Multiple Governance And Limited Execution

The nature of state-owned enterprises determines that they will implement the orders of governments seriously.However,SOEs often adopt various informal means to "limited implement" the relevant orders.As the important executors of national macro-control,why do state-owned enterprises always perform "limited implementation"for the orders from governments?This study reviews the three main interpretations of organizational behavior and the specific researches of state-owned enterprises under their own guidance.Economics' logic is efficiency mechanism.The basic point is that under the relative market environments and institutional arrangements,actors(leaders)of enterprises will maximize their own interests,and these actions ultimately shape the organization's behavior and structure.Organizational sociology's logic is legitimacy mechanism.It is believed that the organization must accept the organizational structure and behavior recognized by the corresponding institutional environment besides the market environment in order to survive.Therefore,the institutional environment is an important factor explaining the organizational structure and behavior.Economic sociology's logic is embeddedness mechanism.It emphasizes the construction of organizational behavior and structure in individuals who are in a specific social context but have autonomy.The efficiency mechanism and legitimacy mechanism pay too much attention to the institutional factors at the structural level to regulate the individual and organizational behavior,while ignoring the complex interaction and operation within the state-owned enterprises.The embeddedness mechanism can understand the internal mechanism of organizations better,but most of researches in this perspective stays in the research of Dan Wei.The basic assumption of this study is that the institutional structure of state-owned enterprises is the ultimate decisive reason for their "limited implementation"behavior,but it is not the directive reason.The mechanism is that the specific institutional structure shapes the unique operational mechanism and interaction mode in state-owned enterprises,and they directly cause the "limited implementation".Through the historical documents and the fieldwork of a state-owned enterprise in Shanxi Province,this study puts forward the concept of "multiple governance logic" to describe the core characteristic of the SOE's institutional structure.Through the analysis of the "multiple governance logic" and the internal operation of the state-owned enterprises,we follow the logic of "Institutional Structure-Individual action-internal interaction-organizational behavior" and explains the key mechanisms for the relative organizational behavior.(1)Low Institutional Constraints proposition.At present,state-owned enterprises are faced with the constraints and influences of multiple governance logic such as market competition,political control,and Dan Wei system.However,these governance logic are often not compatible or even mutually exclusive.Each governance logic and its rules and standards cannot fully and effectively restrict state-owned enterprises.(2)The Action Concept Proposition of "Rule Toolization".Because of the low degree of institutional binding,individual actors in state-owned enterprises have greater autonomy of action-because they do not need or are likely to make choices based on a fixed standard.Institutional rules are no longer a binding force for individual members of state-owned enterprises but are tools that can be used to achieve their own interests.(3)'Result-Oriented" Interactive Model Proposition.The prevalence of the "rule toolization" concept of action makes it difficult for actors to implement a certain rule.It is difficult to ensure that every rule is respected by other actors holding the same concept of action,and thus lacks control of the process.In order to achieve the target tasks,one of the actor's strategies is to strictly control the results of the rules,thus forming a "result-oriented" interaction mode.(4)Organizational Behavior Propositions of "Limited Execution".In the "result-oriented" interaction mode,the target tasks often do not fully reflect the full requirements of the orders;the results in the evaluation also cannot be measured accurately.This results to the "limited implementation" of orders.Firstly,this study can promote the understanding of organizational behavior that prevails in state-owned enterprises.This study have shown that "the lack of effective supervision of governments" is only a superficial reason for the "limited implementation" behavior of state-owned enterprises.The root cause is the multiple governance logic.The lack of effective supervision is only the consequence of this institutional structure.Secondly,this study will probably promote the understanding of the mechanism between the institutional structure and organizational behavior.This study does not deny that the institutional structure and its arrangements shape the organizational behavior,but its mechanism is that the institutional structure shapes the internal mechanism of organizations,and the latter can be directly connected with specific organizational behavior.Thus,organizational behavior can be revealed more clearly through the intermediate key variables of the internal mechanism of organizations.Finally,this study can help us understand the nature of the state-owned enterprises' behavior and its problems.The existence of multiple governance logic makes it impossible to establish a set of action norms and interaction models with unified standards and strong binding force.It is the key to overcome this problem by enabling the institutional structure of enterprises to impose constraints on them with a unified governance logic.