Institutional Diversity in Response to the COVID-19 Emergency

Yan, Jingjing; Zhao, Dahai

Four-quadrant modeling may offer some constructive insights into the institutional diversity of the emergency responses to COVID-19. This study utilized a typological method to investigate institutional arrangements and the emergency management of epidemic responses in China. The task environment for emergencies was divided into four categories. Targeted policies were assigned to explicit task environments by placing them in one of the four quadrants: public health procedures, medical operation standards, supervisory and regulatory measures, and norms and instructions. Institutional diversity resulted when the very loci of decision-making carried a dominant or subordinate role, providing a hierarchical system for relating the institutional processes needed to address the challenges of institutional fragments.