KJC Korea
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This study explores how the president responds to the public by categorizing responsiveness of the president into symbolic responsiveness and substantial responsiveness. We measure the symbolic responsiveness with the congruence between the presidential campaign pledges and national agendas, and the substantial one with the congruence between national agendas and national budges, applying the same methods utilized by Jones & Baumgartner(2004). The analyses of the data on the previous four presidents show that the substantial responsiveness or policy congruence is rather lower than the symbolic responsiveness or agenda congruence, indicating the existence of the president’s strategic choices and institutional frictions, such as complex administrative procedures, government officials’s resistance, and opposition from the national assembly. The results of this study suggest that the president’s attempts of communicating with the public should be evaluated not only by the symbolic, but also by the substantial responsiveness.

Quasi-governmental organizations are controlled by the government. This study empirically answers two questions, focusing on ‘public institutions’ in South Korea. First, do more governmental controls make their performance better? This study divided organizational performance into effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and procedural values. The results suggest that more controls over quasi-governmental organizations improve equity but reduce efficiency. The impact on effectiveness and procedural values can not be confirmed significantly. Second, how do they need to respond to the governmental controls? The external management efforts of managers and boundary spanning activities of boundary organizations, as organizational strategic responses, are expected to buffer the environmental shock and exploit the environmental resources. This study statistically examines whether they can moderate the performance impact of governmental controls. The results demonstrate that the positive impact on equity is not strengthened by them, but the negative impact on efficiency is mitigated by external management efforts and boundary spanning activities. Interestingly, the negative impact turns into a positive impact by external management efforts. These findings can be used as a reference for both the policy makers who are concerned with how to control the quasi-government organizations and the managers who are concerned regarding how to respond to the governmental controls.

The purpose of this study is to identify the causal relationship structure of the impact of KEPCO Call Center's counselors' emotional labor and work stress on work burn-out. For this, we established surface action deep acting as the independent variable, work burn-out as the dependent variable, and work stress as the mediating variable. In this supposition, we setup 5 direct-effect research hypotheses and 2 indirect-effect research hypotheses. For the analysis and statistical hypothesis testing, we collected data from the 420 counselors working at KEPCO Call Center through the nation from June 15th to June 30th of 2017, and among them all, 367 questionnaires were used for our final analysis. As a result of test, 3 direct-effect hypotheses and 2 indirect-effect hypotheses were accepted and 2 direct-effect ones were rejected. This results mean that emotional labors(surface action and deep acting) have the only indirect effect on work burn-out through the mediation of work stress, and work stress has the complete mediating effect in this structural model. Finally, on this empirical analysis, we provided some implications on the use of emotional labor and work stress for the decrease in work burn-out.

Statistics Korea data shows that as of 2017, non-regular workers accounted for 49.04% of all paid workers in Korea, which means nearly 50% of the entire workforce is employed for non-regular positions. The percentage of non-regular labor has shown a steady increase for the last three years. Public institutions, too, are not an exception to this situation. The government has taken political measures to mitigate the polarization of society caused by the wage gap between regular and non-regular workers, although their effectiveness has not yet been felt. The Moon Jae-in administration has promoted such policies as 'Zero Non-regular Workers at Public Institutions' based on its logic that public organizations have to take the lead in eliminating non-regular labor. Those policies, however, have been said to be impractical unless accompanying issues, such as social costs and other types of non-regular worker employment, are considered simultaneously. The 'zero non-regular workers' policy is still debatable in validity and legitimacy, and in fact, few empirical studies have been conducted on effects of the policy on public organizations. Based on the question 'what effect does the proportion of non-regular workers at a public institution have on the organizational performance?' this study aimed to analyze the validity of the 'zero non-regular workers at public institutions' policy. As a result of the analysis, the percentage of non-regular workforce at a public institution did not have effect in the financial aspect. But the costs of welfare benefits affected the organizational performance: the costs, when becoming lower for non-regular workers but higher for regular employees, had more effects on the performance. This result reveals that like the circumstances in the private sector, the organizational performance in the public sector is positively associated with protection for regular employees and reduction in labor costs for non-regular workers. Public institutions with a lower proportion of non-regular workers, however, showed a higher performance in the non-financial aspect, suggesting conflicts between public interest and profitability of the public sector. These results of the study demonstrate that the government needs to seek ways to phase out the non-regular workforce system by taking into account public consensus and each institution's characteristics rather than persistently conduct an unbalanced transformation of labor policies and that the private sector also needs to take social responsibility in order to mitigate the polarization of society.

Intellectual property is becoming important as a means of attracting and promoting the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Foreign countries are strengthening intellectual property rights and building an intellectual property administrative system to cope with the fourth industrial revolution. In Korea, Intellectual Property Committee and Intellectual Property Office deal with intellectual property policy. However, a decentralized system without a control tower is a barrier to rapid and effective policy response. Therefore, those who are interested in intellectual property prefer the creation of a department of intellectual property, which acts as a control tower, and a strong central administration system. An alternative is to improve the system that gives the Patent Office and the Intellectual Property Committee a control tower function.

As effective government capacity is essential to avoid government failures and improve its performance, performance management in the public sector has to prioritize ways to manage its capacity. Since the high performance profile requires a systematic and sustainable mechanism, government capacity should be adequately identified and measured to gain a competitive advantage in public services. This study aims at proposing a practical indicator system that can measure a government’s core capacity, corresponding to the stages of national development. After extensive literature review and expert focus group interviews, government capacity is characterized into three dimensions: professional capacity, ethical capacity, and collaborative governance capacity. Measurement indicators of each capacity are then discussed. These government capacity indicators can be used for managing existing major indicators, diagnosing the results of official development assistance, and providing information on government activities.

This paper presents a theoretical model and tests the hypothesis descriptively that people who fulfilled compulsory military service have wage premium in the South Korean labor market. Simple models are developed to explain both the taste-based discrimination and statistical discrimination which can possibly lead to a wage premium for the non-exempted person. The descriptive OLS analysis shows that a wage premium does not exist for those who have fulfilled military duty. The strict causal interpretation cannot be granted for the estimated result, however, because of the endogeneity of the exemption status. We therefore argue that future studies should engage in isolating the causal impact of the exemption on labor market outcome in order to derive useful policy implications.

The basic pension system is designed to provide a stable basis of income for the elderly by providing pensions and to enhance social welfare by supporting the stable life of the elderly. The basic pension system is a governmental plan which started in 2014, and the basic pension system substituted basic elderly pension system that started from 2008. Since the reason for the change of system stems from the requirement of substantial income basis for elderly, this study analyzed household survey to examine whether the basic pension system is fulfilling the need. As a result, this study found that the basic pension system has an effect on the decrease of poverty rate compared to the basic elderly pension system. Specific results showed that the basic pension system reduced poverty for an elderly who is older than 75 years old, but the gender difference between elderly is not found. The degree of reduced income gap due to the change of the pension system was significant for the elderly older than 75 years old, and also for the women. To promote the effect of poverty reduction through basic pension system, this study suggests applying the basic pension system differently by the conditions of elderly and guaranteeing additional income basis.

This study analyzed the relationship between fiscal decentralization and available financial resources in local governments. Available financial resources are classified into three. First, available financial resources(B1) are resources other than the minimal operating costs of the organization of local government, means projects spending. Second, available financial resources(B2) refers to expenditure funded by the autonomous judgment, except for funds to be fixed proportional subsidy, matching funds and transfer expense to basis local governments. Third, available financial resources(B3) are resources except expenses of continuing projects based on the current year but B3 were excluded from the analysis due to vast resources. Therefore, this study analyzed the relationship between fiscal decentralization and B1, B2. Data was targeted to the 16 metropolitan governments without Sejong from 1997 to 2014.

This paper intends to identify the individual-level factors and their impact that influence on the number of municipal ordinance bills proposals by the local council members. To achieve the goal, the records of proposed ordinance bills by the eighth and ninth Seoul Metropolitan Council members have been analyzed and examined the factors that influenced on the bill proposals. The results showed that the education factor influenced on the proposal records that the council member who has higher education showed higher results than the others and the female council members proposed more jointly-submitted bills than the male members. The seniority of the members has also affected the proposal records, but its effect was differed depending on the types of ordinance bills. The re-elected members proposed bills more frequently by themselves or representatively, but the newly elected did them jointly more often. The proportional representative council members proposed more bills representatively or independently than the district council members. The members from the majority parties proposed bills more jointly than the members from the minority parties. In terms of the standing committee activities, the council members during their tenure who served multiple standing committees participated more actively in legislation activities than the others. However, the ex-professional career and age factors of the members did not influence on the bill proposal activities statistically significantly.

This study presents the effectiveness of the subsidy provided by Seoul Government on economic efficiency and publicity of Seoul Youth Centers. The data is based on the audit reports submitted by the Seoul Youth Centers from 2010 to 2016. Results of empirical tests demonstrate that the subsidy of Seoul Government promotes economic efficiency, but it is difficult to confirm the effect on the publicity. As the ratio of cost increases, the level of economic efficiency grows but the level of publicity falls. The ratio of contract employment cost to total employment cost has a negative impact on the publicity of service. The results shows Seoul Youth Centers’ service is focused on profitability rather than publicity, and the expansion of contract workers does make publicity worse. Based on the findings, this study concludes that the subsidy policy of Seoul Youth Centers should be developed in a way that considers the costs of project, not the costs of loss, and the distribution of subsidies should be reorganized in order to strengthen their own purpose.

This study tries to understand the meaning of being a resident near nuclear power plant focusing on Jang-an community members. The study is specially interested in the local dependency among Jang-an community members to Gori-area and their neighbors, and the perception on the risks related to nuclear power plants. The investigation was also focued on the process and changes of these local dependency and risk perception. In order to achieve these study goals, six residents in Gori area were taken the in-depth interview. The structure of significant meanings are drawn through the conceptualization, categorization, and classification of themes. Findings are very interesting. First, the overall meanings of Gori nuclear power plants are very different among community members in Jang-an. Gori nuclear power plant was classified as ‘a pet aversion’ because it made community members died, sick, or unhappy. On the other hand, Gori nuclear power plant was considered as ‘a grateful thing’ because it gave them a means of living and a pride. Local dependency has a diverse meaning such as area-based dependency and relation-based dependency. On the risk perceptions, the most salient categories are ‘familiarized and insensitive’ as time goes by, and ‘routinized and normalized.’‘Uncomfortable with other peoples’concerns’is also a noticeable category of meaning structure. Further study should be conducted the relationship between local dependency and risk perceptions, and the multi-dimension of local dependency in the community near nuclear power plants.

This study analyzed the reason that the water conflict between Busan and Gyeongnam is not solved for thirty years. The water quality of Nakdongkang River has been declined because of the development of the upper region of the river. Busan asked for the central government to secure the clean water supply, and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport planned to build Multi-regional Water Supply to use Namgang Dam and Riverbank filtration located in west side of Gyeongnam province. Local governments, citizen organizations and residents of west Gyeongnam, however, desperately opposed to the plan of central government for the reason of the threat of the right to live. Even though the central government tried to solve the conflict between two regions with various instruments, the negotiation has come to a standstill until now. This study analyzed the key factors and emotional dimensions of the conflict, and tried to find a way to solve the problems. Based on analysis result, the core causes that west Gyeongnam opposed to central government and Busan were emotional problems such as a sense of alienation in developing process, a sense of disregarded of their opinion through the unilaterally push policies of central government. To solve the old conflict of Busan-Gyeongnam, central government and Busan have to keep their minds the emotional dimensions of negotiation, such as appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status, and role which Fisher and Shapiro emphasized, apply them on the new planning of negotiation and policy.

This study focuses on how to apply set theory to policy research methodologically. It is more reasonable to understand the social phenomena expressed in language as a subset relationship rather than a causal relationship between variables. In set theory, each case has a value belonging to a specific set, and is compared with whether it is a subset of another set. It also emphasizes the existence of various coupling conditions that can reach the same result in set theory. Causality in set theory can be one of a sufficient condition, a necessary condition, a necessary and sufficient condition, an INUS condition, and a SUIN condition, and this causality is measured by consistency and coverage of condition. Applying it to the policy research of set theory can be an alternative to which can not be covered by the existing methodology and suggest a new approach and interpretation of social phenomenon.

This study empirically examined whether the use of social media use for political purposes would encourage political consumerim which is a personalized and informal mode of participation. Multiple regression analysis was applied to data collected from a nationwide online survey conducted among Nielson Korean Click panel members in September 2015. The study found that social media use for political purposes and digital literacy strengthened individualized and informal forms of citizen participation such as a offline boycotting or buycotting. This finding suggests that the development of information and communication technology has helped citizens, especially those who feel alienated in a representative democracy but have a high-level digital literacy skills, to participate in a more direct and individualized political actions, like political consumerism through informal and everyday communication channels, such as social media.

Citizen participation plays an important role in promoting public participation, transparency, and consensus in modern society. If so, “How does online citizen participation with a positive impact from the government's perspective affect individual citizens?” This study will answer this question. If the positive psychological capital and the satisfaction of life are increased through online citizen participation, the citizen will continuously participate in the citizen participation, and the citizen participation culture can spread through the whole society through this. Therefore, this study analyzed the effect of increasing online citizen participation on personal psychology and life satisfaction, especially in modern society. The structural equation model (SEM) and the mediated effect analysis (ANOVA) were conducted using AMOS based on the “2016 Digital Divide Survey” data. The results of the analysis show that the relationship between mobile online citizen participation and life satisfaction and mobile online citizen participation and self-esteem are statistically significant. Also, self - esteem has a significant mediating effect on the relationship between mobile online citizen participation and life satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of psychological factors on the satisfaction of life through online citizen participation and suggest policy implications based on the above analysis.

The importance of Measurement and management of research performance resulting from research support programs in humanities and social sciences is getting increased, as the idea that the governmental budget for supporting the academic area is significant expands. However, there are concerns about the lack of performance indicators as well as information about factors affecting research productivity in humanities and social science. To tackle the problems, we analyze the predictive factors associated with research performance of the Next-Generation Program and Research Support Program, which started from 2011 to 2013 and terminated in 2016. Based on the information about the individual researchers and support programs, we measure various research productivity indicators including total number of publications, KCI citation numbers, and journal impact factors. Results obtained from OLS regression indicate that a number of factors including H-index of researchers, the amount of research budget, gender, and affiliation are strongly associated with research productivity. This study suggest several policy implications for practitioners to improve their management capability and understand the attributes of research performances in humanities and social sciences.