Social Organizations In China Research Articles

Optimizing flood disaster management: unraveling the role of social organizations in China’s GBA through social network analysis

This study delves into the efficiency and structure of the social organization network involved in flood disaster management in China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). Leveraging the global knowledge graph, we analyzed social media data and news reports to identify the pivotal roles and interactions of various social organization types in flood disaster governance. The empirical findings underscore the central role of national public social organizations, evidenced by their high frequency of news coverage and mentions. Meanwhile, International Social Organizations and Local Public Social Organizations exhibit growing influence and participation. As China shifts toward a comprehensive disaster reduction strategy, the study observes increased diversity and decentralization among these organizations, with non-governmental organizations and volunteer groups playing vital roles in resource mobilization, information dissemination, and disaster coordination. Network analysis unveils evolving interaction patterns and co-occurrence frequencies among social organizations, reflecting the evolving roles of different organization types in disaster relief. This research aims to provide actionable insights to enhance the effectiveness of social organizations in disaster management, contributing to the establishment of a more resilient and efficient disaster management framework in the GBA.

The Role of the Informal Institution: How Does It Shape the Trust Relationship Between Government and Social Organizations in China?

This paper analyses the influences of informal institutions on interorganizational trust. Based on a case study, it identifies five impact paths of informal institutions operating between government and social organizations in China: internal referencing, direct entrustment, office visits, favor provision, and key figure decision-making. Most of these function to maintain relationships and facilitate affection. Trust in these informal institutions is particularistic, exclusive, limited in transferability, discrete, and information based. Accordingly, this paper shows that while informal institutions can foster simple cooperation between a particular government and social organization, they can also strengthen the power imbalance between these two subjects and undermine basic public values.

Mediation role of anxiety on social support and depression among diabetic patients in elderly caring social organizations in China during COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundDiabetes has become a prominent global public health problem, which is an important cause of death, disease burden, and medical and health economic burden.Previous studies have reported that majority of persons diagnosed with diabetes later presented with psychological and mental health diseases. The study aimed to explore the mediation role of anxiety on social support and depression among diabetic patents in elderly caring social organizations (SOs).MethodsA multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling method was used in this cross-sectional study, and a questionnaire consisting of demographic questionnaire, MSPSS, GAD-7, and CES-D-10 was utilized to gather data. SPSS 22.0 and MPLUS 7.4 were used for statistical analysis. Spearman correlation analysis was employed to investigate correlations of key variables. A generalized linear model was used to exam factors associated with depression. Finally, the mediation effect among study variables was investigated by structural equation modeling (SEM).ResultsThe average scores of social support, anxiety, and depression were 58.41 ± 14.67, 2.95 ± 3.95, and 7.24 ± 5.53, respectively. The factors of gender, social support, and anxiety were identified as significantly influential factors related to depression among diabetic patients in elderly caring SOs. The effect of social support on depression was significantly mediated by anxiety (β = -0.467, 95%CI: -0.813 to -0.251). Furthermore, anxiety partially mediated the relationship between family support and depression (β = -0.112, 95%CI: -0.229 to -0.012), and anxiety functioned as a complete mediator in the effect of significant others' support and depression (β = -0.135, 95%CI: -0.282 to -0.024).ConclusionsThe indirect effect of social support on depression through anxiety among diabetic patients in elderly caring SOs was elucidated. Social support played a key role in maintaining and regulating their mental health, particularly from family and significant others. Social support provided by both family and significant others exerted an important influence on maintaining and regulating their mental health. In light of this pathway, the elderly caring SOs should enhance the magnitude of social support from these two sources, thereby diminishing the likelihood of experiencing anxiety and depression.

Assessing the impact of pure market, government, and social organization interaction on the effectiveness of public service procurement

AbstractThis study employs qualitative comparative analysis to investigate the effects of different interaction modes, namely, functional substitution and strategic cooperation, on the effectiveness of public service procurement. It reveals that the interaction between the government and social organizations in China's current public service procurement presents a composite form, combining functional substitution and strategic cooperation. Government support for social organizations plays a critical role in procurement effectiveness. The greater the government support, the higher the effectiveness of public service procurement. The study finds that “pure market” and “pure competition” do not necessarily contribute positively to the effectiveness of public service procurement.

Mediating the performance of social organizations in context of social and organizational innovations in China.

Social and organizational innovations are one of the most effective ways to gain social collaboration for effective, rapid, and coordinated interventions. An analysis of the relationship among organizational performance (OP), social innovations (SI) and organizational innovation (OI) in social organizations (SOs) is little discussed in the literature and much less with main component analysis. This paper is an effort to provide some empirical evidences about social and organizational innovations that social organizations in China have implemented to address the social issues of the society. A survey of Chinese SO's is conducted during beginning two months of 2022 in provinces of Jiangsu, Guangdong and Zhejiang to attain the statistics and assessing the insights of the executives of the SOs participating in this study with respect to organizational performance, social and organizational innovations. The technique used to select the sample is a non-probabilistic sampling and multiple linear regression model is applied to determine the partial impact of organizational innovations and social innovations on the organizational performance. The grouping of the variables is carried out through main components analysis. The empirical findings of the study highlight that Chinese SOs are innovative because they adopt management strategies to address the social issues associated with their institutional mission. There are four groups of derived components from organizational and social innovations based on the empirical evidence: SO's innovative activities to modify the environment; inside innovative measures to enhance SO's performance; innovative activities of SO's to enhance their relationships with outside actors; innovative measures to improve the management of SOs related to their mission and institutional projects. The findings of this study offer an efficient solution to government and policy makers for involving SOs in terms of planning of social development in China. The social and organizational innovations are very necessary to overcome the social issues so government should encourage the establishment and sustainability of social organizations.

Contracting Welfare Services to Social Organizations in China: Multiple Logics

AbstractAs part of a broader direction of welfare and governance reforms, China has launched a policy to contract welfare services out to social organizations. Scholars have explored the implementation of the policy in a few socioeconomically advanced cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai. In this article, we examine how local governments lacking nongovernmental services suppliers or resources for contracting respond to the policy. We developed a framework of multiple logics to analyse services contracting in a county-level city in eastern China. We found that local officials follow three logics in implementing the policy: to meet the central state's targets, to balance policy outcomes and risks, and to stimulate a more participatory society. This generates a mix of policy behaviour, including entrepreneurialism, welfarism, innovation, risk-sharing and collaboration. We thus argue the interplay of the logics determines the local policy process of services contracting in China.

Exploring the Mutual Nexus of Social Capital, Social Innovations and Organizational Performance

The ability of self-reconstruction is essential to the survival of social organizations. To meet the social challenges, these organizations must enhance their creative and innovative processes. Although an extensive literature describes the impact of social capital on innovations, research on how social and organizational innovations affect organizational performance and social capital is very slim. This paper makes an addition to the literature by investigating the impact of organizational and social innovations in explaining the relationship of social capital and organizational performance. Confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and structural equation modelling are used on the data gained from social organizations in China. It is found that social and organizational innovations affect the organizational performance in positive way while social capital has a vital role in this relationship by improving mutual cooperation, interaction and trust. The mediating role of social and organizational innovations in the relationship of social capital and organizational performance is formalized through structural equation modeling. The empirical findings reveal that organizational and social innovations have mediating role in relationship of organizational performance and social capital. The empirical results do not support the direct relationship between organizational performance and social capital or between innovations and organizational performance. It is also found that social and organizational innovations are necessary to improve the relationship of organizational performance and social capital.

Organizational Geosocial Network: A Graph Machine Learning Approach Integrating Geographic and Public Policy Information for Studying the Development of Social Organizations in China

This study aims to give an insight into the development trends and patterns of social organizations (SOs) in China from the perspective of network science integrating geography and public policy information embedded in the network structure. Firstly, we constructed a first-of-its-kind database which encompasses almost all social organizations established in China throughout the past decade. Secondly, we proposed four basic structures to represent the homogeneous and heterogeneous networks between social organizations and related social entities, such as government administrations and community members. Then, we pioneered the application of graph models to the field of organizations and embedded the Organizational Geosocial Network (OGN) into a low-dimensional representation of the social entities and relations while preserving their semantic meaning. Finally, we applied advanced graph deep learning methods, such as graph attention networks (GAT) and graph convolutional networks (GCN), to perform exploratory classification tasks by training models with county-level OGNs dataset and make predictions of which geographic region the county-level OGN belongs to. The experiment proves that different regions possess a variety of development patterns and economic structures where local social organizations are embedded, thus forming differential OGN structures, which can be sensed by graph machine learning algorithms and make relatively accurate predictions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of graph deep learning to the construction and representation learning of geosocial network models of social organizations, which has certain reference significance for research in related fields.

Correlations of external social capital in social organizations providing integrated eldercare services with medical care in China

BackgroundThis study aimed to explore the external social capital of social organizations (SOs) providing integrated eldercare services with medical care in Anhui Province, China. Specifically, we studied the current situation and influencing factors of external social capital and its six dimensions.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study in Anhui Province, China using a multi-stage stratified random sampling method. We employed Pearson correlation analysis and a binary logistic regression model.ResultsThe final analysis included 49 SOs. Most organizations had a high score in norm dimension (81.6%), participation (61.2%), trust (65.3%), common language (65.3%), and social capital (63.3%). After adjusting for all covariate variables, integrated eldercare services with medical care SOs which served more than 65 elderly people were likely to report lower score in social capital.ConclusionsBy examining the current situation of integrated eldercare services with medical care SOs in China, this study enriched the relevant evidence of integrated medical and nursing SOs and provides a certain reference value for relevant management departments when formulating policies.

Research on Governance System of Sports Social Organizations in China from the Perspective of Social Governance Community

Since the proposition of social governance community of the 19th National Congress was put forward, China's governance structure and governance model have been reshaped accordingly. Multi-subject collaborative governance is the main way in the process of China's governance development. The high participation of sports social organizations in the new era also reflects the reconstruction of China's sports governance system. This paper mainly uses the method of literature and comparative analysis to sort out the research results in recent years, starting from the context of the formation of social governance community and the development trend of the current Chinese sports social organizations, and systematically summarizes the basic situation and goal vision of the current Chinese sports social organization governance system.

Survival or Crisis? Funding Distribution from Grant-Making Foundations to Grassroots Social Organizations in China

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake increased the need for disaster relief and reconstruction projects in China. This disaster created an upsurge of Chinese grant-making foundations, which then increased funding expectations. Many grassroots social organizations (SOs) in China believed that going forward, this level of funding would continue. However, the majority of grassroots SOs in China are currently facing an existential crisis. Their survival is being threatened by a shortage of funding from both local and foreign grant-making foundations. This research uses an empirical analysis of grant-making foundations and in-depth interviews, as well as observational evidence accumulated over a 10-year period, to explore the distribution of funding from foundations to grassroots SOs in China. The findings show that there are a limited number of Chinese grant-making foundations and that the foundations that exist do not include grassroots SOs in their funding scheme.

Christian Social Services in China: Growths and Limitation

This paper discusses the types, faith attributes, development characteristics, and limitations of Christian social organizations in China. China’s religious social service organizations mainly include four types of organizations: associations, private non-enterprise units, foundations, and venues for religious activities. From the perspective of faith attributes, they can be divided into faith-permeated organizations, faith-centered organizations, faith-affiliated organizations, faith-background organizations, and faith–secular partnerships. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, China’s Christian social services have been in a period of organizational reconstruction. The main development characteristics are as follows: (a) social services have begun to take on multiple forms; (b) institutional services have transferred their original focus on those with disabilities to the elderly, and the services have been gradually extended from the low-income populations to other target groups; and (c) the basic functions of social services are still in the recovery stage, and the organizational system and service scale are not complete and sufficient. The multiple limitations of Christian social services involve (a) the social development stage and institutional background; (b) government policy text and implementation; and (c) maturity of its own organizational structure and service ability. There is still a long way to go to achieve the basic goals of reconstruction and development.

UKRAINIAN STUDIES IN SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY

The article illustrates the process of formation and the current state of the specialty of Ukrainian language and literature in Shanghai International Studies University (SISU). Founded in 2007, it is one of the first Ukrainian studies in the People’s Republic of China and nowadays has significant educational achievements and an interesting history of China-Ukrainian educational and cultural relations. The Ukrainian studies in SISU develop in the context of general progress of the university and organization of foreign language teaching: from the Shanghai School of Russian (1949) to the modern multidisciplinary university of foreign languages with high international level. Now, SISU, teaching 46 foreign languages, is one of China’s leading universitiesand demonstrates a high level of international cooperation. Ukrainian studies have an interesting academic history among the specialties of SISU. The author widely covered the institutional history of the specialty: the establishment of educational program of Ukrainian studies at the Faculty of Russian Language and Literature (2007) and its gradual development into a selfsufficient specialty (2015). Among the important moments in the history of Ukrainian studies at SISU is the foundation of Ukrainian Research Center (2015) as an important center of regional and national studies. The author showed in detail the content and structure of the curriculum of the specialty Ukrainian language and literature, presented the scientific and methodological achievements of teachers of Ukrainian studies, and displayed a wide range of educational, cultural and artistic activities in Ukrainian studies. The integral element of successful teaching of the Ukrainian language in a non-native environment was separately illustrated, such as cooperation of teachers and students with Ukrainian universities, national and social organizations both in China and in Ukraine (in particular with Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Consulate-General of Ukraine in Shanghai, the Association of Ukrainians in Shanghai, etc.). Key words: Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), Ukrainian studies, specialty of Ukrainian language and literature, Ukrainian Research Center, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv

Resource Dependence and the Question of Autonomy in Environmental NGOs: Cases in China and the US

Abstract Studies of social organizations in the People’s Republic of China during the reform period emphasized their limited power and dependent nature, particularly when compared to the US, where associational life is generally understood as relatively independent from the state. More recently China scholars have found greater variation and complexity among social organizations in China and while others increasingly recognize hybridity in American and European organizations. There are, however, few studies comparing the NPO sector and its relationship with the state across regime types. Using resource dependence theory as a lens through which to examine the behaviors and development of two environmental protection organizations, one from China and one from the US, we identify similarities among social organizations operating in very different political and social contexts. Highly specialized organizations, with access to alternative resources can maintain an unexpected level of autonomy, even when the larger institutional context limits and controls associational life.

Clans and Calamity: How Social Capital Saved Lives During China’s Great Famine

This paper examines the role of clans, one of the most important social organizations in China, in disaster relief during China’s Great Famine. Using a county-year panel and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that the rise in the mortality rate during famine years is significantly less in counties with stronger clan strength. A nationally representative household survey corroborates this finding. Investigation of potential mechanisms suggests that the clan’s impact on famine may have operated through enabling collective action against excessive government procurement. These results indicate that societal forces can reduce the damage of faulty government policies in times of crisis.

State–society relations under a new model of control in China: Graduated control 2.0

Graduated control models are often used to explain the variety of government treatment of social organizations in China. These models have been slowly losing their explanatory power in recent years, with advocacy-oriented grass-roots groups participating in the policymaking process. Why are these social groups not regulated in the way the graduated control models predict? Based on an analysis of three recent policy advocacy cases, this article proposes a graduated control 2.0 model to explain the new dynamics in Chinese state–society interactions. The upgraded model argues that the government officials’ behaviour patterns are influenced by numerous factors such as the inherent nature of social groups highlighted by graduated control models, and inter-ministerial competition – the power position of the state sector and its rival sector in the bureaucratic system. Some contingent factors also play a part, such as timing and the NGO’s onstage performance. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion on Chinese state–society relations by developing a theoretical model that highlights both the fragmentation and reactiveness of state control over social groups and further unpacks the ‘monolithic state’ in China studies.

The Administration’s Retreat and the Party’s Advance in the New Era of Xi Jinping: the Politics of the Ruling Party, the Government, and Associations in China

In the new era of Xi Jinping, the Party has become more assertive, reclaiming the function of managing social organizations that the government agencies had carved out for themselves over the past decades. This article utilizes an analytical framework grounded in a party-state-society trichotomy to analyze the interactive dynamics of the politics of the ruling party, the government, and social organizations in China. The article argues that the party-state has pursued a new strategic approach to advance the Party and that the administration has partly retreated in governing and managing social organizations in the new era of Xi Jinping; this is a form of compromise as the party-state is adapting to the market economy and changing society while the party’s dominating role in social organizations strengthens. By analyzing the administration’s retreat and the party’s advance with the case study of Wenzhou City, this article investigates how government agencies and social organizations at the local level respond to the party-state’s new strategic approach. The article concludes with a discussion of the policy implications and with broader reflections on the political trends in other areas of social and economic life affected by the administration’s retreat and the Party’s advance in China.

The Evolution of the CPC’s Conception of Association and Regulation of Social Organizations in China

Freedom of association and all institutions coming with it have not been accepted by the Chinese government. Instead, Chinese social organization administration is based upon the concept of association held by the Communist Party of China (CPC). The Chinese government had adopted a “total control” model of social organization administration in the era of totalitarianism before the “Opening-up and Reform”, leaving almost no room for social organizations to survive, because the CPC had regarded social organizations as “revolutionary” and “deconstructive”. The Chinese has adopted a graduated control system to administrate social organizations in the era of authoritarianism after the “Opening-up and Reform”, treating social organizations differently according to their threats to the ruling order and their utilities for economic development, because the CPC has viewed social organizations as a “challenging” but “auxiliary” power. The on-going “innovation of registration and administration of social organizations” is not a return to international standard regarding social organization administration in China, but only partial reform of the graduate control system still based upon the CPC’s conception of association as “challenging” but “auxiliary”. Social organizations capable of providing public goods in areas of economic development and social services are given more favorable treatment by the government while political and religious organizations are still tightly controlled by the government.

Government Service Purchasing from Social Organizations in China: An Overview of the Development of a Powerful Trend

AbstractIn this work, we draw on available data to develop a comprehensive picture of the process through which “government service purchasing” has developed in China thus far. We argue that to understand the challenges that have begun to emerge in practice, it is important to look back and understand how government service purchasing has developed to date. Our hope is that by providing an overview of this development process, we can facilitate further research on what we believe is a phenomenon that will have deep implications for the relationships between Party, state, society, and market over the next decades in China.

Administrative Reform and the Transfer of Authority to Social Organizations in China

AbstractIn this article, we examine the administrative functions that have been carried out by social organizations (SOs) in China since 2013. We use evidence from Guangdong to demonstrate that the transfer of authority to SOs is selective, tends to create more burdens for local government, and generally does not lead to greater autonomy for SOs. We focus on five types of SOs that are undertaking new administrative functions with varying degrees of operational autonomy, which relates to the consultative authoritarian model proposed by Jessica Teets. Consultative authoritarianism allows for the expansion of relatively autonomous SOs and the development of indirect state control mechanisms. The model is designed to improve governance without democratization by expanding the role played by intermediaries such as SOs in public administration and service delivery. The evidence from Guangdong permits us to conclude that the transfer of authority to SOs allows for innovations in public administration, but that politics continues to motivate government decisions as to which functions are suitable for SOs to undertake, casting doubt on the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to achieve sustainable improvements in local governance and public service provision.