内行领导还是外行领导:专家型领导对组织绩效的影响——中国城市新冠肺炎疫情防控的实证研究

Expert or Non-expert Leadership:The Impact of Expert Leadership on Organizational Performance:An Empirical Study Based on Prevention and Control of the COVID-19 Epidemic in Chinese Cities

内行领导还是外行领导存在普遍争议,但是较少有文献进行实证检验与深入探讨。2020年初新冠肺炎疫情的突如其来将专业型组织卫健委推向公众视野。基于中国285个地级市卫健委领导班子(“一把手”和班子成员)的专业背景和任职经历,本文实证检验其与疫情防控效果之间的关系。研究发现,卫健委领导的医药卫生专业特征不明显,“一把手”更有管理上的比较优势。单独来看,班子成员的医药卫生专业背景与医院任职经历能在一定程度上促进疫情防控,但“一把手”的作用并不显著;在整体考虑领导班子的搭配方式时,同样具有管理专业背景的“一把手”和班子成员相互掣肘,同样具有医药卫生行业任职经验的却能够相互合作。这表明,无须过度追求内行领导,也无须过度担心外行领导,更重要的是领导班子的结构,而非内行或外行的比重。

Whether a leader is an expert or an amateur is an important issue that is widely disputed,but thus far there has not been much literature to test it.Having expert leaders means that the leaders are equipped with knowledge and skills matching their core tasks.In contrast,having amateur leaders means that the leaders,regardless of whether they are proficient in management,do not have any professional knowledge and skills relevant to their tasks.Then,what kinds of leaders should be selected to improve organizational performance? Previous studies have the following shortcomings.On the one hand,most studies on this issue are the results of normative research rather than empirical research,thus they do not arrive at specific results.On the other hand,the empirical studies focus on financial and economic issues,not the public sector.Our study contributes to the literature by highlighting the importance of the characteristics of leaders and the arrangement of the leadership team in the public sector.The COVID-19 pandemic since the end of 2019 has propelled the Health Commission,which was set up as part of the institutional reform of 2018,into the limelight.Based on Goodall’s expert leadership theory,we measured the education and working background of the leaders of the Health Commission in 285 prefectural-level cities in China(including the “top leaders” and the “secondary leaders”).In addition,we examined the relationship between the cities’ prevention and control of the epidemic and the leaders’ characteristics.The cities’ epidemic prevention and control performance was measured by the number of confirmed cases when the first stage of the COVID-19 epidemic reached its peak in each province where the prefectural-level cities are located.This is a proxy for the organizational performance of the Health Commission.Because the independent variable is a count variable and the COVID-19 epidemic did not spread evenly,we use a negative binomial regression for each model.We also use robust standard error clustering at the provincial level to exclude any provincial factors.The study finds that most leaders of the Health Commission are medical amateurs,but its top leaders have comparative management advantages via-à-vis the secondary leaders.In addition,secondary leaders who have majored in medicine or who have worked in hospitals perform better than others in terms of epidemic prevention and control,and the top leaders do not play an essential role.More importantly,the effectiveness of epidemic prevention and control is related to the structure of the leadership team.When the top leaders have an educational background in management,the proportion of secondary leaders who also have a management background is greater,but the results of the prevention and control of the epidemic are lower.To a certain extent,the medical and health professional background and the hospital experience of the team members can contribute to the prevention and control of the epidemic,but the role of “top leader” is not significant;when considering the overall arrangement of the leadership team,if the members of the team also have a professional background in management,the top leader and the team members may constrain each other,but if they have the same medical and health experience,they may cooperate with each other Although there seems to be a trend in the direction of expert and technocratic leadership,our results show that there is no need to worry about “non-expert leadership.” The structure of the leadership team is more important than the proportion of “experts.”