Meta-governance, uncertainty and self-organization in corporatist social service sectors: The case of Hong Kong
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523221147617 |
| Author | Xiao Lu Wang |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Meta-governance,
uncertainty and self-
organization in corporatist
social service sectors: The
case of Hong Kong
Xiao Lu Wang
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between meta-governance, uncertainty and gov-
ernance network responses. A social network analysis was conducted on the interlock-
ing directorate network among nonprofits before and after a market-oriented
collibration triggered by a new public management reform to the corporatist social ser-
vice provision system in Hong Kong. By unpacking and showing the distinct processes of
network formation in response to substantive and strategic uncertainty arising from the
market-oriented collibration, the study shows that although more nonprofit actors were
directly included in the formalized policy venues after the reform, the network density
and clustering coefficient dropped after the reform, potentially reducing the self-coord-
inating capacity of the governance network. However, for some nonprofit actors, node
betweenness centrality increased and node degree centrality decreased, creating an
enabling condition for adaption.
Points for practitioners
The uncertainties in meta-governance may bring about network processes at variance
with the original intentions of public meta-governors that actors with complementary
resources and competences combine their efforts in the provision of services and ser-
vice innovation.
To manage substantive and strategic uncertainties, public meta-governors need to
find ways to increase the shared understandings of social problems, enhance the clarity
Corresponding author:
Xiao Lu Wang, Centre for Civil Society and Governance, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road,
Hong Kong.
Email: wangxl@hku.hk
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2023, Vol. 89(4) 1186–1202
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523221147617
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
of policy goals, and find a balance when collaborating between collaborative and market
modes of governance.
Keywords
governance network, interlocking directorate, meta-governance, self-organization,
uncertainty
Introduction
Meta-governance is referred to in general terms such as the governance of governance
(Jessop, 2011, 2016). The interest in meta-governance grew rapidly in the 1990s as scho-
lars started to examine reflexivity in governance practices aiming to reduce governance
failures (Gjaltema et al., 2020; Jessop, 2011; Kooiman, 2003). A major focus of meta-
governance studies is on network management strategies such as network design and
network framing (Klijn and Koppenjan, 2012, 2016; Sørensen and Torfing, 2009).
Klijn and Skelcher (2007) use the term ‘governance network’to describe public policy-
making and implementation through a web of relationships between government, busi-
ness, and civil society actors. Many such networks operate rather ‘in the shadow of
hierarchy’(Damgaard and Torfing, 2011; Gjaltema et al., 2020; Hooge et al., 2021;
Nederhand et al., 2019; Rhodes, 1996, 2007; Whitehead, 2003).
The key challenge for public meta-governors is to avoid regulating governance net-
works in ways that eliminate network actors’capacity to self-organize and coordinate
for the provision of services (Nederhand et al., 2019; Sørensen and Torfing, 2009).
The intention is to bring about certain types of network processes where actors with com-
plementary resources and competences combine their efforts in the provision of services
(Damgaard and Torfing, 2011; Torfing and Sørensen, 2014). However, since self-
organization is not subject to any imperative command, meta-governance gives rise to
uncertainty, which drives network formation. For example, in a meta-governance study
on refugee ‘activation’services in Sweden, uncertainty was found to drive network for-
mation among actors on the basis of identification rather than complementarity (Qvist,
2017). Hence, uncertainty could lead to network responses that are at odds with the ori-
ginal intention of meta-governance.
In this research, I focus on governance network responses to market-oriented collibra-
tions and the roles of uncertainty in shaping network responses. Collibration is a macro-
level conception of meta-governance, which adjusts the weight of individual mode of
governance (e.g. network, market, hierarchy; Dunsire, 1996; Jessop, 2011, 2016).
Public management reforms can trigger market-oriented collibration by introducing
new public management (NPM) doctrines such as quasi-markets and performance-based
contracting. There was considerable variation in how NPM doctrines were adopted across
countries and across sectors (Bode, 2006; Hood, 1995; Reiter and Klenk, 2019).
For example, in Germany and Hong Kong, where nonprofits and governments coop-
erated as social partners in social service provision, public management reforms led to a
collibration of governance modes from corporatist arrangements to ones that put more
Wang 1187
To continue reading
Request your trial