The Transformation of Organizational Coupling Driven by Digital Technology: An Explanation of the "Control-Empowerment" Paradox: A Case Study Based on the Grassroots Digital Reform in Q City, Z Province
Digital technology can not only soften the boundaries between vertical and horizontal departments and build a decentralized platform-based government to empower grassroots governance; It also encourages bureaucratic organizations to implement control and generates a tendency of organizational rigidity. How to explain this double-edged sword effect of "control - empowerment"? From the perspective of the interaction of organizational elements, this paper presents an analysis from the angle of technological reconstruction of the organizational coupling. An exploratory single-case study of the digital reform in City Q, Province Z, shows that digitalization, with its strong interconnection and penetration, has promoted the tight coupling of grassroots bureaucratic organizations. However, the differences in organizational collaborative activities and business activities have led to the above paradox. In terms of organizational collaborative activities, technology has broken the existing hierarchical and fragmented formal structure, with elements tightly cooperating and finally empowering governance. However, in business activities, the tight coupling brought by digitalization has further strengthened the control authority of the old hierarchy. This article provides a new explanatory perspective of "organizational coupling" for understanding the transformation logic of bureaucracy in the digital age, and based on this, this paper advocates that the next step in the construction of digital government is to meticulously design organizational systems to achieve organized as well as agile governance in the digital age.
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