Professional Construction Reputation:Research On The Development Path Of Social Work Institutional Autonomy From The Perspective Of Resource Dependence

With the continuous development and innovation of social governance in China,the functions of the government are constantly changing,and the way the government purchases services also has emerged.Social work institutions have ushered in new development opportunities and become one of the important subjects to undertake the transfer of government functions.However,under the institutional environment of "strong state-weak society",most scholars believed that there is an asymmetric dependence between social institutions and governments in China,and the autonomy of social work institutions will be limited.However,this viewpoint neglected the characteristics of professionalism and initiative of the social work institution.This research will explored the possibilities and conditions of the autonomy of social work institutions under the existing system in China.According to the theory of resource dependence,the government has the key resources of policy and finance required by the social work structure due to the power imbalance between the government and the social work institutions.Therefore,the social work institutions rely on the government,leading to the government to society.The administrative intervention of the working institution will damage its autonomy and developmental ability to a certain extent.However,the case study method based on Wenzhou showed that social work institutions could change this single resource dependence and develop autonomy through some mechanisms.This dissertation selected Wenzhou H institution as a case study object,and transformed the social work institution autonomy into four dimensions:personnel arrangement,financial status,decision power and operation mode to examine its autonomy development status.Faceing with the dependence of asymmetry due to the single resource and concentration,H institution complemented and formed a two-way dependence by shaping the formation of core professional competence and government.At the same time,H institutions grasped the interests of the external environment and seeked common interests to prove the rationalization of political choices and deepen the trust relationship between the external environment and H institutions.At the same time,with the continuous development of professional social work,its ideas and values continued to affect the external environment.The continuous improvement of identity has changed the attitude and positioning of the external environment to H institutions.The H institution has a certain right to speak to reconstruct the relationship with the external environment.When the relationship between the two is more balanced,the H institution gains more decision-making space.With the construction of social reputation,more resources are constantly flowing into the pattern of resource decentralization.Therefore,the H agency has gained more dominance over the management of resources,and its autonomy has been continuously released.Based on the current social work institution's general problem of resource dependence,this research explored the development mechanism of social work institution autonomy from the perspective of "breaking through resource dependence",and to some extent examined and corrected the application of resource dependence theory in Chinese context.This paper also pointed out that the development path of the autonomy of social work institutions,and put forward that social work institutions should adopt contingency strategy and give full play to their professional advantages,they also should establish a cooperative trust relationships with the government and shape a diversified resource pattern of social reputation,thus to effectively avoid the dilemma of the lack of autonomy of social work institutions.