Between Administration and Autonomy: The Dual Attributes of Community Finance and Its Governance Mechanism

Unlike the formal government financial system, community finance has dual attributes, combining top-down administrative attribute with the autonomous attribute of the community, which forms an organizational phenomenon of “incompatible multi-principal”. The dual attributes of the community finance system may lead to “governance swing”: On the one hand, there may be “excessive administrative” regulation in accordance with the institution of government finance, resulting in the difficulty of integrating financial funds with the needs of community, resource without governance; On the other hand, “excessive autonomy” may arise from the simply allocation of resources by superiors to the community, causing the community’s public resources to degenerate into elite profiteering. From a practical perspective, there are two types of governance mechanisms to address the above issues. One is the construction of governance subject, which balance the requirements of administration and autonomy through the involvement of professional social organizations as a third party; The second is the construction of governance procedures to guarantee community autonomy requirements through administrative procedures.