Between market and hierarchy: Factory manager and the reform dilemma in post-Mao China.

摘要

This is a study of managerial behaviours. The study demonstrates how factory directors sometimes evade demands in order to respond to social norms which take into account worker's welfare needs. The logic of explanation lies in the institutions and social norms which account for the many managerial behaviors in the Post-Mao era. A micro-macro linkage approach is used to relate the micro managerial behaviors to the macro phenomena. And finance is chosen as the theme which links all the issues in this dissertation.;The Chinese state and the local governments have preyed on the industrial organization, primarily the large and the medium state-owned enterprises, as they provide the lion's share the of the national revenue. The central government has employed a number of policies to extract more revenue from them. The irony is that enterprises have not performed well, as measured by the huge amount of industrial debt and the declining profit rate. On the local level, the industrial enterprise has also become the object of predation by the local governments and other organizations, resulting in local protectionism and market fragmentation.;This thesis argues that one source of failures of economic reforms lies in the increasing power of local governments and the importance of the danwei (unit) in providing welfare to the members. Thus, the operation of many social norms within the industrial and enterprise setting does contribute to the distortion of central policies.;As a result of these micro managerial behaviours, we can account for the welfarism of the enterprise, the decline the national revenue, the "collective base of corruption", and the nature of an emerging understanding of property rights. Moreover, this study sheds light on issue of policy implementation, the nature of collective action within the industrial organization, the politics of reform, and the relationship of Chinese state and society in historical and comparative perspectives. In sum, three sets of variables, policy preferences arising in the center, social norms operating within enterprise, and organizational requirements of other institutions, provide a framework for analyzing enterprises and other phenomena appearing during the Post-Mao era.