The Research On Cross-agency Collaboration Of China

Although the theory of new public management occurred in late1970s andinfluenced administration models of various governments, bureaucratic managementmodel always dominated the management practice of various governments throughoutthe20thCentury. However, since the21st Century, public affairs of governments havebeen extending the original scopes due to its increasingly globalization, complexityand diversity. Furthermore, citizens’ requirements for public service have beenconstantly rising because of the awakening of civic consciousness. Besides,governments is facing unprecedented crisis of confidence and difficulty to be efficient.Therefore, governments have deeply realized that any single management model is notenough to effectively deal with all kinds of problems in public management, thus areform of administration has been overwhelmingly changing towards developing amanagement model based on cross-agency collaboration. From perspective of practicalcross-agency collaboration, current theory of cross-agency collaboration involves someimportant research results and many countries including China have benefitted fromtheir active explorations. However, in China, application of cross-agency collaborationstill has many specific problems to solve. Hence, to develop cross-agencycollaboration in China, using foreign experiences for reference is important, along withmaking foreign things serve China.Currently, the ability of cross-agency collaboration in China is still weak. Toimprove this situation, the contributions of this paper are as follows. Firstly, the basicconditions and key factors for successful cross-agency collaboration are summarizedby analyzing the researches on the practice of cross-agency collaboration in developedwestern countries, which can provide theoretical support to the cross-agencycollaboration for China. Secondly, based on the study on current difficulties of cross-agency collaboration in China, feasible strategies for cross-agency collaborationin China are implied, which can make contribution to the practice of the cross-agencycollaboration in China.Three research methods for demonstration are used in this paper. Firstly, methodof literature research results in completely grasping the key factors for successfulcross-sector cooperation through a considerable number of theoretical and practicalmaterials. Secondly, method of case research leads to the detailed conclusions aboutthe success and failure in the practice of cross-sector cooperation, which can offer thepractical basis for the theory of cross-sector cooperation. Thirdly, method ofcomparative research enables the application of cross-sector cooperation, which is animported theory in public governance, to the Chinese culture, institution andorganization. By this approach, a specific development strategy of cross-sectorcooperation in China can be proposed with more applicability and scientificity.The reminder of this paper is organized as follows.Chapter1firstly presents the concept of cross-agency collaboration according tobackground and discriminates the related academic concepts with controversy indetails. Then, three typical forms of cross-agency collaboration referring to joined-upgovernment, whole of government and collaborative public management areintroduced, respectively. These forms can exactly provide reference to the developmentof cross-agency collaboration in China. Finally, the management model based oncross-agency collaboration are summarized in terms of tolerance of cooperation culture,equalization of cooperation system, diversification of cooperation organization,complementarily of cooperation ability and coordination of cooperation technique.Also, the features of above management model compared to traditional models likebureaucratic management model and new public management model are presented.Chapter2introduces the theoretical basis of cross-agency collaboration. As theresearch theories which influence collaboration model most, the Network GovernanceTheory are introduced, followed by Resource Dependence Theory, Transaction Theoryand Transaction Cost Theory, the Theory of Interface Management and Game Theory. Besides, the effects caused by above theories are explained, which enrich and completethe theory of cross-agency collaboration.Chapter3introduces the cross-agency collaboration practice in the U.S andCanada. Corresponding to the logic line in Chapter1, the practical explorations forpushing on the cross-agency collaboration in the U.S and Canada are described interms of culture factor, system factor, organization factor, ability factor and techniquefactor. The key factors which determine successful cross-agency collaboration are thenconcluded. In this chapter, a lot of cases about cross-agency collaboration are used,which make it possible to get appropriate practice given theory and better theory givenpractice in return.Chapter4aims at the actual situation of China’s cross-agency collaboration tosummarize the existing problems. The reasons of these problems are then analyzeddeeply to verify the judgment of the key factors in Chapter3, which can causesuccessful cross-agency collaboration. More specifically, the problems and obstacles inChina’s cross-agency collaboration precisely result from the drawbacks in terms ofculture factor, system factor, organization factor, ability factor and technique factor.Furthermore, the above analysis can also provide the basis for the strategy ofcross-agency collaboration in China, which is proposed in Chapter5.Chapter5elaborates the selection of cross-agency collaboration strategy forChina. This chapter shows the fundamental significance of the research in this paper.The underlying objectives of aforementioned research contents, such as varioustheories and key factors etc., are to effectively guide and promote cross-agencycollaboration in China. Consequently, all kinds of the key factors for cross-agencycollaboration are linked logically in this chapter. Also, from perspective of practice, thesignificance is deepened and feasibility is improved due to considering the specificculture, system and organization in China when selecting a cross-agency collaborationstrategy for China.The innovations of this paper are summarized as follows. Firstly, differing fromonly studying and using the research results of cross-agency collaboration in western academe, specific theory and application are proposed to apply to the situation inChina and thus the theoretical system is enriched. Secondly, cross-agencycollaboration is considered as a systematical management model to be researched on,and thus the principle law in cross-agency collaboration can be figured out easily bydiscriminating and comparing some similar concepts which is long-time confusing toacademe. Thirdly, theory frame for developing cross-agency collaboration isconstructed based on the summary of the conditions and key elements for cross-agencycollaboration, which can contribute more specific and feasible strategy to theapplication of cross-agency collaboration in China.