Role Expectation And Performance: Community Social Organizations In Community Construction

Each of us in the society occupy some certain positions, play some certain roles, and have corresponding role relationships with others. As the new forces of community construction, the positions and roles of social organizations in community construction are more and more valued by the state and society. This paper is based on literature review and theoretical reflection to further explore the role-playing and the influence mechanism of community social organizations in community construction in China through theoretical analysis and empirical investigation.The role theory believes that in the expectation of others, the social members will perform of rights and obligations which the role required in their own ways, and establish specific relationships with others in the context of the ongoing behaviors. Follow this logic, this study found that under the ideal situation of community construction, the roles of community social organizations are the behavior patterns which belong to the different expectations of government and society. Among them, the government's expectations of community social organizations are to promote the government reform, collaborate with community governance and provide community services. And the society's expectations of community social organizations are to express public opinions, supervise government power, affect public policies, care for vulnerable groups and advocate public spirit.However, the changes of social situations will bring about the changes of the social status and the behavior patterns of the subjects. In practice, the roles of community social organization in the process of adapting to the situation of community construction are deviated obviously. First of all, community social organizations in the community construction is increasingly used as a community brand, making the community social organizations gradually evolved into a kind of status symbol of the interaction between the grass-roots government and community neighborhood committees in community construction. Secondly, under the mobilization of government and community neighborhood committees, the roles of community social organizations in community construction are characterized by ritualization, but it still has some functional significance to promote community governance and service system construction. Again,the government and society depend on the path of community social organization's expectations and the inertia of the behavior of community social organizations, making the role of community social organizations fixed and restricting the role of community social organization conversion and role innovation.In a word, the results of these role play are the common results of the role situation and the role situation definitions of the subject. In the situation of community construction, the lack of legislations, funds, supervisions and the high threshold affect the status of community social organizations and the role behavior. At the same time, the administrative logic of government action on the community construction situation,which changed the role expectations of government and community neighborhood committees, and then lead to the role of community social organizations disorder. In addition, the lack of autonomy of community social organizations also limits the definition of role situation and role performance in community construction.