Technical thinking: how does e-land administration system promote the efficiency of cross-sectoral collaborative land governance in China?

Abstract

The involvement of multiple stakeholders complicates urban land governance. The e-Land Administration System (e-LAS) is expected to help decision-makers cope with this challenge. The aim of this research is to explore the mechanism through which e-LAS promotes efficient cross-sectoral collaborative land governance (CSCLG) and to test its effectiveness in a Chinese city through an empirical case study. The results of interview and documentary analysis show that the mechanism encompasses three parts: the technical tools of e-LAS, the subgoals of CSCLG, and CSCLG’s technical requirements on e-LAS. These technical tools work together to speed up the process of inputting and outputting information, building relationships, facilitating communication, and assisting collaborative decision-making among both internal and external stakeholders. However, our study of the e-LAS in the case city reveals that specific technical tools for collaborative decision-making are not well-developed, suggesting that China is still in the early stage of implementing functional e-LAS for CSCLG.

Keywords:

• E-Land Administration System
• Collaborative Governance
• Full Life Cycle
• Land Development Monitoring
• E-Governance

Acknowledgements

Software, validation, data curation, investigation, formal analysis, resources, visualization, project administration: Y.C.; conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing, supervision, revision according to comments: P.L.; writing—original draft preparation: all authors. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. All figures and tables are made by authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

† Land information input refers to the data received by the e-LAS. Land information output is the new data (after data processing or analysis) sent from it to aid decision-making, reflecting the communication between an information processing system and the outside world (possibly data providers or users) (Kumar et al. 2006).

‡ Since the interviewees included leaders from specific public sectors, whose names are searchable on the municipal website, there is a risk of them being easily identified if the city is not anonymized. This has prompted some of the interviewees to request anonymity for the city. However, scholars who are interested in this research are welcome to contact us privately for more detailed information.

§ Since the efficiency is a comprehensive perception of ‘the ratio of the outcome to the effort of an action’ (Hartmann & Spit 2015), direct assessment of ‘efficient upgrading’ is difficult, but some relevant indicators could help. The measurement of ‘efficient upgrading’ of CSCLG is based on 6 technical requirements of CSCLG, which are conducive in facilitating 3 subgoals of CSCLG and therefore justify the measurement method we use.

** NRD is the public sector responsible for land-related resources management, HCD is the public sector responsible for land development and construction, and MLRC is the state-controlled land bank.