2015, Vol.11, No.8

Crisisonomy 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.64

pISSN : 2466-1198 / eISSN : 2466-1201
https://journal.kci.go.kr/cemtp

The purpose of this study is to seek the core system of national crisis and emergency management system in Korea for the purpose of achieving the effective and efficient response mission. Core system can be defined as a network hub that leads and coordinates a entire system to a specific direction. This paper suggests five major elements which form a core system such as value, institution, leadership, devotion, and expertise. This research reveals several problems of national crisis and emergency management in Korea as follows; absence of core system, unsystematic situation control, inadequate disaster management function, difficulty of policy coordination from 'partition wall effect', non-learning disaster management from the past experience, and so on. This article suggests seven recommendations for improving the national crisis and emergency management in Korea as follows; (1) establishment of core system of national crisis and emergency management, (2) construction of national crisis and emergency management governance, (3) reinforcement of local government capacity for managing disaster, (4) development of democratic job performing mode like support-cooperation-network-coordination, (5) construction of the social-embedded crisis & emergency management system, (6) institutionalization of the new perception and culture of safety, and disaster management in local governments.

The revised Industrial Safety Health Act 2013 requires an enforcement of risk assessment in all business places in Korea. Risk assessment had been conducted only in the business sites for process safety management (PSM), but is now extended to general business places according to this act. The results from the office safety and risk management practices based on the PSM, SMS, KOSHA 18001 show that the average injury rate has been declining since late 1990s. However, considering that critical accidents in Korea (e.g. the hydrogen fluoride leakage at Gumi in 2012) have damaged not only industrial facilities but also generated disasters within the communities, there is need of a national-level proactive response to complex disasterous events. Therefore, this study conducts case studies from the United Kingdom and Netherlands where national risk assessment system is under operation, The design of response system based on early identification of national risk factors in those countries have reduced the level of damages and enabled prompt response and recovery. Comparative analyses of these cases could provide a guideline to the adoption of the risk assessment system in Korea.

The literature review has been conducted in order to construct the life safety system which improves community safety and welfare, The term of "life safety" is defined as a wholistic concept including various types of disasters experienced by the residents. Then, the case study has been performed to propose a plan for constructing the system focusing on organizational structure, management process and roles of individuals. Inadequate public-private partnerships and weak role of local governments are found to be a concern as for organizational structure, while communication problems among organizations, ineffective resources management and the absence of customized services appear to be problems regarding management process. In terms of roles of individuals, the lack of professionalism in community members and inadequacies in assigned role and association of community members have been criticized as a major barrier for the system. Based on these findings, policy suggestions are drawn for planning on the development of life safety system. In terms of organizational structure, the modular network organization design, the development of a standard model, and the leading role of local government are recommended. Regarding management process, communication mobilization, the improvement of logistics system, and customized service arrangements are suggested. In terms of roles of individuals, policy suggestions include the professionalism of community members, clear role assignments and consolidation among community members. The life safety system designed based on the study of domestic and international cases in this paper is expected to improve of community safety and welfare service in Korea, when succesfully implemented.