact of government quality management system for product quality in a long period. Thus, this study was based on a macro perspective to study how institutional changed government role in quality management and explored each participant’s behavior by incentives and constraints in government quality management system. In this paper, based on institutional change theory, it constructed the framework of the change of ancient China government quality management system. By analyzing the characteristics of government quality management of three major historical periods including Qin and Han, Tang and Song, Ming and Qing, we found the change of the law of government quality management system, which made up for lack of existing research. Simultaneously, this research can supply lots of literatures for study about ancient China’s government quality management in this field. By investigating of historical literature, this paper analyzes the rule of the evolution process in the development of quality management, namely the ancient government quality management in China transferred from direct management to indirect management. Details are as follows:In Qin and Han Dynasty, the government controlled handicraft industry, market transaction adopted the separation system of lane and market from Spring and Autumn Period. Therefore, the government directly controlled most of the product quality. In this period, government unified measurement, standards and inspection methods, government inspect the products’quality, and shared responsibility for product quality with producer and seller. During this period the government controlled a number of important products, but also restricted the civil transaction in established range, even the price of products are formulated by the government. In this more single regulatory environment, government quality management was the essence of the management of government-owned production facilities; and the government quality management in market transactions was essence of control production as well as price suppression. Thus, this system led to less quality signal supply and transmission.The government quality management system’s transfer from direct to indirect appeared in Tang and Song dynasties. This partly reflected the transformation of government quality managerial logic and the method when market transition situation has changed from closing to opening environment. In early Tang Dynasty, the market transition was constrained by the separation system of lane and market, therefore the government imposed direct quality management which was inherited from Qin and Han dynasties. With the cancellation of the separation system of lane and market. If the government followed the directly quality management bound to make the government administration costs rise, it is impossible for the government to check and supervise large number of different kinds of goods as well as ensuring their quality. Therefore, the government needed to rely more on other actors to participate in market transactions for deliver quality information or check the quality of goods, and even rely on them to help the government to check products’ quality which were made by officer handicraft workshops. In the trend towards indirect quality management transition. The government gradually reduced directly management such as inspect the whole process from production to sale. However, guilds and brokers began to play an important role in quality management, for example, they implemented to inspect the products’quality or reported products quality violations in order to obtain economic benefits. The government was not the only administrator, but the one of them, and it became a regulator rather than an inspector. Moreover, the government focused on supervise the goods’quality in commodities circulation instead of inspection in production processes. So the government used more punishment mechanism to constraint producer behavior.Government quality management system has stereotyped as an indirect method in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Direct quality management methods only acted on a few products for government self-use, the other products which supply for the official were obey the standards which were regulated by government itself, and so this is still an indirect management method. In terms of quality management on market transition, the government is no longer the common responsibility of commodity quality, so the functions of discover quality problem and check commodities’quality have been cancelled. The most important function of government is to establish rules rather than check the goods’ quality by itself. Moreover, guilds and brokers have played an important role in government quality management system, and the cost of quality management for the government have been reduced sharply.The government direct quality management connotation is that the government through direct control and participating in the production or sale of products, formulate the corresponding standards, and accordingly directly supervise and inspect the quality of product and bear joint and several liability with the producers and sellers; the ancient government’s implementation of indirect quality management was due to the decrease of direct production, and therefore needed to rely on the people’s participation of the main production and trading. On the basis of realizing their own interests, through the market competition, the supply of quality information, and the behavior of the community of interest, then the government can realize the indirect quality management, during which the government relied mainly on the legal system to regulate the behavior of production subject to conform to the standards of products, to provide fair trade order for the market, rather than direct intervention production behavior, in order to reduce the cost of quality management.This article believes that ancient China has formed the pattern of indirect quality management in Ming and Qing dynasty. This pattern of quality management is a good solution to the problem of transaction cost caused by the single management of the government as well as the cost of transaction caused by information asymmetry. Indirect management emphasizes the role of the market and society in the quality management. Intermediary and self-discipline organization, meet both the interest demands in the transaction, and guarantee transaction smoothly through the sufficient quality information supply. Indirect management of government itself emphasize the management during and after the events. For example, government make the standard, and carry out inspections in the last part, or the penalty to increase the cost of illegal. Indirect quality management of the market itself is more subject to provide quality information, so as to solve the asymmetric information quality and to reduce the transaction costs of society, which makes the market and social subjects to make up for the weakness of direct government quality management.