Corporatization in local government: Promoting cultural differentiation and hybridity?
研究了挪威地方政府公司化如何导致文化分化，形成碎片化混合治理系统，发现结构分化越强，文化分化也越强。
Abstract Corporatization implies disintegration of public authority, leading to not only structural but also cultural differentiation of government, transforming it into a fragmented and hybrid governance system consisting of an authority and multiple autonomous or semi‐autonomous operators. This article addresses corporatization at the local government level in Norway, exploring if and how this change in formal structure triggers the emergence of separate cultures in the operator entities. Described as an institutionalization process, new norms, cognitions and identities seem to develop in these entities, creating a sense of ‘us’ (the municipal company) and ‘them’ (the municipality), thus strengthening the regulative separateness through normative and cultural‐cognitive elements. Findings from our multiple‐case study indicate that this process may be relatively fast and strong, transforming local government into a system comprising various hybrid types, especially segregated and assimilated types. The stronger the structural differentiation is, the stronger cultural differentiation seems to be.