The inherent defects of the government and market make the governance of social public affairs calling for the participation of the third sector, especially in the field of charity affairs. The research of collaborative governance among charity organization, government department and economic entities plays an important role to promote the development of charity affairs. With the application of polycentric theoretical framework, the paper analyzed the structural and functional location of charity organization participating in the social governance, and preliminarily drew the outline of polycentric governance framework. Moreover, through the analysis of existing collaborative model, the polycentric governance framework was added in SFIC collaborative model, thus forming the polycentric collaborative governance model, and the explanation on the topic that some charity organizations participated in the social governance was proposed.
As a new theory appeared in public management research field, the polycentric governance has been the product of “governance revolution” since the 1970s and the1980s [
The market has invalid space in the allocation of social resource; government also has the inefficient management, while the social organization governance can make up for the shortcomings of state and market in the regulation and coordination process. James N Rosenau, one of main founders of governance theory, held that governance was the institutional arrangement among the regulatory gaps, what’s more important was the principle, norm, rule and decision-making process when two or more regulations were overlapped or in conflict, or the mutual competitive interests needed the mediation [
Through years’ empirical researches on the self-organizing mechanism of local public affair (such as police service, pool resource management) governance and public economic production and consumption property, Ostrom proposed the polycentric administration with the view of institutional rational selection theory [
In 2004, Professor Dohahua, a scholar in Harvard University firstly proposed “public-private collaborative way”, and defined the collaborative governance as the joint effort from the producers except the government and sharing the discretionary power to pursue the public objective selected by the authority [
Based on the research of existing literatures, Bryson, Crosby and Stone from the University of Minnesota proposed the analysis model of cross-sector collaboration, including initial conditions, process, structure and governance, contingencies and constraints, outcomes and accountabilities [
As a main form of “third distribution”, public charity career plays an irreplaceable function and role to improve the poverty and survival situation of disadvantaged group, narrow the wealth gap, ease the social conflict and promote the social harmony.
The participating party of public charity affair covers the whole society, and it is mainly consisted of “government department, market economy entity, and social charity organization” (
The governance of public charity affair involves multiple social entities, including government department, market economy entity, social charity organization, etc. It forms multiple governance centers, and it needs the collaborative cooperation of multiple centers, then it can form the effective governance. SFIC model from Ansell and Gash highlights the complex and interactive process of the collaborative cooperation. Thus it is suitable to be applied as the basic model of collaborative governance. Moreover, concerning the collaborative governance of charity organization, the charity organization shall have the collaborative cooperation with multiple entities in the external environment, thus the polycentricity-structure boundary expansion on SFIC model will be made, for the purpose of realizing the effective governance under the systematic environment.
In the framework that the polycentric collaboration governs public charity affair, the government department, economy entity and social charity organization jointly govern. Meanwhile, three entities play different functions in the collaborative process, and jointly form a systematic collaborative environment. The government department refers to the policy suggestions from third party social charity organization, develops relevant reference policy, leads market economy entity to participate in the public charity, and makes the top institutional design. Social charity organization is mainly responsible for the public charity affair, directly drives the multiple social entities to jointly participate, leads the smooth and effective collaborative process, and calls for the public entity’s leading authorization on the affair organized by charity. Market economy entity participates in public charity affair, and it is the starting condition for the collaborative governance of public charity affair, and the reason is the limitation from government department and third-party social organization to govern the public affairs; Meanwhile, market economy entity participates in the contributed resource status of charity affair, the participation motivation includes receiving government’s relevant preference policy, broadcasting enterprise brand and previous collaborative cooperation dispute with charity organization, etc. They affect the participation of market entity; therefore, they are starting condition factors of collaborative governance.
After the structure function that government department, market economy entity and third party charity organization participate in the polycentric collaborative governance is rationalized, the internal collaborative process of different entities can be divided into five parts with the reference of SFIC model, and it forms internal circulating ring, the five parts are process input, consensus, stage achievement, face-to-face communication, trust building. The so-called process input is to have an interdependent and common understanding and a common control of collaborative process; the so-called consensus is to reach the clear objective and have a consistent definition on the existed problem; the so-called stage achievement is to start the implementation plan of collaborative process and witness the effect of collaborative governance; the so-called face-to-face is to have a sincere communication on the process investigation among different entities; the so-called trust building is to reach the basic cooperation trust on collaborative governance process among different entities, and it can facilitate the investment and development of the next circulating process. Overall, the five steps have no sequence, they are indispensable and jointly promoting the realization of collaborative governance process among polycentric entities.
On the basis, the charity organization collaborative governance model under polycentric perspective can be summarized as follows: 1) government department is responsible for institutional design, charity organization conducts the facilitative leadership, and the economy entity starts the starting condition; 2) under the facilitative leadership of charity organization, multiple entities develop the collaborative circulation of “process input, consensus, stage achievement, face-to-face communication, trust building”; 3) through the circulating collaboration, multiple entities can realize and improve the governance effect of charity affair. Polycentric collaborative governance model of public charity affair is as shown in
Polycentric collaborative governance model is an expansion of SFIC model based on the internal complex interaction under the systematic environment. It stresses the collaborative cooperation among multiple governance entities; therefore, the model can extend to the following propositions for the explanation of polycentric collaborative governance model.
Proposition 1: The effect of charity affair governance is influenced by the interaction among charity organization, government department and market economy entity, and the collaborative effect depends on the level of participation.
Proposition 2: Charity organization plays the facilitative leadership on the internal effect of collaborative process, government department’s institutional design restricts the effective development of collaborative governance process, and the market economy entity’s contribution and participation are the starting conditions to initiate the collaborative governance.
Proposition 3: The government’s tax policy and the transparency of governance process influence the market economy entity’s motivation to participate in the charity governance.
Proposition 4: Market economy entity’s participation in the charity is influenced by the previous charity cooperation dispute history and charity affair’s broadcasting effect on the enterprise brand.
Proposition 5: Multi-agent collaboration process is a cyclic process which can be divided into five parts: process input, consensus, stage achievement, and face-to-face communication, trust building. They are influenced interactively, and jointly influence the effect of collaborative governance.
Proposition 6: Different entities’ common understanding on interdependence, equal status in the governance process and joint control of collaborative process influence the charity investment among entities.
Proposition 7: Different entities’ clear understanding on the objective of charity affair and consistent definition on the problems existed in the collaborative governance restrict the entities’ understanding on the collaborative governance.
Proposition 8: Sincere communication barriers appeared in the collaborative process among different entities depend on the mutual trust and influence the development of collaborative cooperation activity at the next round.
Proposition 9: Institutional design shall ensure the equal status of multiple entities participating in the charity governance, the transparency of governance process and supervise the realization of governance objective.
Proposition 10: Facilitative leadership needs to understand the feature of collaborative governance starting condition, handle the conflicts between starting condition and internal collaborative process, especially the relationship between cooperation dispute history and trust building, participation motivation and consensus, and solve the collaborative conflicts.
Above propositions proposed in the polycentric collaboration model are logical conclusions deduced based on polycentrism and collaboration theory, and they have a certain theoretical value and significance to promote the charity affair governance practice. Although it is theoretical, the propositions need further verification and improvement in the governance practice, and it is one of key contents in the future governance research. Meanwhile, concerning the governance effect, how to highlight the social benefit and the measurement of social benefit in the governance effect will be one of the difficulties in the practical application of the model, and it needs further exploration and research.
The history of human development has always been accompanied by risks, such as earthquake, SARS, BSE, tsunamis. They always influence human society in unexpected ways. The risk issue is also transferred from the original professional management to broader social political level, involving the collaborative cooperation among different entities, and then the collaborative governance appears. In traditional management, the administrative single-centered order makes it hard to break through the public affair dilemma outside a minority of markets; the third sector’s strong involvement and the public’s comprehensive participation are needed. The polycentric governance model stresses the equal consultation and hearted cooperation among different governance entities, therefore, it is reborn as the times requirement.
Polycentric collaborative governance model expands the application border of the previous governance models, for it not only concerns the advantage of collaborative governance, but also takes into account the multiple social entities’ hearted cooperation. In the charity affair governance, social charity organization, market economy entity and government department shall form the benign interaction through strategic cooperation and resource sharing to reduce the trading cost of the development of charity. The charity organization in polycentric collaborative governance model shall focus on the governance of public charity affair and charity development. Being a part in polycentric collaborative governance model can not only improve the collaborative integration ability for the charity organization to develop public charity activities, but also improve the charity organization’s innovation and risk management capability. Various contradictions and dilemmas in the future social development can no longer only rely on the government or market to solve. Polycentric collaborative governance model with the participation of multiple entities will be one of mainstream models to solve the social public affairs.