“结构-能动性”框架下短期经济韧性的动态演化与影响机制——基于新冠肺炎疫情冲击下对东莞企业的访谈

2020年初新冠肺炎疫情在全球范围蔓延，对中国中小企业的正常生产和经营造成极大的冲击。在应对疫情冲击的过程中，中国展现了强大的经济韧性，这为研究中小企业经济韧性重塑提供了契机。结构和能动性是影响区域经济韧性的两种因素，但现有研究大多聚焦于结构因素的作用，对于不同经济主体在危机中的能动性则关注较少。通过对东莞市43家中小制造企业的访谈，重点关注新冠肺炎疫情冲击下企业能动主体的响应与行动，运用能动性视角对较短时期内经济韧性的动态演化进行分析，并构建“结构-能动性”的分析框架以揭示影响经济韧性重塑的微观机制。研究发现：经济韧性并不是经济主体与生俱来的固有属性，其形成过程从冲击发生开始先后经历认知―适应―重塑3个阶段；重塑经济韧性是多重因素共同作用的结果，不仅需要个体能动性和集体能动性得到发挥，也受到产业经济、制度安排和基础设施等结构因素的影响。基于揭示能动性因素在塑造短期经济韧性关键作用，总结出3个方面的理论启示：注重短期适应与长期变革的转换；强调能动性对结构因素的塑造；关注能动主体与外部联系的耦合。

Dynamic Evolution and Mechanism of Short-Term Economic Resilience from a Structure-Agency Framework: Based on In-Depth Interviews with Dongguan's Manufacturing Enterprises during COVID-19

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which spread all over the world at the beginning of 2020, exerted significant impacts on the substantial economic and social development in China, seriously affecting the production and operation of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As the COVID-19 pandemic was effectively controlled by the central government, China's economy manifested strong economic resilience during the process of recovery. Under these circumstances, it provided a valuable opportunity to examine the dynamic evolution and mechanism of economic resilience over a relatively short period. In economic geography research, structure and agency are the two main influencing factors for regional economic resilience; specifically, structural factors refer to the economic diversity and inherited structure of a regional economy in building resilience capacities, while agency factors focus on the role of agentsin a resilient economic system. However, the existing literature has focused heavily on structural factors, but the effect of agency factors has gained less attention. Based on interviews with 43 manufacturing SMEs in Dongguan in 2020, this study 1) investigates the dynamic evolution and characteristics of short-term economic resilience from an agency perspective and 2) demonstrates the micro-mechanism of reconstructing economic resilience at the enterprise level by constructing a structure-agency framework. The study derives several findings. First, economic resilience is not an inherent attribute of an economic agent. In the short term, the formation of economic resilience can be divided into a three stage process from cognition to adaptation, and then to reconstruction. Each stage manifests different agency characteristics. Second, the reconstruction of economic resilience is strongly influenced by the individual (entrepreneurs) and collective agency (supplies and customers) in the COVID-19 shock. For individual agencies, manufacturing SMEs are sensitive to perceiving and seizing the "opportunity space," which is technologically related to their primary products. For collective agency, many entrepreneurs actively offer financial support to their upper and lower reach enterprises to enhance economic resilience by forming collective networks. Third, structural factors (i.e., industrial structure, institutional arrangement, and infrastructure construction) also influence the formation of economic resilience in a short period. In the case of Dongguan, industrial structure and institutional arrangements contributed to enterprises' return to normal production during the COVID-19 crisis, while the imbalance of infrastructure structures (including basic social and public services) plays a constrained role in economic resilience. Moreover, three theoretical implications are proposed: emphasizing the transformation between short-term adaptation and long-term adaptability, concerning the shaping of structural factors caused by agency, and paying attention to the coupling between agents and external connections.