"Selective Vagueness": A Study Of Characteristic Of Operation Level In Running Commonweal Project

Since 1990th, Non-government Organizations have begun to mobilize civil resources for social commonweal. Some foundations adopt the form of project administration as their activity. But minority of current research on foundations pay attention to foundation's operation of commonweal projects. And most of them concentrate on problems related to decision-making and project evaluation, lacking study in operation-level. As a matter of fact, how the executors operate the projects has great influence on the effect. So taking Happiness Project founded by China Population Welfare Foundation in T county as an example, this paper reviews the micro-process of local execution, summarizes its characteristics, analyzes the causes, and how the characteristics influence the effects. Based on this, the author tries to explore how to enhance the effects, so to achieve maximum effectiveness of commonweal resources.Datas in this paper were collected through interview, literature and observation. The researcher interviewed the executors and 21 beneficiaries from 3 towns. The researcher investigated the origin of the project, its development, execution and effects, the beneficiaries'subjective evaluation and other aspects related to project operation, aiming to fully understand every step of project operation.By studying on project propaganda, collection and management of project fund, selection of assistance model, selection of beneficiary, organization of activities to heal poverty, disease and foolishness, file administration, management and evaluation within the project, this paper discovers the characteristic of selective vagueness in project operation, which means the executors have not performed its responsibility strictly according to the regulations. Although they have followed regulations in some aspects, they have displayed changeability in other aspects, which may be called vagueness. The executors have deliberately treated the steps of project operation differently. They want not only to reduce working-load, but also to make the effect accord with the authority's request meanwhile. Analyzing the character of project operation organization and its interaction with other participators according to Organizational Operation Under Non coordinate Constraint Theory and Rational Choice Theory, this paper summarizes the causes of the characteristic of selective vagueness. Based on evaluation of operation effect, this paper summarizes the negative effects brought by the executors'characteristic of selective vagueness. At the end of this paper, the researcher proposes some advice about how to change the executors'characteristic of selective vagueness, especially emphasizing project decision-makers to act function.