On reforming Korean personnel system: the role of promotion as an incentive system

Abstract

This paper argues that the reform of incentive system, rather than structural reorganization, is crucial for changing the behavior of bureaucrats in government organizations. Incentive system is composed of a lot of factors that organizational members aspire after such as monetary compensation, nonmonetary benefits, and status advancement within organization. This paper especially centers on the incentive in career advancement, i.e. promotion. ChapterⅡ discusses why promotion is more important than any other incentive in Korean bureaucracy. As the importance of promotion may be theoretically explained by organizational psychology and principal-agent theory, ChapterⅢ is composed of the possibility and limitation of these two theoretical approach and their relevance for designing organizational incentives. Based on the theoretical discussions, ChapterⅣ focuses on the practical issues of reforming Korean personnel system to make promotion an incentive system It also makes suggestions about how promotion and personnel systems can be restructured to enhance bureaucratic performance. Then, the final chapter summarizes and concludes the paper.