Super-Optimum Solutions in development policy

This paper examines two critical problems of development in Asia: the policy problem of compensation for college teachers in China and the issue of incapacitation in the Hong Kong bureaucracy. The analysis suggests that traditional approach to problem-solving, which calls for bargaining and compromise, is unsatisfactory, that the Super-Optimum Solutions approach is essential to the formulation of policies which could result in better-than-the-best situations in which all parties concerned will be better off, and that one viable strategy for policy analysts to arrive at SOS is to direct their effort to identifying the fundamental cause of policy problems and the possible ways of removing it. Research and policy implications are discussed.