| Since the beginning of this century,public health emergencies such as SARS,MERS and ZIKA have posed great challenges to global governance.After the SARS epidemic in 2003,China’s public health emergency management system entered a rapid stage of systematization,standardization and legalization,and initially formed an emergency management system.Currently,the covid-19 has been a world-wide pandemic.Under the strong leadership of the central government,China has successfully responded to COVID-19.However,this emergency response also reveals some room for improvement in China’s emergency decision-making on such events.At present,there are mainly two levels of problems in the emergency decision-making of public health crisis in China.On the one hand,the emergency management system and government administrative system are in the process of deepening reform in the transition period,facing the problems caused by "systematic limitations".Specifically,it includes:(1)decision delaying caused by the contradiction between stability maintaining environment and uncertainty of public emergencies;(2)The low efficiency of decision-making caused by the contradiction between multi-level of administrative system;(3)The low level of decision-making legalization caused by the contradiction between imperfect emergency legal norms and emergency decision-making.On the other hand,the rapid change of information technology,media channels and increasing public risks make emergency decision-making face many incremental problems.Specifically:(1)the low integration of emergency decision-making information caused by diversified and heterogeneous emergency information sources;(2)The competing value preference of emergency decision-makers and the unbalanced allocation of rights and responsibilities;(3)The low effectiveness emergency decision-making.The COVID-19 caused reflection on public health emergencies among researchers,public managers and social organization.Firstly,this study is guided by the practical problems of emergency decision-making in China,focuses on the subject of decision-making,relies on the theoretical research results of emergency management,bounded rational decision-making and public choice,and then analyzes the logic of unconventional constraints of decision-making and impact factors.This paper attempts to construct the analysis framework from the perspective of "incomplete information and value preference",and "deeply describe" the framework by comparative case studies,and finally put forward corresponding policy suggestions in connection with China’s actual national conditions.The analysis framework fully explains the value preference of government facing multiple value conflicts such as public security,socio-economic development,government credit and accountable risks under the condition of incomplete information,which is formed by the changes of information sources,channels and evolutional factors.According to the analysis framework,the decision-making modes can be divided into “delayed decision,“experimental decision”,“overreacting decision” and “agile decision”.After the outbreak of SARS,China has made many efforts such as developed the emergency management system and established the infectious disease reporting system.However,delayed decision-making still occurred in the early stage of COVID-19,which precisely illustrates the importance of the "incomplete information— value preference" framework and the mechanism factors behind it.Compared with SARS,China made great breakthroughs in information system construction,epidemiological research and emergency preparedness when COVID-19 broke out.Besides,the national governance has also been strengthened from various aspects,such as emphasizing on improvement of local governments’ governance capacity,leading cadres’ responsibility,prevention and elimination of major risks and preparing for worst-case scenarios.However,there are still some deviation behaviors such as delayed information reporting by local governments.The key is that the information channel is blocked due to the conservative preference of decision-making value,so that the crisis information cannot get central government’ attention.Behind the conservative value preference lies the tension between the administrative management system and effective governance,such as the distribution of power and responsibility,the emphasis on administrative accountability and the neglect of risk accountability.China is a country with far power distance,so the excessive emphasis on administrative accountability will lead to policy-makers’ blame avoidance behavior.This is reflected in the attempt to cover up the scale of epidemic by maintaining relative information advantage,or passively waiting for superior’s decision rather than taking active timely containment measures even if the information is reported.As the local government are on the front line of crisis,the lacking of power and responsibility allocation,decision-making resources for responsive power will be at the costs of lower governance capacity and agility.The ideal situation of emergency decision is to start with "experimental decision" and transfer to " agile decision".China’s emergency decision has shifted from "delayed decision" to "experimental decision " is due to the timely intervention of central government,by emphasizing reasonable value pursuit and appropriate response to risks.Therefore,how to avoid "delayed decision " and "overreacting decision" is the urgent issue for research.In the situation of conventional decision,local governments will not cause serious harm even if they have conservative preferences due to relatively sufficient information and enough time for policies adjustment.However,in the turbulent environment with crises of diffuse risks such as public health emergencies,the desirable decision is to respond early by taking containment measures,and make timely adjustment to the moderate response as the risks change.The incomplete information and time pressure of emergency decision amplify the disadvantages of bureaucratic organization and conservative value preference,which become the organizational factors restricting risk and crisis management.Central government can correct the deviation behavior of local in normal situation,while the value conservatism and behavior deviation in the emergency decision are hidden and hazardous.On the one hand,as front-line actor in crisis,local governments need to make timely responses.On the other hand,the information asymmetry cannot be corrected in time.The deviation can be hazardous due to the uncertainty and rapid evolution of the crisis.This is especially true when facing crises with diffuse origins,such as infectious diseases,leakage of hazardous materials and rumors.These crises have similar characteristics to COVID-19,in that the cost of life,property or other direct losses can increase exponentially without any intervention.To deal with the above dilemmas,we could start with incomplete information and value preference,promoting the disclosure and transmission of crisis information and integrated application of information,improving motivation and accountability system,and leading to shape positive value preference.Firstly,it is key to ensure unimpeded and sufficient information and improve the crisis perception of front-line decision-makers by applying technological governance means to promote the disclosure of crisis information and reduce the information advantage and moral hazard behavior of local governments.Smooth information transmission can ensure that the central government could intervene timely when deviating behavior occurs,and guide the correct value preference and reaction.Secondly,it is necessary to provide institutional foundation and capability for positive value preference by improving motivation system and replacing administrative accountability with risk accountability.While administrative accountability can act as a deterrent and powerful guide in the short term,this approach comes at the expense of a favorable fault-tolerant atmosphere,organizational trust,public service motivation and crisis learning.Different from administrative accountability,which emphasizes finding responsible subject for crisis,risk accountability attaches more importance to analyzing problems in the crisis and crisis learning through improvement in value,system and structure.Responsibility,crisis learning and crisis preparedness are significant for desirable decision.Therefore,risk accountability helps foster early response and proactive emergency decision.Capability basis emphasizes the improvement of risk perception,crisis response and preparation ability of officials.The strategies of local governments are constrained by their governance capabilities.Their decision-making behaviors are rational choices based on crisis information,value preference and capacity constraints.The effective implementation of emergency decisions relies on the basic of governance capabilities.The main conclusions of this study include:(1)the construction of emergency decision-making analysis framework for public health emergencies relies much on the institutional context;(2)Intelligent information integration helps to solve the problem of incomplete information;(3)Appropriate value preference and flexible rights and responsibilities will help to improve the efficiency of emergency decision-making;(4)The flat organization can improve the effect of emergency decision-making under the traditional administrative mechanism.At the same time,combined with China’s actual national context,this study puts forward specific policy suggestions from the aspects of promoting the flat organizational type,reshaping the value preference orientation,relying on the intelligent information integration system to improve the incomplete information,optimizing flexible empowerment and administrative accountability,and strengthening the construction of emergency legal system.The innovation of this study lies in:(1)theoretical research.Based on the theoretical achievements of emergency management,bounded rational decision-making and public choice,extracting the core elements of public health emergency decision-making,refining the constraints of unconventional decision-making and analyzing the relationship between factors.Based on the existing theoretical analysis framework,this paper constructs the analysis framework of emergency decision-making for public health emergencies from the dimensions of "incomplete information" and "value preference",and puts forward four decision-making models: delayed,experimental,overreacting and agile decision.(2)Practical research.From the perspective of emergency management system and the mechanism of decision-making,the practical problems existing in the emergency decision-making of public health emergencies in China are deeply analyzed and systematically sorted out.This paper explores and studies the differences in emergency decision-making by different governments and analyzes the structural and institutional factors that cause such differences.Combined with the case study and analysis of COVID-19,it summarizes the policy suggestion to improve the effectiveness of emergency decision-making. |
