A Study On The Logics And Behavior Of Public Value Choice Of Grass-roots Civil Servants Under The Management Of COVID-19 Prevention And Control

Grass-roots governance is the "cornerstone" of national governance,and grass-roots civil servants,as policy implementers,are the key to the effectiveness of grass-roots governance.Grass-roots civil servants are the "last mile" in the chain of social governance,responding to the orders and requirements from the superior government and leaders and responding to the demands and feedback from the public.In this process,grass-roots civil servants need to balance and choose diverse public values,and often have to make "Tragic Moral Choices".Since the spread of the COVID-19 around the world,public governance has faced unprecedented challenges,especially grass-roots civil servants are often caught in the dilemma of "having their cake and eating it too" and need to make a choice between conflicting values.As Graaf points out,In the pursuit of public values in public governance,not everything can be realized.This study uses the content analysis method and grounded theory to select 50grass-roots civil servants as samples through theoretical sampling,identify their content of public value choices,and present their public value choice logics in order to deeply understand the public value choice behavior of grass-roots civil servants in specific situations.On this basis,this study further develops the relationship between the public value choice logics of grass-roots civil servants.First of all,social stability,people-centered,political loyalty,responsiveness(public)and efficiency are the most important public values chosen by grass-roots civil servants.From the perspective of position types,the five public values that adminstrative law enforcement grass-roots civil servants choose the most and consider the most important are: professionalism,rule of law,responsiveness(public),political loyalty and people-centered.The five public values that comprehensive management grass-roots civil servants chose the most and considered the most important are: social stability,people-centered,political loyalty,social cohesion and responsiveness(public).Secondly,this study uses the grounded theory to explore the public value choice logics of grass-roots civil servants: individual logic,institutional logic,bureaucratic logic,cooperative logic and resource logic.Finally,this study finds that there are three types of relationships among the five kinds of public value choice logics: promotion relationship,restriction relationship and contingency relationship.Based on this,five kinds of public value choice behaviors of grass-roots civil servants are developed: taking initiative to improve the quality of work;actively seeking benefits for the people;Strictly obeying orders;being content with the status quo and rigid executing;Submitting to the arrangement and pushing hard.The innovation of this study is mainly summarized in two aspects: first,the study perspective is transferred from the results of public value choice to the logics behind public value choice.In this study,the epidemic prevention and control management was set as the study context,and the results of public value choice of grass-roots civil servants were obtained based on the list of public values.By further exploring and explaining the logics followed by their value choice through the grounded theory,the shortcomings of the existing research were made up.The second is based on complex system theory,focusing on the relationship between multiple choice logics.This study finds that the relationships between multiple pairs of value choice logics reflect contingency characteristics: different relationship types are presented according to the changes of specific conditions and situations.This finding provides the study idea and foundation for the study on the transformation mechanism of the logical relationships of public values choice.