In the face of COVID-19, experts and scholars of NKBS proactively suggested how to refine governance mechanisms and improve management capability in the past consecutive days. Following that, they spoke out preventing measures.
“Outbreak of the pandemic poses an arduous test on whether the modern governance system and capability were well established. Confronted with the virus, it means a lot to straighten out the emergency governance system activated to respond to major public health incidents, including government governance, social governance and corporate governance,” said Li Weian, Chair Professor, and Dean of China Academy of Corporate Governance, of Nankai University.
In the paper of Professor Li, the Urgent Problems and Countermeasures of Emergency Governance System under COVID-19 Outbreak, published on the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mr. Li wrote that an emergency governance system should guarantee smooth operation, and follow the top-level design principle, borrowing principle, classified governance principle, cost sharing principle, and information disclosure principle. The author pointed out the disadvantages and weaknesses of current emergency governance systems exposed by mismatch between supply and demand of provincial and municipal Red Cross Societies’ emergency supplies. As was stated by Mr. Li, the noticeable problems included frail top-level design of the emergency governance, far from clear collaboration mechanism of government governance, social organization governance and corporate governance, as well as unsubstantial classified governance for different types of organizations. The paper specifically highlighted practical strategies for the authorization and accountability of government at all levels to lead the top-level design of emergency response organizations at different layers, the establishment of emergency coordinative governance system and mechanisms for government governance, social organization governance and corporate governance, the erection of platforms for communication between various governance bodies, and the ongoing push of companies to carry out economic governance transformations, etc.
In view of data governance issues, Professor Lin Runhui, Director of the Network Governance Center of China Academy of Corporate Governance posted an article entitled Strengthening Data Governance and Improving Emergency Management Engineering in the official account. He emphasized in the article the fundamental role of data governance in building better project governance capacity against incidents, and called for enhanced data governance as well as a scientific and engineering approach to tackle governance challenges brought by the epidemic. In the article, Blockchain Enabling Epidemic Prevention and Establishment of Long-Term Mechanism issued by the official account of “MBA Center of Nankai University”, Mr. Lin introduced the significance of holistically applying Blockchain technology for government governance and social governance to solve pain points in current epidemic control. Additionally, when interviewed by the Northern.com on the topic of “scholars and business”, Lin Runhui focused on the impact and test of the pandemic on real businesses, analyzed the pull of the crisis on market demand, and, on the basis of the in-depth exploration and changes of consumer habits, recommended that real businesses should in the light of new requirements of the whole people for a healthy environment win more shares of market segments, achieve digital integration, and practice the philosophy of “internal sage and external emperor serving public benefits”.
Professor Li Yuelin of the Department of Information Resources Management posted an article entitled Discrimination of False Information about COVID-19 and Analysis of Transmission Causes. In the article, Professor Li introduced official platforms for identifying false information concerning the pandemic, outcomes of epidemic-related information discrimination research, and some relevant standards and tools. Besides, she dissected the main reasons for spread of such false information at macro and micro levels.
Other professors of NKBS also leveraged their professional advantages and posted articles on the official account of “China Corporate Governance” regarding pandemic control.
As for the positive changes brought by COVID-19 to society, such as people’s enhanced care of animals and environment, close interpersonal relationship, as well as better spiritual civilization, ecological civilization, and political civilization, Professor Xue Youzhi of the Department of Business Administration advocated during the post-pandemic era enterprises should pay attention to the restriction of ethical mechanism of governance on their future evolution, and that enterprises should integrate ethicality with consideration, formulation and implementation of development strategies, and mean it when putting those strategies into action. Moreover, he stated there was a need to establish an ethics committee in a special committee under the company’s board of directors, and should appoint a chief ethics officer or an ethics response agency.
In the article entitled Maintaining Supply Chain Governance for Disaster Relief during the Lasting Pandemic, Li Yongjian, Professor and Dean of the Department of Management Science and Engineering, considering the shortage of medical supplies, like masks, proposed that emergency supply chain governance should do more efforts and seek for improvement in the building of flexible structures, big data application and real-time information sharing, supply chain coordination and cooperation.
Attaching importance to the improvement of social governance system and governance capacity in epidemic control areas, Professor Zhou Jian of the Department of Business Administration gave policy recommendations regarding the construction of control strategy decision-making mode, transformation of prevention methods, implementation of pandemic-related regulations, resumption of enterprises in non-epidemic areas and more.
Given the problem of rumor governance in this epidemic, Professor Wang Fang of the Department of Information Resources Management made an appeal that information governance in major outstanding events should be carried out in the principle of information ecology, that a self-repair mechanism of information ecology system should be set up, that information means should be taken as the first choice of governance countermeasures, and that attention should be paid to deep study of governance rules and formulation of scientific governance strategies.
It is understood that since outbreak of the epidemic, NKBS has been responding to the call of the state, and following the University's deployment of scientific research on virus control. All people of NKBS have actively applied their professional strength to take actions, and leveraged the business wisdom to provide countermeasures and suggestions for rational response to the management shortcomings and governance challenges during the post-pandemic era.
