地方政府运行中的“职能替代”现象研究——以劳动监察部门为例

Research on the Phenomenon of"Function Displacement"in the Operation of Local Government——Take Labor Supervision Department as an Example

在中国的地方政府运行中,存在着职能替代现象,即组织的制度职能被搁置,长期性、系统性地承担另一套职能。职能替代是组织职能多样化的一种类型,不同于组织转型,也不同于运动式治理,在既有的学术研究中缺乏专门的分析框架和解释机制。本文通过对S省劳动监察部门的分析,揭示了职能替代的运行特征与发生机制。治理地方性与组织统一性的张力是职能替代产生的根本原因,两种张力的普遍存在使职能替代在许多科层部门都是常见的现象。职能替代,特别是劳动监察部门产生的关联型职能替代,增强了政府组织运作的灵活性,能够因地制宜地调整组织行为,对地方治理具有重要意义。对职能替代的探讨,有助于深入理解中国科层系统的运行逻辑,并对相关组织理论进行多角度思考。

The objective of this paper is to analyze the characteristics and causes of the phenomenon of function displacement in local government,as well as its theoretical contribution to organization research.This study systematically investigated three levels of labor supervision departments in a province,and obtained information on organizational structure,personnel allocation,objectives and tasks,and operation mechanism.The paper introduces the perspective of organizational environment analysis,especially focuses on the relationship between labor supervision department and local governance.In the operation of Chinese local government,there is a phenomenon of function displacement,that is,the institutional function of the organization is shelved,along with the long-term and systematic undertaking of another set of functions.The tension between local governance and organizational unity is the fundamental reason for the emergence of function displacement.Moreover,because of the widespread tension between the two aspects,function displacement is a common phenomenon in many departments.Among them,the labor supervision department is a typical one.The function displacement,enhances the flexibility of the government organization,and introduces adjustment of the governmental organi-zational behavior according to local conditions.Meanwhile the main limitation of this study is the lack of comparative research,which leads to the failure to make more comparative analysis of different departments in local government to judge the universality of function displacement in local government.However this study also reveals that function displacement is a type of diversification of organizational functions,which is different from organizational transformation and campaign-style governance.It has the space of flexible operation,but also avoids the cost of formal organizational change.The analysis on function displacement promotes the understanding of spectrum about organization operation.