| Public welfare foundations are important part of social organization in China.As of December 31,2019,the number of public welfare foundations nationwide has reached7,856,with total assets exceeding 150 billion yuan.Public welfare foundations have become an important subject to receive resources donated by the society,and their discourse power and influence are also increasing day by day.With the transformation of government functions,the adjustment of government-society’s relations and the promotion of the national governance modernization strategy,the laws,regulations and policy systems for the development of public welfare foundations have been continuously improved.The governance of public welfare funds gradually becomes standardized and plays an important role in providing public services,which causes the recognition of social subjects on the functions and values of public welfare foundations.At the same time,in recent years,public welfare foundations have been fallen into the paradox of rapid expansion of group size,governance “involution” and credibility crises.Combined with modern information technology not only provides strong technical support for the development of public welfare foundations,but also breaks transfer pattern of information dissemination of the information monopoly and low efficiency of information.Therefore,the operation mechanism for achieving operational efficiency,governance capability,and operation efficiency of the public welfare foundations,and whether it can efficiently allocate charitable resources and complete the charity mission have become the core topics concerned by the stakeholders.This study takes the "public welfare foundation" as the research object,bases on the rapid development and the new public welfare ecological background,attempts to explore the multiple mechanisms for the efficiency of Chinese public welfare foundations,measures their operating efficiency and examines the factors affecting efficiency.Then it proposes strategies to optimize its operational efficiency.This study systematically reviews domestic and foreign research on the governance of public welfare foundations,the evaluation of efficiency and performance,and the factors affecting its efficiency and performance.Take the theories of multi-center governance and third-party governance,corporate governance theory,field theory,efficiency(performance)evaluation as the theoretical basis.Then from a theoretical perspective to "real practice",according to the idea of "basic knowledge,development history and cognition of the present",this study summarizes the basic knowledge,development history and current characteristics,as well as the new trend,new scene,new ecology presented and practical difficulties faced of Chinese public welfare foundations in the era of public welfare 3.0.Drawing on the field theory,this study summarizes the characteristics of the operation field of Chinese public welfare foundations.The operating mechanism of the organization is the supporting condition for the generation and improvement of the efficiency of public welfare foundations.Focusing on the micro-level of the operation of public welfare foundations,this study summarizes the internal and external dynamic elements of its operation from the deep-level dynamics of the operation of public welfare foundations,and analyzes the interaction mechanism of internal and external power.At the same time,based on the perspective of public welfare resources,this study summarizes the resource flow mechanism of public welfare foundations’ operation as the input and allocation mechanism of public welfare resources.Then,following the "two lines" between the internal governance and the development of external linkages of public welfare foundations,we deduce the control and balance mechanism,openness and transparency mechanism,internal and external supervision mechanism,incentive mechanism,as well as organizational branding mechanism and investment development mechanism,competition mechanism,industry cooperation mechanism.Then,this study empirically evaluates the operating efficiency of Chinese public welfare foundations.On the basis of clarifying the value orientation and basic ideas of efficiency evaluation,according to the logic of "input-management and allocation-output" of charitable resources,we have built a collection of "funding efficiency","management efficiency","service efficiency",and "social impact" ——the comprehensive efficiency of the evaluation index system,and selected the entropy weight method to determine the information entropy and weight of the evaluation index.We combine the entropy weight method and the Topsis method to measure the efficiency index of 180 national public welfare foundations registered by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.It is concluded that the operating efficiency of most of public welfare foundations is relatively low and uneven.It can be divided into three efficiency echelons as a whole.The efficiency index of most public welfare foundations is on the second and third efficiency echelons.The number and efficiency of each echelon show typical heterogeneity.At the same time,the operating efficiency of the government office foundation> university-type charity foundation> the operating efficiency of the private office foundation.Exploring the factors that affect the operating efficiency of public welfare foundations is a necessary link to dig out its operating rules and improve the efficiency of organizational governance.This study builds a theoretical framework based on stakeholder theory,and proposes hypothetical influencing factors and theoretical assumptions.Taking the efficiency index of public welfare foundations as the dependent variable,the governance of the board of directors,the governance of the board of supervisors,human resource management,and government support as independent variables,and the organization type,age and scale of the organization as the control variables,we established a theoretical model of the factors affecting the operational efficiency of public welfare foundations.The Tobit regression model was used to verify the relevant assumptions through bivariate correlation analysis,VIF coefficient analysis and benchmark regression results.It was concluded that there are no significant relationships between the size of the board of directors,the size of the board of supervisors,the degree of government approval,the nature of the organization,and the operating efficiency of the public welfare foundations.The scale of human resources at the executive level,government support,public support,the quality of information disclosure on industry platforms,the quality of external audits by audit institutions,the age and the size of organizations can significantly positively affect their operational efficiency.According to the "historical" and "current" realities of the operation of public welfare foundations,and on the basis of systematic analysis the characteristics of its operating field,this study analyses the mechanisms of the realization of the operating efficiency,and verify its operation efficiency and the factors that affect its efficiency.Based on the above research,this study follows the ideas of organizational governance,political factors,industry development,market mechanism,and technical support,and proposes to build a scientific public welfare foundations governance system,continuously create the benign institutional environment,and shape the sustainable ecological chain of the public welfare foundations’ industry,promote a new charity model that links business communities,and use the driving function of "Internet + charity" to optimize the operational efficiency of Chinese public welfare foundations. |
