Provincial government management

Author: Mao Shourong et al.
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-08-01
Features: The Provincial Government Management—A Case Study of Shanxi Province is the final product of the Case Study Research on Local Administrative Systems in China conducted by the Research Group of Peking University. Case studies originated in medicine and law, gradually becoming popular in business administration and applied social sciences. In the field of public administration (i.e., government management, distinct from business administration or enterprise management), systematic and mature case studies were scarce for a long time. The origin of case studies in medicine lies in the fact that theoretical research in medicine is often one-sided and confined to specific areas, while clinical practice is complex, requiring the accumulation of substantial practical experience on the basis of theoretical learning. Practical experience can be gained through two pathways: long-term personal practice or learning from typical case studies. Long-term personal practice is not only time-consuming for doctors but also risks wasting patients' lives. As an alternative to personal practice while still obtaining practical experience, case studies are effective. In medicine, typical cases are scarce and require experienced doctors to write and analyze them, as well as patients with specific conditions. If a disease has significant research value in medicine but is extremely rare, the patient may even receive free treatment. The extensive application of case studies in medicine is due to the need for a theoretical-practical link when applying medical theory. Medical theory can only guarantee a certain level of medical quality, while extensive clinical practice can significantly improve it. Typical case studies save costs associated with clinical practice, allow doctors to directly access a large number of cases, and ensure that patients have a nearly 100% demand for medical quality, even if they are willing to pay extraordinary fees. Driven by the strong and effective demand (financially supported demand, not hypothetical and unsupported demand) of patients, doctors are also motivated to tackle difficult and even terminal conditions. Law is another field where case studies are widely used. The basic premise is that legal theory must be applied to practice, requiring the accumulation of extensive practical experience on the basis of systematic legal knowledge. Through the study of typical cases, lawyers can improve the quality of defense and better protect their clients' interests; judges can enhance the quality of judgments and better uphold justice; legal scholars can improve the quality of legal research, refining legal theory based on practical issues; and legislators can further clarify the fundamental meaning of laws through case analysis. The popularity of case studies in the legal field is simple: typical case studies can improve the quality of legal practice, particularly the quality of defense. Legal theory alone can only guarantee a certain level of quality. Lawyers, judges, legal scholars, and others can directly access a large number of cases. In judicial practice, especially in common law systems, precedents themselves can even serve as law. Litigants have a 100% strong demand to protect their interests and are willing to pay substantial fees. Legal professionals, particularly lawyers, are highly motivated to study one case after another to find more effective protective measures, supported by the strong and effective demand of their clients. Business administration is another field where case studies are widely used. The starting point is that business administration theory alone is insufficient to make someone an entrepreneur, as entrepreneurs are not learned but rather honed in the competitive market economy. Second, in a market economy, to compete and become an entrepreneur, understanding basic business management theory and methods can provide a significant competitive advantage. Third, if one understands both business management theory and market competition experience, they are more likely to succeed in fierce market competition. Business management theory is easily obtainable, requiring years of systematic study, while practical experience is rare and comes at a high cost. Case studies are an effective and cost-efficient way to gain practical experience while saving on the costs of experiential learning. Naturally, the widespread and effective use of case studies in business administration is also due to the urgent demand for high-quality business management from managers, who are willing to pay for it. Researchers and trainers in business administration are motivated and have the financial means to collect a large number of cases. In their interactions with numerous business managers, they also have the opportunity to access a large number of cases, enabling them to identify typical cases. The primary function of social sciences is to be practical and applicable, which is a crucial prerequisite for the survival and development of contemporary social sciences. Natural sciences can obtain first-hand data through controlled experiments to artificially create cases. Although medicine is a natural science, its research subject is humans, making controlled experiments on them impossible. The research subjects of social sciences are the various social, economic, and political problems faced by humanity, which are also difficult to subject to controlled experiments. While experiments may allow for partial simulations, such simulations are merely virtual realities and cannot fully reflect the complexities of the real world. At such times, collecting existing facts that have already occurred to explore the mechanisms behind events becomes an alternative to controlled experiments. The success of case studies in medicine, law, and business administration has inspired other social sciences, such as anthropology, sociology, economics, and political science, to begin conducting case studies. Among them, anthropologists' case studies are particularly rigorous and have greatly contributed to the development of anthropology. General social science research differs from that in medicine, law, and business administration in several ways. First, social science research is highly important and has significant social demand, but effective demand is very limited, as there are few direct payers willing to pay for it, even when they do, the payment intensity is low compared to what doctors, lawyers, and business administration trainees pay. In other words, the demand for social science research is uncertain and not very strong. Second, the demand for social science research comes from only three sources: researchers' own investment, primarily those with a strong desire for knowledge, those seeking academic positions, and those aiming for higher academic titles. Second, national and societal funding for social science research does not require any direct return. Third, the demand from ordinary universities and adult education, which may be the largest and most realistic demand. These effective demands are essentially difficult to motivate social science researchers to connect with practice, as the cost of doing so is high, and the opportunity cost is also high compared to just connecting with theory: on one hand, theoretical research does not require significant investment, as hard work and inspiration are sufficient to produce results, and it also plays a crucial role in personal gains such as academic status and titles; on the other hand, case studies, which connect theory with practice, are costly and depend not only on personal effort and inspiration but also on the academic value of research, which is not strongly correlated with status and titles. Additionally, social science researchers, particularly political scientists and public administration scholars, find it difficult to easily engage in practice, at least not as easily as management scholars, legal scholars, or lawyers. The cost of connecting with practice is even higher. In the field of economics, case studies are rare because it is a social science that emphasizes theoretical innovation and quantitative analysis, and the demand for it is not high. Although there are policy consulting and economic talent training programs, overall, few are willing to pay for economics case studies. In China, case studies have only recently begun to gain traction, exemplified by the Case Studies on Institutional Change in China project conducted by the Beijing Tianze Economic Research Institute. The project's host, Professor Zhang Shuguang, believes that in economics, "a case is a reproduction and description of an economic issue and decision, a portrayal and analysis of an economic process and its complex context." Case studies are an important method of empirical analysis. Professor Zhang Shuguang believes that case studies and writing must adhere to several principles: First, authenticity. A case must be a true story or a compelling report. If confidentiality or other reasons necessitate concealment or anonymity, pseudonyms and codes can be used, but the storyline must be authentic and not arbitrarily fabricated. Second, the real scenarios provided by case studies must be systematic and comprehensive, with background information, context, development processes, and character dynamics. Ideally, complete illustrations and data should be included in the appendix. After reading a case, readers should at least grasp the basic facts of the event, along with sufficient data and materials, laying a solid foundation for further research, analysis, and discussion. Third, a good case must be an open system, providing real problems, contradictions, and dilemmas, with possibilities for research, analysis, and interpretation from various perspectives. Thus, empirical research conducted through case analysis may not fully confirm or refute anything but can still yield discoveries. If a case is made into a closed system, it cannot accurately describe or analyze the real socioeconomic life and its contradictions, potentially even distorting them significantly. Case studies can be categorized into four types: Explanatory cases, primarily used to record and explain the entire process of an event or a policy and decision issue. Policy cases, serving policy makers as the subject and behavioral agent, providing possible policy choices and coordination to achieve certain policy goals. Since multiple policy choices and combinations may exist to achieve the same goal, the analysis of the effects of various policies and combinations is an indispensable component. Decision cases, serving micro-decision makers as the subject and behavioral agent, providing a real scenario for the decision to discuss how to make the decision. Due to the presence of uncertainty and its effects, there is no optimal solution in decision-making; rather, it can only be said that under specific circumstances, a policy is relatively optimal. Theory-discovering cases, whose basic content is to propose theoretical hypotheses and conduct empirical tests, aiming to discover and propose new theories through case studies. Case studies play a multifaceted role in the development of economic theory: Sample significance, a case describes a scenario and process that is neither simple nor isolated but is part of a larger phenomenon. If extremes are taken, the results are the same. Testing significance, testing existing hypotheses and propositions to provide proof or refutation, although it cannot fully confirm or refute, as repeated refutation in modern scientific development demonstrates the limitations of single tests. Discovery significance, through case analysis, new problems are identified, and new hypotheses are proposed, which can then be tested by oneself or others. Philosophical significance, the real world is complex, and real socioeconomic life is highly complex. It is difficult to grasp the whole from a general deduction, but it is possible to understand and grasp the whole from various perspectives by characterizing specific points. People can only do what they are capable of doing, not what they are not capable of doing, otherwise, they will find themselves in a vague, empty, overly broad, and directionless predicament, making it impossible to advance in the path of cognition. Case studies are essentially thought experiments. Economics has three ways to acquire knowledge: Learning by doing, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, risky, costly, and often impractical for many things. Quantitative analysis, constructing models to calculate various parameters to estimate the quantitative results of reforms or policies, similar to computer simulations. Case studies, by analyzing individual cases from various perspectives and describing their development and changes, exploring possible conditions and pathways, and finding a relatively satisfactory outcome. It can serve as a laboratory. Through case studies, thought experiments on the real scenarios or stories of economic processes, one can explain and predict actual changes in socioeconomic life. Public administration, commonly referred to as government management, belongs to the field of management, so the demand for case teaching should be similar to that in business administration. However, the reality is different, as the teaching of business administration are business managers, who need to withstand the tests of market competition, requiring more theoretical knowledge, more practical experience, and especially more case exercises between theory and practice, which gives them a competitive advantage. Therefore, they are willing to pay for it and spend money on it. The teaching of public administration are government officials, who also need to withstand the tests of bureaucratic competition, requiring more theoretical knowledge, more practical experience, and especially more case exercises between theory and practice, which also gives them a competitive advantage. However, the nature of bureaucratic competition differs greatly from that of market competition. Political competition may sometimes be even more intense and ruthless than economic competition, but the effective demand for case studies is difficult to determine. The most significant difference is that business competition is multi-headed, with each competitor having complete power, and payments are self-funded, earned through their own efforts. In contrast, political competition is often monolithic, with either complete victory or complete defeat, and each competitor has incomplete power, with payments being public-funded, relying on state financial allocations. Due to these reasons, the demand for case studies in public administration is similar to the demand for case studies in economics research, differing greatly from medicine, law, and business administration. This difference is more pronounced in societies where political competition has not been realized, particularly in the public administration research and teaching of universities. Because university teachers find it difficult to access government officials, especially high-level ones,