From marketization to agency reclassification: A qualitative comparative analysis of de-agencification in China

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: He, Chenyang; Lo, Carlos Wing-Hung; Liu, Ning; Tang, Shui-Yan
• 署名单位: Fudan University; Chinese University of Hong Kong; City University of Hong Kong; University of Southern California
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.13876
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 810-832
• 关键词: reform; ORGANIZATION; GOVERNMENT; service; EFFICIENCY; networks; npm

摘要

A standing contention in the agencification/de-agencification literature concerns how to explain the adoption or reversal of the agency form for service delivery. What considerations-transaction costs or political and institutional factors-drive the choice of specific reform strategies? Employing a configurational perspective, this article examines this question in the context of China's service organization reform. By tracing the de-agencification process and strategy shift of 11 service organizations in the environmental management system of Guangzhou, this article shows that transaction-cost changes are neither sufficient nor necessary to explain strategy shifts or a slowdown of de-agencification. A combination of political-institutional factors can offset the influence of transaction-cost changes. Reform uncertainty, if combined differently with other factors, can result in divergent outcomes. Moreover, political priority, rather than party politics, shapes China's de-agencification. A shift in reform strategy does not necessarily impede the pace of de-agencification reform.