Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2013, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (1): 1-37.

• Articles •     Next Articles

Possession, Operation, and Governance as Three Conceptual Dimensions of Town and Township Enterprises: An Attempt Back to the Classical Social Sciences

 QU Jingdong,  Institute for Social Development, CASS   

  1.  Institute for Social Development, CASS
  • Online:2013-01-20 Published:2013-01-20
  • Contact: QU Jingdong E-mail:qujingdong@yahoo.com.cn
  • About author:QU Jingdong, Institute for Social Development, CASS
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Abstract:

Through the review of the representative sociological studies on ownership of town and township enterprises, this article attempts to use three classical theoretical concepts of possession, operation, and governance to analyze the formative and the operational mechanisms of town and township enterprises. In the aspect of possession, these enterprises compromise different elements of public, common and private ownerships. In the aspect of operation, they utilize land contracts, enterprise contracts and the financial responsibility system in the institutional context of the twotrack regime. In the aspect of governance, they fuse different mechanisms of the institutional, knowledge, and mores dimensions together, and free the traditional familial, kinship linkage, and customary resources for reform and creativity in the practice. As key position of social process of multiple elements and moments, town and township enterprises not only provide opportunities for institutional innovations, but also embody the institutional spirit of reform period, which combines tradition, regime, and new market mechanism, and provides an enriched process of social development. This framework returning on the classical social theories will be conductive to reflection on the other phenomenon of organizational and institutional change in social and economical reform.

Key words: town and township enterprises, ownership, possession, operation, governance