01.03.2017 - 13:41

Thesis on the Chinese Red Cross

Congratulations to Anna Shpakovskaya, Doctoral Fellow at the DFG Graduiertenkolleg 1613 Risk and East Asia, who passed her thesis defense!

De-administratizing the Chinese Red Cross (2011-2014): Why did it fail? A historical institutional perspective

In this thesis a historical institutional approach is employed to explain why structural disintegration of the Chinese Red Cross from the government administration in 2011-2014 did not succeed. First, elements from three theoretical perspectives such as Institutional Logics approach, Organizational Hybridity and Resource Dependence Theory are merged to build an analytical framework that allows to analyze organizational hybridity of the Chinese Red Cross and operationalize the concept of de-administratization. Then process-tracing method is used to trace down the dynamics between competing logics within the Chinese Red Cross over a wider span of time. Historical process-tracing mainly helps to identify the key underlying mechanism that has been shaping the organizational form and behavior of the Chinese Red Cross. Finally, the outcome of the 2011-2014 reform is examined and explained through the lens of the identified mechanism. It is concluded that the reform of the Chinese Red Cross failed to gain momentum mainly due to conceptual incompatibility.

This thesis brings together voluminous data generated from the author’s firsthand interviews conducted in China, deep insights from the archival materials examined by the author at the International Committee of the Red Cross and International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva, and valuable information from secondary sources in the Chinese and English languages.

The thesis provides a new and fresh perspective in analyzing reform endeavors and reform failure in Chinese organizations taking the CRC as a specific case study. It is also contributive to the future research of the Chinese Red Cross as well as its role in the rapidly growing International Red Cross Movement.