The increasingly stringent institutional environment and backdrop of governance modernization have catalyzed a shift in the operational logic of grassroots governments.“Operational Governance” has emerged as a novel trend for these governments to pursue autonomy in the contemporary era.Through a field research on the industrial development of the Mei Town government，this study finds that grassroots governments create favorable contexts under the guise of governance，successfully gaining attention and cooperation from higher-level governments and local communities，thereby reconstructing their autonomous space and turning it into a tool for credit claiming and blame avoidance.Drawing upon the theoretical lens of institutional logic，this paper constructs an analytical framework of “multiple institutional logics–contextual embedding–organizational action”，arguing that the realization of “Operational Governance”stems from grassroots governments’responses to and utilization of multiple institutional logics within their governance fields.The multiple institutional logics present uneven pressures and incentives to grassroots governments during the industrial development process，but the embedded autonomy of organizations enables grassroots governments to identify and cater to different institutional logics，thereby constructing advantageous action contexts for themselves.“Operational Governance”not only broadens the research horizons of grassroots governments’autonomous behavior but also unveils the intricate interplay between the institutional environment and government actions.At a practical level，it also poses challenges for effectively leveraging grassroots government agency.