Science Research Management

Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (4): 191-200.

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A research on the differentiated paths adopted by governments for resumption of work and production in the context of COVID-19

Zhao Yunhui1, Wang Lei1, Feng Taiwen2, Zhang Xue1   

  1. 1. School of Business Administration, Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics, Hohhot 010000, Inner Mongolia, China;
    2. School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology (Weihai), Weihai 264209, Shandong, China
  • Received:2020-05-14 Revised:2020-11-08 Online:2021-04-20 Published:2021-04-19

Abstract:      Orderly resumption of work and production is an important factor to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 and an important guarantee for social and economic stability. However, there has been no in-depth study on the complex mechanism of multiple factors behind the resumption of work and production by local governments. Based on the framework of technology-organization-environment (TOE), this paper explores the linkage and matching effects of technological, organizational and environmental factors on local government′s resumption of work and production. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this paper takes 29 provincial governments in China as the case to conduct configuration analysis in order to answer the following three questions: (1) What conditional configurations exist to drive local governments to resume work and production in the way of "All roads lead to Rome"? (2) What conditions are more important than others for local governments to resume work and production? and (3) Which conditions can be matched or substituted in achieving the resumption of work and production?
      Based on fsQCA, the following conclusions are obtained. (1) The technological, organizational and environmental conditions are "multiple and concurrent", which form five configurations to drive the local government to resume work and production. In other words, the driving path for the local government to resume work and production is characterized by "All roads lead to Rome". (2) Compared with other conditions, digital infrastructure plays a more important role in local government′s resumption of work and production. (3) Under certain circumstances, there is a substitution relationship among technological, organizational and environmental conditions. (4) The lack of digital management ability, attention allocation and financial resource is the main reason for the non-high level of local government′s resumption of work and production.
     The theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows. (1) Helping research on resumption of work and production shift from the single perspective of policy support and enterprise level to the overall perspective of the linkage among technological, organizational and environmental conditions. (2) Clarifying the substitution relationship among technological, organizational and environmental conditions affecting the resumption of work and production, which help local governments make decisions according to their specific contexts. (3) Introducing the fsQCA method into the study of the resumption of work and production, which not only enrich the research methods but also lay a foundation for the formation of the government decision-making theory on the resumption of work and production.
    The management implications of this paper are as follows. (1) Local government should choose a reasonable path for resuming work and production, and formulate accurate policies for resuming work and production based on their respective resource endowment and the specific situation affected by the COVID-19, so as to avoid the problems such as policy coverage and "one size fits all" and contribute to find the "win-win point" of the policy implementation. (2) Under certain conditions, the antecedents driving local governments to resume work and production need not exist at the same time. They can push local governments to resume work and production through equivalent substitution in the way of "All roads lead to Rome". (3) For areas with non-high level of resumption of work and production, the driving path of antecedents should be carefully investigated. It should be noted that the existence of unfavorable conditions may offset or inhibit the influence of favorable conditions, which further results in low level of resumption rate.

Key words: local government, resumption of work and production, driving path, TOE framework, configuration analysis