Korean Administration and Organizational Culture

괜찮다고 말하지만 괜찮지 않은 너와 나, 우리가 안고 사는 우울. 그리고 그 감정이 가져온 마음의 병 우울증. 화제의 채널



Preface



In any academic field, it can be beneficial to take research in a new direction that transcends the existing boundaries.

In this book, thus, I apply the study of folklore and anthropology to public administration in an attempt to describe the actual dynamics of the Korean administrative context. However, my focus is not on the formal system of administration. Instead, I address only the informal aspects of the Korean system of administration to reveal, in detail, how it operates in terms of structure and administrative behavior, and the effects of these factors on the policy- and decision-making processes.

I will reveal various inconsistencies in the Korean administration system, and consider improvement strategies. However, some aspects of the Korean tradition are still useful today. In particular, I seek to incorporate the elements of the democratic decision-making process and mutual cooperation found in the gye (village organization), hwangdu (agricultural labor exchange), and dure (agricultural labor) into the Korean administration system.

In this book, I employ the traditional ma-eul1 as the basic model because Korean traditions are most faithfully preserved in ma-euls, which are, even today, considered the hometowns of many Koreans. The phenomena seen in traditional ma-eul life are reproduced in the everyday phenomena of the Korean administrative context today.

From a macroscopic perspective, I examine the direction in which Korean society is currently changing. I also discuss how the field of administration is and how it should be changing.

To conclude, I would like to thank Chun-hwan Lim, president of Daeyoung Munhwasa Publishing, for enthusiastically offering to publish this book despite having to contend with difficult publishing conditions.

January 2004

Suk-Joon Cho