决策模式对政府行为影响分析——IISA会议.doc

Analysis on How the Decision-Making Model influences Local Government BehaviorsZhai Xiaoyi and Lu ChunlongAbstract: The model of top leader making all decisions or model of collective decision-making shows to what extent the government decision power is centralized. The various levels of power centralization will lead to different behavioral models. This empirical study is going to analyze two typical models of decision-making in China: the model of top leader making all decisions and model of collective decision-making. The empirical findings indicate that: the levels of power centralization have significant impacts upon the role of power in cadre promotion, interest representation in decision-making, the role of laws in constraining the behaviors of civil servants, and the use of power for interests of relatives and friends. In addition, the levels of power centralization have significant impacts upon the public participation in government decision-making and the decision transparency. We also find that there is a significant positive relationship between decision transparency and power preference. All in all, these findings support our argument that decision-making models have impacts upon the way that power is used and its transparency.Keywords: Decision-making model Government behaviors Power preference Decision-making transparencyDecision-making has significant impacts on government activities. How to decide and what kind of deciding methods to choose are the most important decision-making mechanism other than the topics in decision-making, having constant influence on government behavior and demonstration significance to the whole bureaucratic system which would directly affect the behavior of low lever. Under the situation of the expansion influence of the top leader decision-making model, it is worth reflecting upon the impacts of the top leader decision-making model and the collective decision-making model and how to understand this kind of impact. The paper combines all the statistics from the research of the impact of administrative mechanism on civil servants from fifteen provinces and cities in 2007, opening out how the top leader decision-making model and the collective decision-making model specifically represent and correlate with each other under the empirical study from the angle of a civil servant.In 2550 questionnaires collected, we select the options to the question “when your company make vital decisions, the most common way is .” as the key variables. The original options consist of four concrete options and one complementary option, which are “collective leaders votes”、”the head decides after the discussion by the collective leaders”、”the head decides”、”after asking for instructions from superior, the head decides” as well as “Im not sure”. In accordance with decision-making power distribution, it can be divided into two categories, the first category is the top leader decision-making model, the other one is the collective decision-making model, which are the most common models in administrative decisions of the Chinese government. In the questionnaire collected, the four options represented by the two models have covered 94.4% proportion, being highly representative. In the following part, the two decision-making models will be selected as the core variables. We are going to revolve the two variables to analyze how the decision-making models impact upon the role of power in cadre promotion, interest representation in decision-making, the role of laws in constraining the behaviors of civil servants, and the use of power for interests of relatives and friends. Based on these, we will further explore the inner relations of the two models and generate the formula of the impacts of the degree of the collective decision-making model on the government behavior.The correlation analysis of different decision models on administrative behavior1. The influence of different decision-making models on cadre promotionCadre promotion is one of the fundamental concerns of civil servants in the government personnel management, having great impact on the behaviors of civil servants. Via the classification and cross-tab analysis, we have some findings as follows. For one thing, in collective decision-making model, the cadre-promoting activities put more emphasis in the peoples work capacity index accounting for 66.7%, such as competence and working performance, reputation, etc. In this model, your social abilities accounting for 33.3%, such as your background, relationships (33.3%) have weakened their influence. For another thing, it has the opposite results in the top leader decision-making model, in which the personal social abilities account for 53% while the peoples work capacity 47&. The findings indicate that the top leader decision-making model is likely to induce corruption in cadre-promoting activities. From the aspect of standardization, we should adopt the collective decision-making model more in these activities.2. The influence of different decision-making models on leaders abusing powerOne of the attractions of power is the possibility of abusing it. In real government activities, the typical power-abusing representation is to break laws and rules for relatives. Through cross-tab analysis in decision-making models and in the real situation that what would the leader do when his/her relatives violate laws, it is found that: the top leader decision-making model and the collective decision-making model have distinct influence on leaders abusing power.Firstly, under the orientation of implementing tasks according to the laws prescribed, the collective decision-making model has higher proportion of abusing power which is 41.3%, than the head decision-making model which is 21.2%; Secondly, under the orientation of actively exculpating their relatives, the result of the two models is the opposite, accounting for 70.9% and 50.4% respectively. It is frustrating that no matter in which model we choose, the proportion of choosing to abuse power is higher than choosing to strictly carry out laws. The statistics above show that on the one hand, the top leader decision-making model is more likely to form power-abusing; on the other hand, the influence of decision-making models on power-abusing is not the decisive factor, indicating that there are certain shortage in the restriction of leaders power of the Chinese government.3. The influence of different decision-making models on the mechanism of restraining the behavior of civil servantsTo some degree, the behavior of civil servants is the detail of running power, and the restriction is actually the control mechanism of power. Through the cross-tab analysis of decision-making models and restriction mechanisms that civil servants can feel, it is found that: law has more restriction power under the collective decision-making model than in the top leader decision-making model, and they account for 59.1% and 43.9% respectively; leaders oral instruction has the opposite tendency under the two models which take up 15.4% and 29.6% respectively. The phenomenon indicates that for one thing, law is the most essential power in restraining civil servants as a whole; for another thing, the top leader decision-making model is incidental to lead to the random behavior of administration. 4 the influence of different decision-making models on the decision-making preferences of local governmentsThe main considerations in the decision-making of local government are the reflections of decision-making preferences. Via investigating the judgments of civil servants on the decisions made by leaders, we can indirectly notice the decision-making preferences in real life. By t cross-tab analysis of the diverse decision-making models and the interests of different groups, it is found that different decision-making models have delicate impact on decision-making preferences which can be specifically elaborated in figure 1. From figure 1, it can be obviously seen that: compared with the collective decision-making model and also under the circumstance of giving attention to the interests of local classes, the top leader decision-making model put more emphasis in the interests of local elites, officials, civil servants and leaders(35.1%) and pay less attention to the weak groups interests(12.2%).The results show that the top leader decision-making model meet the needs of power group while the collective decision-making model relatively considers the balanced interests(57.7%) .Though the later model cares a lot about the interests of power group (20.2%), it also gives much consideration to the weak group (19.6%).5. the influence of different decision-making models on the attitude of public of participating in government decision-makingPublic participation in government decision-making is considered to be the vital representation of the modern government carrying out democratic administration, which is the important means of opening to public and receiving support back on the government policy. Via the cross-tab analysis of the condition of public participating in government decision-making and the concentration of decision-making power, it is indicated that : although the modern government (53.6%) is willing to adopt public participation to make it acceptable, different decision-making models have significant impacts on public participation in government decision-making. The cross-tab analysis indicates that: under the collective decision-making model, the public participation rate is 60.3%, while under the top leader decision-making model, the public participation rate is only 45.9%, the non-existence of public participation is 54.1%. The results show that the collective decision-making model is much easier for public to participate in the government decision-making while the top leader decision-making model is the opposite.6. Different decision-making models have different preferences for the publicity of decision proceduresPublicity of the decision-making procedures is the core component of procedural justice. The capability to control the size of the black box of decision-making is regarded as the most essential supervising mechanism in the public administrative activities. Because the black box is more convenient to control power, the power owners often have certain resentment to the publicity of decision-making procedures. Through the cross-tab analysis of whether open publicity the two variables in the research statistics, it is found that: although the government is more willing to disclose the decision-making procedures (53.9%), different decision-making models differ significantly. Under the collective decision-making model, 50.8% goes to vote for the publicity of the decision-making procedures; under the top leader decision-making model, 59.4% vote for the disclosure of the decision-making procedures. It indicates that the top leader decision-making model is more likely to lead to “black-box operation”, and give less preference to the decision-making transparency.二、the preliminary conclusion and the exploratory factor analysisA series of analyses above help draw a conclusion that various decision models significantly affect the basis of cadre promotion, the power abuse for the benefit of relatives and friends, and the constraints of administrative staff. They also make influence upon which group of people whose interest should be taken into consideration while decision is being made, whether public participation in decision making is permitted, and whether the process of decision making should be made public. The result strongly supports the hypothesis that various decision models will significantly affect the way administrative power is exercised and the extent to which the process of decision making is open.For further research, the 6 elements mentioned above will be put into two groups. The first group contains the basis of cadre promotion, the power abuse for the benefit of relatives and friends, the constraints of administrative staff, and the preference of decision making, which reflects the way administrative power is exercised; the second group contains the public participation of decision making and the openness of decision making, which reflects the extent to which the process of decision making is open. This theory will be further discussed with the following model.Standardized coefficients are adopted in the model. The six elements are combined to two latent variables. One demonstrates the way administrative power is exercised. The other refers to the extent to which the process of decision making is made public. The statistics shows that the two latent variables are closely correlated (0.69), which implies that the more decision making is based on the ignorance of law, the benefit of relatives and friends as the top concern, or the preference for small interest group, the less open the decision making is, vice versa. That is to say, the way administrative power is exercised is closely correlated with the extent to which the process of decision making is open they interact with each other.From coefficient structure the model shows, the impact of power preference factor is in accordance with the descending order. They are: promotion of cadres model, behavior constraint mechanism for the relatives and friends to open the back door, and decisions taken into account for the interests of different groups. This structure shows that control of government authority in the public interest of public service core model should lie in promoting the cadres, civil servants and the establishment of behavioral constraints on the rational mechanism, to control corruption and care vulnerable groups. Similarly, exploratory factor analysis model shows that: transparency and decision making and public participation, decision-making process are associated with openness and public participation in decision-making process where it is t even more important and more influential.三、the final model and conclusionsExploratory factor analysis above shows that the core of government decision-making model are relative with two variables, one is the power of application preference, and the other is the decision-making transparency. Whether it is collective decision-making model, or number one decision making model, or wavering between the two hybrid species, concentration of decision-making power is a reflection of the different concentration of de facto control of local government administration in China. The power and direction, and decision-making process should be open and transparent. This view can be reflected by one of the following structural balance model (Structural Equation Model, SEM) to reflect: Overall, the structural balance model results are consistent with the expected point of view. In the aspect of model parameters, the structural balance model is an effective model that 2 (CMIN) value is 392.587, the value of the degrees of freedom (degree of freedom) is 19, 2/df = 20.662,