Determinants of Police Performance in Korean National Police Agency Focusing on Personal Factors

Abstract

The way to evaluate the performance of the public sector, including police duty, is so complex and complicated that some people even think it is impossible or inappropriate to evaluate the public sector. However, after emergence of New Public Management, managing for result has been emphasized in the public sector. With this trend, performance management in the public sector also has been a big issue. Policing also is one of the areas in which performance management was considered as having an important role. In 2006, South Korean government introduced performance management to all of the central administrative organizations by legislation of the Basic Act of Government Operation Evaluation to strengthen competitiveness of the public sector. By the same law, the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) also enforced performance management system, i.e. Public Security Performance Overall Evaluation (PSPOE), to all the provincial agencies, police stations, auxiliary organizations and the KNPA itself as well. The PSPOE is generally divided into two categories, which are department evaluation and personal evaluation. The result of evaluations is utilized for planning, personnel management, education, foreign affairs, and etc. Every year, the KNPA tries to improve the PSPOE system. As a result, the KNPA was awarded as one of the top central government organizations in governmental evaluation from 2013 to 2016 in succession. However, there are still lots of criticisms inside and outside of the organization on the usefulness of the performance management and evaluation. Despite the controversy, there was little research on police performance management in South Korea, especially with regard to personal factors. Therefore, this study tried to find out the determinants of police performance in South Korea by focusing on personal factors. The data source was the 2014 Survey on Satisfaction of Performance Management conducted by the KNPA between Oct. 16 and 22, 2014. The number of the samples was 12,821. Ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression analysis was used. As a result, Gender, Age, Rank, Seniority, Understanding of the Evaluation System, and Acceptance of the Evaluation System showed significant impacts on the Personal Performance Grade.