Asymmetrical Relationships:a Study Of The Generation Mechanism Of Social Workers’ Passive Separation

Social worker turnover is a difficult problem for the social work industry,but in the process of research,we found a different phenomenon:social organizations are forced to leave or social organizations dismiss workers due to the reduction of programs or professional competence of workers.In the context of the system of government purchase of services,social workers often left their jobs on their own initiative in the past,but the prevalence of this phenomenon of passive leaving was observed more and more in the course of the research,which aroused the author’s curiosity about the motivation behind this phenomenon of passive leaving.In other words,the focus of this paper is on the underlying mechanism of passive social worker turnover in the context of government purchase of services and the action strategies taken by social workers when faced with the situation of passive turnover.The literature on the development dilemma of social organizations in the context of project-based system,government control and strategic responses of social organizations,and the causes and countermeasures of social workers’ departure reveals that the existing literature mainly studies the phenomenon of social workers’ active departure,but hardly deals with social workers’ passive departure.Studies on the factors influencing social workers’ leaving mainly focus on salary and benefits,family status,organizational culture,social recognition,etc.Few studies analyze the motivation of social workers’ leaving from the perspective of government-society relationship.The text constructs an analytical framework of "relational asymmetric interaction" with the help of relevant elements of "contract theory",namely,information asymmetry,limited rationality,resources,relationships,and interaction patterns,and uses a semi-structured interview method to interview 10 social workers In the context of government purchase of services,the government has been trying to find out the deeper mechanisms related to their passive separation.In the context of government purchase of services,the government and social organizations form a government-society relationship through the project system,and social organizations and social workers form an employment relationship through labor contracts.The vertical power of the government,social organizations and social workers is decreasing.In the decreasing vertical power structure,social organizations lack a voice in the face of the government,and in order to alleviate the dilemma,social organizations choose to take measures from the weaker side,the social workers,in order to strategically alleviate the dilemma faced by social organizations,thus shaping the practical picture of the phenomenon of passive social workers leaving.The study found that there are three main types of passive separation in the passive separation phenomenon:program downsizing,competence demand type,and relationship weakness.In the face of passive separation,social organizations and social workers also take actions to cope with it.The three main ways to cope at the social worker level are negotiation and acceptance,opposition and transfer,and complaint and separation,while social organizations have a series of behaviors such as further recruitment of excellent social workers,making an example of them,and talent attraction.Finally,we conclude that the asymmetric relationship among government,social organizations,and social workers is the key reason affecting the passive departure of social workers,and put forward the future research outlook and next research suggestions.