[Outcome] Professor Zhang Huan of Beijing Normal University and his partners had papers on professional discretion of grassroots social assistance workers and professional strategy of service delivery published in PMR, a top public management journal



Professor Zhang Huan, Doctoral Student Yang Ling, Professor Robert Walker and Associate Professor Wang Ye'an of School of Social Development and Public Policy, Beijing Normal University had their cooperative research paper published online in Public Management Review (PMR), a top public management journal (https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2020.1805919). The paper discusses the professional discretion of street-level bureaucrats and the professionalization strategies in the delivery of social assistance. This is the first time for professors of Beijing Normal University to have a research paper published in PMR.

Since the 1990s, China has established a huge social assistance system represented by the minimum living security system for urban and rural residents. A variety of social assistance projects rely on the delivery of relief services by street-level bureaucrats. The process and result of social assistance delivery is the "last kilometer" that determines the effect of social assistance policy, which is of great significance to social aid policy. It is a core issue of related theory and practice how to manage street-level bureaucrats and improve the ability and level of social assistance delivery.

This paper theoretically discusses the important value and significance of professional discretion of street-level bureaucrats to the effective delivery of social assistance services, and establishes and provides empirical evidence for the model of transformational leadership influencing professional discretion of street-level bureaucrats through organizational learning capacity. The paper also tests the professionalization strategies of social service delivery, such as increasing full-time social service workers, recruiting street-level bureaucrats with social work background or professional certificates of social work, and purchasing social assistance services of social service agencies. The results show that only the strategy of purchasing services of social service agencies has a significant moderation effect.

Public Management Review is one of the most influential journals in the field of public administration, ranking second in the field of JCR public administration in 2019. Google academic public policy and management

Public Policy& Administration, ranking second among related journals (retrieved on August 19, 2020). Original link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14719037.2020.1805919