ABSTRACT
China’s large-scale multilevel government system could be characterised by two institutional parameters: the administrative ladder and the span of control. In China’s unitary system, all governments except the national government are called “local governments”. However, different levels of local governments tend to have varying resources and motivations. Moreover, the span of control in China’s government system refers to the number of subordinate governments overseen by a superior government, such as the number of prefecture-level jurisdictions within a province or the number of county-level jurisdictions within a city. There is great variation in the span of control between and within government tiers across China. In Chapter 3, I first discuss the institutional characteristics of the government structure in China, paying particular attention to the administrative hierarchy and the span of control. I then provide a new theoretical framework to explain how the administrative hierarchy and the span of control affect local innovation resources, innovation motivations, and innovation capabilities, thus shaping local government innovativeness in China.
