Study on the Cross-Regional Urban Flexible Management Pattern: The Core Testing Zone of Shen-Fu New Town as the Case

The study on the management pattern for the Shen-Fu new town built between Shenyang and Fushun is a problem in the field of urban management patterns, because as a cross-region new town, its policies and administration area are not uniform, so its management pattern is a big challenge. This paper summarizes the main innovations of urban management patterns and mechanism and the enlightenments for the cross-region urban management pattern, then analyzes the characteristics of overseas cross-region management patterns and the management pattern of domestic new towns. Based on the enlightenments, the paper brings forward the meaning and main content of flexible management pattern and builds the one of the core testing zone of Shenyang-fushun new town.


The change of the function of urban management
The common compact management pattern is changing to the administrative management pattern of simplified government and magnified service and the one with the mechanism of trisection administration systems.For example, Pudong New District of Shanghai city in China takes the management pattern of simplified government and magnified service.In 1993, there were 3 institutions in the district with the same functions of 17 institutions in Puxi district of Shanghai (Lifen Zhang, 2005) (see Tab.1).
The government of Shenzhen established many departments with bureaus to distinguish the decision-making departments and the executive departments, such as the guild service bureau (built in 2004)and the bureau of public works of Shenzhen municipality, based on the experiences of social management and public service of the government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Lifen Zhang, 2005).And it shows that the management pattern of Shenzhen is changing to the one with the mechanism of trisection administration systems.

The innovations of the mechanism and methods of urban management patterns
Chinese representative innovations are the overtime acquiescence mechanism of administrative examination and approval of Nankai District of Tianjin, the one-door mechanism of administrative examination and approval of Pudong New District of Shanghai, and the coordinative and confederate cross-region management mechanism of the Changjiang Delta (Qing Wang, 2006).
International Journal of Business and Management November, 2008 123

enlightenments
Every pattern is managing to divide administrative powers rationally with the main behalf parts cooperating close and simplify the programs with new technologies and new management methods for the purpose of enhancing the management efficiency.

The typical cross-region urban management patterns and the flexible management trend of Chinese new town management patterns
The function of Shen-Fu new town is driving Shenyang-Fushun integration and leading to build Shen-Fu metropolitan area by building a cross-region new town, so the patterns used for reference are the overseas urban management patterns of the Metropolitan area and the domestic urban management patterns of new towns.

The typical cross-region urban management patterns
The paper mainly summarizes the characteristics of typical cross-region management patterns for metropolitan area, which are Canadian one, American one and Japanese one.In this paper, their characteristics are summarized as follow(Xiyu Cong, 2006,see figure 2): (1)the pattern of two-level governments: first, the pattern divides the functions and administrative powers rationally between governments in the two levels, and the governments have no affiliation, so they don't interfere each other and has got high administrative efficiency.(2)thepattern of relaxed united organizations of urban governments: the relaxed characteristic can mobilize the positivity of all the governments, however, with the development of management deeper and deeper, the governments used to influence and oppose the decision-makings of the organization because of their deferent behalves.Therefore, the organization usually changed to have one simple administrative function instead of integrated functions.(3)the pattern of the Metropolitan government from down to up, which means that the information is easy to communicate and feedback from public to the metropolitan government, so the pattern enhances the degree of public participation and furthermore, the metropolitan plannings are more reasonable and meets more people's demand.

the flexible management trend of the management patterns of Chinese new towns
There has appeared the multi-part management pattern in the current management patterns of Chinese new tows.The parts of the pattern are governments, the management administrative frameworks and R&D institutions and enterprises, furthermore, the pattern is the framework composed of the leading system, performance mechanism, management functions and policies system with the above parts.The main current management patterns of Chinese new towns are the government management pattern, the business-operated one and government-enterprise complementary one (Jianbo Li, 2003)(see Table .3).

The meaning of urban flexible management pattern
Urban flexible management pattern is a pattern in which the government, enterprises and nonprofit departments divide the administrative functions according to the principle of minimum transaction cost and cooperate with each other.
The cross-region urban flexible management pattern is the pattern in which governments, enterprises and nonprofit departments in different regions divide the administrative functions according to not only the principle of minimum transaction cost but also the political system and cooperate with each other.And building a cross-region urban flexible management pattern is more difficult than building urban flexible management pattern in one city or town, therefore, its contents have deeper characteristics.

The main contents of the cross-region urban flexible management pattern (1) the composing of the governments
The key to building the cross-region urban flexible management pattern is how to establish the administrative offices and divide the administrative functions from all the regions.And the administrative framework must include the governments of all the regions, such as, the administrative framework of Shen-Fu new town must be composed of officers from both Shenyang city and Fushun city.
(2) Reasonable functions The administrative framework should define its functions according to its administrative rank, and divide the right of making-decision, the one of performance and the one of supervision of all the management functions mainly including economic functions, administrative ones, jurisdiction ones and collectorship.For example, the concerted institutions of the metropolitan areas should divide the functions with the government of cities and the government of the provinces or states, because only on the basis of reasonable and specific division of functions, the institutions can realize the largest functions of the institutions of metropolitan areas.Moreover, the different methods on how to divide the administrative functions will make different patterns by different division on the right of making-decision, the one of performance and the one of supervision.
(3) Building the flexible management of functions The functions of the cross-region management departments will be more and more with deeper influence and wider incidence, which brings forward very elevated requires.The paper suggests the following main measurements: The one is dividing functions to enterprises and non-profit departments such as guild, environmental protection organizations and academies with experts and scholars.And the limit is the minimum of exchange cost between governments and enterprises or non-profit departments according to the rule of market economy.
The second one is the innovations of management modes by new technologies such as exploring long-distance softwares, rebuilding the process of management etc.
The third one is promoting the information checkless to realize people oriented by using all kinds of advanced communication and collection modes of information such as hearings, the investigations of people and open by the internet.
The forth one is establishing scientific and complete performance evaluation system to evaluate the efficiency of the management departments and managers, and is establishing the corresponding system of rewards and punishment.
The fifth one is encouraging the creation ability of staffs with reward system to reconstruct the flow and integrate functions according to their opinions.
The sixth one is establishing scientific systems of performance evaluation and training the staffs according to their personal needs by the analysis of their performance evaluation with advanced theories of management and the relative specialty knowledge of their working fields to increase their management ability and professional ability.
Therefore, the departments can keep tidy and flat with functions increasing and divided into subsections.

the predominance of the flexible management pattern and the problems to establish it
The main predominance of the flexible management pattern is easy for the pattern to ameliorate the relationships of cross-region administrative frameworks, build the management pattern of multi-harmony and corporation, give prominence to each level of social services and regional corporation, use the limited spatial resource soundly with high efficiency, establish the flat department and innovate processes concertedly with less human resource and financial resource, and build the expedite information routes for decision-making with more pertinence and tying decision-making, performance and supervision together.
The problems are the following: The pattern needs not only much higher quality and much stronger spirit of corporation of the administrative staffs, especially the persons with ability, but also the administrative frameworks pay equal attention to the function of management and supervision.Furthmore, the above demands need the transverse vinculums and spatial tactility, so the pattern also needs the high cost infrastructures such as computers, networks and pertinent softwares which sometimes need exploring.

The administrative framework
Because the management committee of the core zone of Shen-Fu new town belongs to not only government of Shenyang city but also the one of Fushun city (see figure 1), the functions and components of the administrative framework is the key to the flexible management pattern.The paper suggests that the framework is composed of the leading group composed of the officials of the two city governments, the management committee of administrative staffs of the tow cities.The committee has integrative office with management functions of the party, labor union and the committee, country planning management office with the functions of country planning and constructing management, investment office to absorb all kinds of investment and association organization office with the management for the development and corporation association, industry associations, and some associations with a single function such as environment protection etc. (see figure 2)

The division of functions
The administrative framework of the core zone of Shen-Fu new town not only has the right of execution of economy, administration and judicature and strengthens integrative functions of service and management, but also has the one of suggestion and the one of decision-making and self-supervision in some degree.

staffs appointed and removed
The paper suggests that the leaders of Dongling District of Shenyang city and the ones of economy-exploring district of Fushun city are the part-time managers of the management committee (or executive board) of the core zone of Shenfu new town.Other main leaders are appointed and removed through the procedure of appointment according to the opinions of both the government of Dongling District of Shenyang city and the one of economic development zone of Fushun city, which are authorized by the lead team of Shen-Fu new town.

suggestions on building the functions of the flexible management pattern of the core zone of Shen-Fu new town
The first one is rebuilding the management processes by technology and adjusting with the up governments.For example, exploring the softwares can examine and approve long-distance projects, or the staffs of Shenyang city or the ones of Fushun city handle the official business in "a door" in the investment office of Shen-Fu new town termly in turn.Therefore, the framework can keep flat.
The second one is outsourcing some functions.The management committee can absorb private capital to promote the marketing process of public service in the field of omnibus public products such as infrastructures, municipal public facilities, environment protection, city planning, social welfare, public education and fire protection.At the same time, the government should play a key role to advance the process by supervision and management.Otherwise, the pattern should broaden the participation of the people in the lawmaking discussions of market operation of the projects, the suggestions of policies and the supervision of the operation progress.
The third one is thinking much of the ingenuity of the staffs in the forefront to rebuild the flows and integrate functions according to their suggestions, and establishing the system of rewards to encourage the staffs in the forefront to create.
The forth one is advancing with the times, which means escalating the functions of the association organization office of Shen-Fu new town and working up self-management groups.
Nowadays, the main function of the association organization should be economic function with the development association composed of the representatives of governments, capable persons of enterprises, authorities, experts and citizens to discuss the key problems in the development progress of the new town.And the paper suggests that the association should carry out the right of supervision and proposal with the representative pattern and make measures which are establishing the special suggestion boxes to receive all the suggestions at any moment everywhere, facilitating the intercommunion between administrative departments and citizens by the technological channels of fax, email and telephone etc., summarizing all the opinions and suggesting the development strategies and innovations of the detailed mechanism to the upper governments such as the favourable investment policies, the spatial development of the financial market, the spatial open for the program examination and approval, and the spatial open of the medi-service departments, and boosting the establishment and development of industrial associations.
And in the long views, the association organization office should boost the establishment of some organization with a single function such as the organization of environment protection to supervise the construction for environment protection of the new town to a certain extend.
In addition, the cross-region coordinate development is a new trend for the development of the new town.Therefore, Shen-Fu new town should build association relationships with the other new towns in Shenyang city and Fushun city and the circumjacent new towns in other region.The association organization office should build an organization for coordinate development of new towns or add the function of cross-region coordinate development to the above development association.The ultimate principle is adding the functions and promoting the integrating comprehensive management ability by advancing with the times on the base of flat frameworks.
Figure 1.The administrative affiliations from up to bottom for Shen-Fu new town

Table 1 .
The 3 institutions of Pudong new district and 17 institutions of Puxi district of Shanghai with the same

Table 2 .
The comparative analysis of the management patterns of foreign metropolitan areas