制度创业中的社会认同及其情感机制:H镇产业集群的质性研究

Social Identification and Emotional Mechanisms in Institutional Entrepreneurship: A Qualitative Research of Township Cluster in China

制度创业是制度理论前沿议题并具有高度切题性。现有文献过于强调宏观现象描述而缺乏探究制度创业发起的微观过程,导致片面突出行为者的利益及反思而忽略了非理性要素的作用。基于社会认同理论和制度研究的情感视角,本文对中国经济转型时期H镇产业集群内的地方制度开展质性研究,揭示了制度创业中行为者产生能动性的微观过程。研究发现:(1)基于理性反思的效率计算仍然是发起制度创业的基本动机,本文为此提供微观证据;(2)除此之外,行为者还通过社会比较、威胁主导社会认同、归属主导社会认同来寻求并维持制度中的社会身份,这是产生能动性的关键前置环节和全新路径;(3)这条路径背后,行为者通过情感胜任表现(体验和表现社会身份中的情感)和情感性意义建构(带着社会身份中的情感赋予新制度意义)两个情感机制发起制度创业,这是连接社会认同和变革能动性的深层原因。本文不仅回应了制度理论的微观基础和情感要素研究号召,也从微观视角为中国转型经济的制度变革实践提供了启示。

Institutional entrepreneurship （IE） is an emerging and relevant topic in the institutional theory. Existing literature has overemphasized the macro phenomenal descriptions but neglected the micro-process of the IE initiation. Individuals were thus reduced to un-reflexive entities that experience institutions as a totalizing set of instrumental prescriptions. Based on the social identity theory and emotion studies in institutional literature, we conduct a qualitative research of the local norm of a township cluster to unpack the micro-process of IE. We find that： （ 1 ） efficiency-driven calculation is the basic motivational process that individuals experience before they initiate new institutions; （2） individuals also experience social categorization, threat-focus and closeness-focus social identifica- tion processes, which is a new path and necessary precondition for endogenous change-oriented agency; （3） emotional competence performance and emotional sense-making serve as two mechanisms by which agency emerges from the social identification process. This study not only responds to recent calls to study micro-foundations and individual-level affective elements in the institutional theory, but also provides practical implications for managing institutional change processes in the Chinese transition economy