Research On The Relationship Among Organizational Proximity, Cooperative Governance Mechanism And Cooperative Performance In Cooperative Agricultural Extension

After 30 years of reform and exploration, diversified organizations of agricultural extension have been formed in China. In the practice of diversified cooperative agricultural extension, some organizations which adopt many kinds of cooperation mode, such as technology transfer, collaborative research and development, have achieved good cooperation effects. However, domestic research in the field of diversified agricultural extension is still limitted to the theoretical explanation of the construction of the diversified agricultural extension system, the advantage of different types of agricultural organization and their internal management, what’s more, the research method is relatively incomprehensive and the relevant empirical research is seldom found. By constructing the analytical framework of "organizational proximity--cooperative governance mechanism-cooperative performance", this dissertation tries to analyze empirically how organizational proximity between agricultural extension organizations influences cooperative governance mechanism and the final cooperative performance, based on the data of cooperative extension projects mainly from the five types of extension organizations including administrative-type agricultural extension organizations, education-based agricultural extension organizations, research-based agricultural extension organizations, business organizations of agricultural extension and self-help type of agricultural extension organizations..Based on the SCP analytical framework in the field of management, this dissertation emphasizes that the characteristics of organizational proximity between multiple agricultural extension entities determines the selection of cooperative governance behaviors and affects the cooperative performances in cooperative agricultural extension. Namely the organizational proximity has fundamental impact on the cooperative performances, but it is mainly a kind of indirect effect, and the selection of cooperative governance behaviors between organizations is the core element which directly influences the cooperative performances. Based on the field survey of Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, using the convenience sampling method, a sample of totally 108 cooperative extension projects is studied. On the basis of sample data, the method of regression analysis and structural equation modeling are used to empirically probe the relationship hypothesises among the three main variables. The valuable findings are mainly on the following aspects:Organizational proximity has significant and positive effects on each dimension of relational governance, but only has significant and positive effects on the completeness dimension of contractual governance; the environmental dynamism positively moderates the relationship between organizational proximity and relational governance, and meanwhile the asset specificity negatively moderates the relationship between organizational proximity and relational governance; when the contractual governance and the relational governance are simultaneously emphasized, they all have significant and positive effects on cooperative performance, and the latter has much stronger effect than the former, meanwhile contractual and relational governance will be substitutes rather than complements for their joint effect on cooperative performances; knowledge transfer between organizations completely mediates the relationship between contractual governance and cooperative performance, and meanwhile partly mediates the relationship between relational governance and cooperative performance; further analysis using mediation model reveals that contractual governance is no longer significant in promoting the knowledge transfer, however relational governance has obvious advantages in promoting the effectiveness of knowledge transfer.This dissertation analyzes the cooperative agricultural extension practices mainly from the perspective of path relationship in the management field, and the contributions are mainly as follows: Based on the analysis of the relationship between multidimensional proximity and the horizontal and vertical cooperation, this study extracted the connotation and main dimensions of organizational proximity in cooperative agricultural extension, further designed the relevant measurement scale and empirically tested its reliability, validity and explanatory power, which enriches the relevant research findings on proximity. This study has analyzed and empirically tested that the organizational proximity has direct effects on the cooperative governance mechanism, the environmental dynamism and asset specificity moderates the relationship between organizational proximity and relational governance, and knowledge transfer between organizations mediates the relationship between cooperative governance mechanism and cooperative performance, the three sets of path relationship provides a new perspective for future research on interorganizational relationship. In addition, This dissertation also put forward the concrete cooperation strategy in agricultural extension, such as paying attention to the endogenous role of organizational proximity in the whole process of the cooperative agricultural extension project, matching the appropriate cooperative governance mechanism according to the synthetically attributes of cooperative extension project before its implementation, emphasizing the role of relational governance in the process of project implementation compared to contractual governance, meanwhile, this study also put up some long-term suggestions to deepen the agricultural extension work, such as promoting the level of Start-up project, constructing the regional long-term cooperative extension network, strengthening the organizational proximity between multiple agricultural extension entities, and so on.