Chinese Local Governments’ Behavioral Logic of Early-Warning Information Release Regarding Major Epidemic Outbreaks from the Organizational Analysis Perspective

Abstract

Based on the three-dimensional ‘organizational goal – organizational field – organizational incen­tive’ analysis framework, this paper attempts to conduct a comparative and diachronic analysis of the behavioral logic of Chinese local governments’ early-warning information release in major epidemic outbreaks. The results of the research show that the organizational goal, field and incentive are highly rel­evant to different strategic choices of whether local governments should, will and are willing to perform their governance function; additionally, different combinations of these elements trigger different lo­cal government behaviors. The organizational goal, field and incentive are the starting point, turning point, and end point of local governments’ behavior­al logic, respectively, while the organizational field is prerequisite for the organizational incentive to work. The organizational goal – organizational field – organizational incentive sequence reflects the se­quence and interactive relationship of local govern­ments’ behavioral logic.