The Myth of Organization Autonomy: Social Workers’ Salary under the LSGSS in Hong Kong

• In Event: Managing staff and volunteers

Abstract

Managerialism views organizations as the basic social units and argues that problems of efficiency all can have managerial solutions if state intervention in organizations remains limited (Entemann, 1993). Through good management practices, as managerialism believes, individuals, including employees and clients of organizations, can also better fulfil their freedom in choices and act rationally in their best interest (Flynn, 2002). Adopting the principles of managerialism, the Lump Sum Grant Subvention System (LSGSS) in Hong Kong grants service organizations autonomy to deploy resources. This study investigates how the LSGSS, after being implemented for more than two decades, has actually affected the wellbeing of social service professionals in Hong Kong.

Using organization- and individual-level survey data, this article examines the salaries of social workers under the managerialist subvention system and examines its impacts on frontline service professionals. We found that when service organizations adopted flexible employment terms to hire social workers, they offered lower minimum wage. Smaller organizations, which are often believed to benefit more from the system, paid social workers lower minimum wage. When individual social workers made use of flexible employment terms and switched their jobs in the welfare sector, there was no evidence that their income levels would be raised – on the contrary, switching jobs for three or more times would in fact lower their income levels. Furthermore, while the system encouraged social workers to get more involved in management work, there was no evidence that increasing work hours on management related work would increase the income of social workers.

The findings echo the criticism of managerialism that withdrawal of external intervention and reliance on good management benefit managers of organizations in terms of power and autonomy, but such benefits would not necessarily be conveyed to grassroots employees and frontline workers (Doran, 2016). If the intervention of the state is deemed arbitrary and intrusive, there then lacks adequate mechanisms to supervise the practices of managers to ensure justice within organizations and wellbeing of frontline workers (Enteman, 1993). With autonomy and power, managers are encouraged to pursue efficiency and financial sustainability to fulfil the promise of managerialism, yet it is at least dubious how they would deal with the social goals of organizations such as income justice and equality. Clear guidelines, supervision, and policy interventions in the management of service organizations, therefore, are still needed in social service planning and delivery.

References

Doran, C. (2016). Managerialism: An ideology and its evolution. International Journal of Management, Knowledge and Learning, 5(1), 81-97.

Entemann, W. F. (1993). Managerialism: The Emergence of a New Ideology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Flynn, N. (2002). Public Sector Management. Harlow: Pearson.

Author

• Haijing Dai, Chinese University of Hong Kong