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The purpose of this paper is to explore recent healthcare reform in China. Reflecting on the current literature, the viewpoint argues that greater attention should be paid to healthcare reform in China as a public policy process, particularly one that is built on policy experimentation.

The viewpoint argues that while recent efforts to understand the impact of reform have brought significant understanding of key issues and processes, such interest tends to focus on pragmatic concerns rather than pose wider theoretical and methodological questions about the nature and pace of reform.

The authors suggest that the lens of public policy is particular relevant and insightful given what has been documented elsewhere regarding China’s unique policy process characterised by “policy experimentation”. The authors discuss how a policy experiment perspective can provide a useful heuristic for understanding healthcare reform in China.

The viewpoint concludes by outlining possible applications of this approach and looks forward at the emerging research agenda in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how far plans to “modernize” hospital management in China are converging toward a global model of new public management (NPM) or represent a distinctive pathway.

This paper draws on a systematic review of available secondary sources published in English and Chinese to describe both the nature and trajectory of hospital management reforms in China.

In China, while public hospital reforms bear many of the hallmarks of the NPM, they are distinctive in two key respects. First, the thrust of current reforms is to partially reverse, not extend, the trend toward marketization in order to strengthen the public orientation of public hospitals. Second is a marked gap between the rhetoric and reality of empowering managers and freeing them from political control.

This paper develops a framework for understanding the drivers and obstacles to hospital management reforms in China that is useful for managers, clinicians and policy makers.

In China, few authors have considered NPM reform in relation to healthcare. This paper contributes in better understanding current reforms taking place in China’s expanding healthcare sector and locates these within broader theoretical and policy debates.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to develop and test theory on how commitment human resource (HR) practices affect hospital professionals’ job satisfaction that motivates them to generate desirable patient care and subsequently improve doctor-patient relationships (DPR) and second, to examine how commitment HR practices influence hospital managers and clinicians in different ways.

Using a cross-sectional survey, the authors collected data from 508 clinicians and hospital managers from 33 tertiary public hospitals in China. Structural equation model was employed to test the relationships of the variables in the study.

Commitment HR practices positively affect the job satisfaction of the healthcare professionals surveyed and a positive relationship is perceived between job satisfaction and DPR. Overall, the model shows a reversal on the strongest path linking job satisfaction and DPR whereby managers’ main association operates through extrinsic job satisfaction while for clinicians it occurs through intrinsic satisfaction only.

DPR might be improved by applying commitment HR practices to increase healthcare professional’s intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction. In addition, while recognizing the importance of compensation and benefits to address the underpayment issue of Chinese healthcare professionals, empowerment and autonomy in work, and the use of subjects’ expertise and skills may serve as stronger motivators for clinicians rather than hard economic incentives in achieving DPR improvements.

This study contributes to the small but growing body of research on human resource management (HRM) in the healthcare sector with new evidence supporting the link between commitment HR practice and work attitudes, as well as work attitudes and patient care from the perspective of clinicians and hospital managers. This study represents an initial attempt to examine the associations among commitment HR practices, job satisfaction and DPR in the Chinese healthcare sector. The findings provide evidence to support the value of commitment HR practices in Chinese hospital context, and demonstrate the importance of effective HRM in improving both hospital managers and clinicians’ work attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the organisational and procedural arrangements for healthcare reform in China, and describe the role of social values in the relevant decision‐making process.

An analysis of recent developments aimed at achieving universal coverage in China was undertaken in the context of describing the influence of underlying social values.

The key underlying social value was found to be social solidarity. Other values were implicit rather than explicitly stated, and were subservient to the overall aim of comprehensive coverage.

The paper shows that China is embarking on the largest‐scale health reforms in the world. There is an eagerness to share experiences with other countries in an attempt to ensure the success of the reforms. There is an increasing understanding of the need to make the values underpinning the reforms more explicit and, in particular, those concerned with efficiency and appropriateness.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of introducing a health insurance program in rural China between 2004 and 2006, the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS).

The authors apply difference in difference and propensity score matching methods (PSM-DID) to a widely used panel dataset, the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). Findings are robust across several treatment and comparison groups used in previous NCMS studies.

Households who participated in NCMS increased the use of preventive services and western medicine, while lowering the use of traditional Chinese medicine. NCMS also reduced hospital use, out of pocket payments, travel time to healthcare facilities and waiting time to see doctors. The authors estimate that reductions in travel and waiting time saved roughly 52m U.S. dollars in 2006.

Previously divergent findings on health insurance effects may be due to researchers studying health insurance across different healthcare delivery systems. In addition, in estimating how health insurance access affects healthcare costs, the authors should consider economic costs related to the time needed to access health services.

The authors study how health insurance access affects patients' choice of providers and economic costs to accessing health care services, outcomes that have not received much attention previously. The authors depart from previous NCMS studies by comparing several different approaches to identifying treatment and control groups when applying PSM-DID.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how and to what extent the design and implementation of universal health coverage (UHC) reforms have been influenced by the governance arrangements of health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC); and how governments in these countries have or have not responded to the challenges of governance for UHC.

Comparative case study analysis of three Asian countries with substantial experience of UHC reforms (Thailand, Vietnam and China) was undertaken using data from published studies and grey literature. Studies included were those which described the modifications and adaptations that occurred during design and implementation of the UHC programme, the actors and institutions involved and how these changes related to the governance of the health system.

Each country adapted the design of their UHC programmes to accommodate their specific institutional arrangements, and then made further modifications in response to issues arising during implementation. The authors found that these modifications were often related to the impacts on governance of the institutional changes inherent in UHC reforms. Governments varied in their response to these governance impacts, with Thailand prepared to adopt new governance modes (which the authors termed as an “adaptive” response), while China and Vietnam have tended to persist with traditional hierarchical governance modes (“reactive” responses).

This study addresses a gap in current knowledge on UHC reform, and finds evidence of a complex interaction between substantive health sector reform and governance reform in the LMIC context in Asia, confirming recent similar observations on health reforms in high-income countries.

Purpose – This chapter explores ways in which urban women in China balance work and family demands, as the state's protective and welfare functions in post-Mao reform are increasingly being replaced by market forces, and the chapter examines how urban women's enactment of work and family roles are shaped by changing workplaces as well as by their personal and family circumstances. The purpose is to understand the impact of marketization on gender configuration through the lens of the work-family nexus.

Research design – Data come from in-depth interviews conducted between 2005 and 2007 with 115 married women in four large cities. For analytical purposes, the informants were divided into three groups: stay-at-home moms, family-orientated working women, and work/career-oriented women.

Findings – Although market reform may create opportunities for some women to enhance their personal lives, as a consequence of workers' loss of the safety net and welfare benefits, the neglect of women's reproductive work, and the commercialization of child care and child education, it has generated, for many women, much role conflict between work and family. Work/career-oriented women are able to actively engage in market activities precisely because they are protected still by the state, can afford commercial services of domestic tasks, or have strong support from their extended families.

Originality/value – Women's varying role orientations reflect more their strategies of coping with structural changes than their mere adherence to certain gender ideologies.

Social implications – The chapter calls for curbing unbridled market forces and restoring public services so as to create a family/women-friendly work and social environment.

The purpose of this paper is to draw parallels between universal basic income (UBI) and universal healthcare, highlighting their conceptual alignment and combined implications for health management and organization.

The idea that everyone should receive a set amount of money regardless of employment finds renewed momentum amid increasingly precarious work arrangements and an uncertain job market. Less explored, however, is the connection between this idea and the more established notion of universal healthcare. This paper brings these two ideas together by examining their shared underpinnings in capitalist work relations, and more broadly a global economic system organized by and for corporations at the expense of workers.

The argument is made that the underlying dynamics of contemporary capitalism cannot be relied upon to provide for basic health and wealth. These limitations must be offset with social assurances that not only mitigate capitalism’s liabilities, but also facilitate innovation and sustainable growth.

Rarely have UBI and universal healthcare been considered together. This paper examines their shared origins in a capitalist world system and demonstrates their shared justification in a future increasingly devoid of stable work.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the values of Chinese university students as future leaders and employees in a global economy. Despite the fact that China’s role in the world economy has become increasingly important, little has been done to examine the nature of tomorrow’s Chinese business leaders.

A values survey was administered to business major students at a Tier 1 Chinese university and data were collected from 984 respondents to test five hypotheses relevant to values for Chinese youths.

This study suggests that today’s Chinese business students view traditional Chinese values through a lens influenced by western cultural and economic thinking as well as positive and negative impacts from rapid economic development.

This paper is an empirical study based on a survey being administered to Chinese university students in two major cities in China. A limitation would be that all Chinese youth of the same age may not have the same values as this set of university students, or even those of Chinese students from a different region of China.

This paper is among the first to identify the current cultural values of the younger Chinese of university age population.