跨部门协同中非营利组织自主性的形成机制——来自政治关联的解释

The Formulation Mechanism of NPOs' Autonomy in Cross-sector Collaboration: The Explanation of a Political Connections Model

基于已有理论,非营利组织的自主性可被定义为"免于受到外部控制"。在实践层面,非营利组织主要是以正式性、资源分散和决策权威等方式来获取或形成自主性的;但是,现有研究并未解释这些方式是如何被选择的,也未能进一步对自主性的形成机制进行分析。本文试图用基于"关系-知识观"的政治关联模型来解答这一问题。政治关联模型强调了组织领导人的社会关系(尤其是政治关系)及其知识构成对组织行为和特征的重要影响。通过比较案例研究,本文初步确认了政治关联在非营利组织自主性获取方式选择过程中的支配性地位,并进而以命题之形式刻画了不同类型非营利组织自主性的具体形成机制。当然,受限于研究领域和案例数量,文章之模型及其结论的合理性,仍有待进一步检验。

The main objective of this paper is using a model of political connection based on 'relation-knowledge view' to explain why the social relations(especially political relations or ties)and knowledge components of the leaders of NPOs will impact on the actions and characteristics of these NPOs. A comparative-case study;two NPOs in Zhejiang province,China was conducted. Based on the literatures of NPOs' autonomy,the study identifies three kinds of strategy which a NPO can try to gain its autonomy,formality,distribution of resources and decision authority. The results of case study shows that compared with a NPO without political connections,a political connected NPO will just use decision authority to keep its autonomy,while the former needs more strategies. The key limitation of the study is that its conclusion focuses solely on cross-sector collaboration,which may means only a part of NPOs' conducts can be explained by its model;What's more, there are only two cases in this study,the external validity of it is limited. The proposed theoretical model assist managers in choosing strategies to keep or gain autonomy. The two cases are representation of most Chinese NPOs in public service outsourcing industry,their actions are important examples of exploiting or acquiring autonomy in this context. This paper also draws on the comparative-case approach to posit a series of propositions that link the strategies of a NPO to its informal relationships,and uses the political connections model to explain and illustrate the mechanism of it.