The "Process" And "Organization" Of Digital Governance Among Local Governments In China

Driven by the fourth technological revolution,emerging digital technologies such as big data,cloud computing and artificial intelligence have provided mankind with brand new tools to understand and transform the world,while profoundly changing the production and lifestyle of human society.In order to quickly adapt to the changes in the digital era environment,the construction of digital government has been elevated to the level of national strategy,and it has become a consensus among countries to accelerate the process of digital government construction,which has led to the opening of extensive digital transformation practices at the local level.However,as the advantages of digital technology in improving government governance capacity and response efficiency are gradually shown,the phenomenon of digital formalism and digital bureaucracy caused by it also happens from time to time.The reason for this is that in the process of digital governance,as the logical generation and operation process of complex algorithmic systems are often difficult to understand,human decisions are increasingly yielded to artificial intelligence decisions,and digital technologies are programmatically put into government governance,while key issues such as who should govern(organizational subjects),rules based on governance(the focus of the game between organizational subjects),and the process of power operation(the interaction process of organizational subjects)The key issues such as who should govern(organizational subjects),the rules of governance(the focus of the game among organizational subjects),and the process of power operation(the process of interaction among organizational subjects)are ambiguous,and the model and performance of the output side naturally become difficult to determine.Obviously,the digital governance of Chinese local governments has become a "black box" to be solved,and the neglect of process and organization is the key reason for this black box: theoretically,it is difficult to complete the process chain of digital technology affecting governance performance by neglecting the process and organization in digital governance,and it is also difficult to play the role of other organizations besides section-level organizations in the digital governance process.Theoretically,ignoring the processes and organizations in digital governance makes it difficult to complete the chain of digital governance performance and model formation,and to exploit the professional advantages of organizations other than section organizations in digital governance processes.Accordingly,at the practical level,it is difficult to recover and analyze the causes of actual problems,and to set up incentive programs to promote collective action according to the core concerns of different types of organizations.Based on the above theoretical and practical considerations,the two core issues of this study are the "process" and "organization" of digital governance in Chinese local governments.The "process" includes the formation process of organizational subjects,the interaction process among organizational subjects,and the process of local government digital governance;the "organization" refers to which key organizational subjects are included in local government digital governance,their organizational attributes,and the structure of inter-organizational The "organization" refers to which key organizational subjects are included in the digital governance of local governments,their organizational attributes,and the structural relationships among them,and then asks what are the differences in the strategies and processes of interaction among the main organizational subjects under the premise of different structural relationships and different structural constraints,and what are the differences in the digital government construction models that eventually evolve through this interaction process.In order to answer these questions,this study constructs an analytical framework of "structure-governance subject-governance mechanism" based on the definition of the core concept of digital governance,the dialogue of new public management theory,digital governance theory,and structuring theory,and adopts a comparative case study approach.We adopt a comparative case study approach to systematically analyze the digital governance practices of local governments in Province A and City B as follows:First,with the aim of constructing the knowledge and general knowledge in this case study beyond contextuality,the institutional environment in which local governments are located and their structural constraints are specifically explained.Based on the structural position of local governments in China’s national governance,this paper argues that in the practical scenario of digital governance,the structural constraints faced by the dominant local governments and their actors have two basic aspects: first,they are in the established context of the hierarchical system,and under the impact of digital technology,they are constrained by the institutional environment brought about by the structural characteristics of the internal organization.This includes the constraints of vertical power supervision within the hierarchy and horizontal information barriers between departments,the organizational constraints of local governments in pursuit of performance and external legitimacy,and the value constraints of creating a holistic government and improving the efficiency of government response.Constraints.For government organizations,it is not only necessary to adjust the centralization and decentralization of power,so as to combine the advantages of efficient section structure and flexible network structure,but also to balance the professionalism and openness of multiple organizations in the process of digital governance,and to divide the work and responsibilities among members of organizations based on their professional advantages and the specific tasks of different parts of the digital governance process,while ensuring the openness and flexibility of organizations to enhance In addition,the people-centered governance concept is a fundamental criterion to balance the conflict between the instrumental rationality of digital technology and the value rationality.To this end,the people-centered values should be reshaped,and meeting the diverse needs of the people should be regarded as the main goal of digital governance.In a word,the structural constraints faced in the established situation of the hierarchical system and the specific situation of the task of digital government construction constitute the main elements of the institutional environment in which the local government digital governance is located,and will also be an important driving factor influencing the strategic choices of multiple subjects in the local government digital governance.Second,in order to show the details of organizational interactions in the process of local government digital governance and to explore the logic behind the behavioral choices of different governance actors,this paper adopts a longitudinal comparative case study approach,focusing on two major elements: "time" and "event".The paper adopts a longitudinal comparative case study approach to systematically present the digital governance processes of local governments in Province A and City B respectively,and finds that in two types of digital governance practices,namely,relying on administrative mechanisms and focusing on integration with market mechanisms,digital governance presents "linear-functional" and "matrix" organizational structures have evolved into two construction models: administrative and market oriented patterns.In the two types of digital governance practices,"linear-functional" and "matrix" process evolution patterns are found.And the government-enterprise interaction,which is embedded in the modern digital government governance process,may be de-embedded in the face of excessive dominance of administrative mechanisms,triggering the development of the digital government construction toward the administrative mode in the later stage;or it may be inter-embedded in the governance process under the role of a strong market contract,eventually shaping a market-based digital government construction mode.In general,under the influence of performance-oriented thinking,the theoretical community is keen on performance research and tends to simplify the complex factors influencing digital governance performance,thus establishing an abstract link between "performance-mechanism".At the same time,the practice of digital transformation of local governments is not premised on sorting out their own blockages and pain points,but rather mechanically copies advanced experiences from other places for quick "results",resulting in the waste of administrative resources and digital formalism.Thus,the process of digital governance of local governments in China has become a black box,and focusing on "process" and "organization" may become the "password" to open this black box.Focusing on the interactions of the main organizational actors in the digital governance process of local governments reveals that,due to the differences in the structural relationships and structural constraints faced by the main government enterprises,two models of digital government construction,administrative and market-based,are shaped after the evolution of specific contexts.In addition,this study is innovative in terms of research questions,research content and analytical framework,and the process of digital transformation in Province A and City B is based on real cases,reflecting the digital governance process and governance models of two types of local governments based on different structural relationships,which can provide some reference for the exploration of digital government construction models of local governments.