Applying organizational change strategies in government agencies: Lessons from the Chinese government reform

Abstract

This paper studies the application of organizational change strategies within Chinese government agencies to learn lessons from the experiences of government reforms. Organizational change strategies include involving employee in agency activities, merging agency units, and introducing bottom-up changes in the agency. The paper first provides a review of government reforms in China and addresses research issues related to the three change strategies. Subsequently, the study introduces the research data and analytical techniques employed. The empirical findings provide information about the comparison of organizational change strategies and their relationships in terms of the importance and implementation measures. Furthermore, the findings reveal the influence of the respondents’ personal and organizational characteristics on the importance and implementation of these change strategies. The implications of these research findings include discussions about the distinctive characteristics of the Chinese government reforms and suggestions for future studies of government reforms.