The object of study at beginning of Administrative Science has almost always been confined to the government bureaucracy. However as the society became increasingly complex and pluralistic, the demand for administrative needs by the people became also...
The object of study at beginning of Administrative Science has almost always been confined to the government bureaucracy. However as the society became increasingly complex and pluralistic, the demand for administrative needs by the people became also varied. Thus the government has been forced to encounter limitation in providing all the public services directly. The majority of public services have indirectly been provided through the public institutions, such as public enterprises and quasi-government agency. Accordingly, their shares in GDP have also been increasing. Nevertheless, the development of the theory for the efficient management of public institutions and the empirical verification for it is progressing very slowly. This is because public institutions have unique characteristics that must simultaneously pursue both the publicness as public organizations’ characteristics and profitability as private sectors’ characteristics, which are in conflict each other in value. In a real administrative phenomenon, the public enterprises have already emerged as new agents and thus occupy a considerable fraction of the national economy, but until now, it has not got much attention from the locus of administrative science. Accordingly, this study systematically analyzes the two performance indicators, public interest and profitability, of public enterprises, which can be called as representative institutions among the public institutions and thus contribute to the efficient performance management of public enterprises.
Accommodating both views of environment deterministic approach and management deterministic approach for organizational performance, this study examined whether or not there is a difference each other in the degree of the publicness and profitability. Next, this study examined what relationship there is between publicness and profitability which are two major performance indicators of public enterprises. Finally, this study analyzed what are the factors affecting the environmental factors and institution’s managerial characteristics. In particular, based on public governance model and previous studies, the environmental factors were divided into political environmental factor and economical environmental factor. Roh, Moohyun and Lee, Myungbak government’s government agencies management policy direction, and president's leadership such as the extent of power resources, the National Assembly’s support were classified as political environmental factors. The growth of national economy, entry into private markets, the global financial crisis were classified as economic environmental factor. In addition, management capacity such as organizational and human resource management capacity, material resources management competencies, leadership competencies, each institution’s CEO career background, management stability, and management autonomy were classified as managerial characteristics.
As a result of panel analysis for institutions that are classified according to“the Public Institution Management Act" for the period of Roh, Muhyun and Lee, Myungbak government's regime from 2003 to 2010 years, the relationship between publicness and profitability is not significant. When viewed through these results. It cannot be said that profitability and public interest of public enterprises were in collaborative relationships with each other in synergistic effects. But, at least, they are not in a trade-off relationship. Thus, public enterprises can pursue profitability without compromising publicness, and conversely, they will be able to pursue profitability without sacrificing publicness.
Second, the political environment factors such as ruling government’s policy direction and Congress’s support to support the policy, and the institutions managerial characteristic factors, such as human resource management competencies, management stability, and management autonomy have influence on it. However, it indicated that management stability has weakening effect on public interest after a certain level of management stability. Management autonomy as measured by government ownership ratio has a positive effect on the public interest, as opposed to the prediction from the hypothesis. That is because, even the management autonomy from the government is greater than before, each institution is under control and oversight from the related Government Departments, Congress, the Board of Auditor so that there seems to be a room to improve the publicness.
Third, the economical environment factors, such as entering private markets or the economic impacts on the markets which the global financial crisis added and institutional managerial characteristics factors, such as organizational and human resource management competencies, material resources management capabilities, and management, reliability, have affected the profitability of public enterprises. However, it indicated that in case of Korea District Heating Corporation, Korea Electric Power Corporation, and Korea Gas Corporation which currently listed on the stock market, even though they has entered the private market, the entries have a negative effect on the profitability, which is different from the prediction of the hypothesis. That is because their financial conditions have already been deteriorated. On the other hand, the leadership skills of management capacities have a positive impact only on ROS (ratio of net income to net sales). That is because, in case of public enterprises, the capital, which is one element composing of ROA (return on assets; ROA) and ROE (return on equity; ROE), mainly depends on the Government and their debts already reached the limit. It seems that it cannot be solved by management's ability alone.
Fourth, the result indicated that as one of the managerial characteristics, CEO’s background has not significantly influence the publicness and profitability in the analysis of all the public enterprises. However, in the analysis of each group, in case of SOC(social overhead capital) type and market type, the CEOs from private sectors have a positive impact on the profitability of public enterprises, compared to those from other sectors. In case of quasi-public enterprises, it indicated that CEOs from politicians aggravated both the publicness and profitability of public enterprises, compared to those from other sectors. Thus, in case of the SOC type public enterprises, which have a serious debt problem, it can be one solution to the debt problem to appoint experts from private sectors as CEOs. In case of quasi-market type, when CEOs appointed, they should be careful to avoid so-called parachute personnel problems.
In conclusion, in case of the public enterprises’ publicness, as they are under the influence of political environments, such as the government's public management policy direction and National Assembly’s support to support the policy, it seems that they need to be approached to some extent in terms of policy to enhance the publicness. In addition, it indicated that the profitability of public enterprises as well as private companies cannot be free from the effects of the economic environment. Under a small open economy like Korea, the deterioration of the economic situation is not a matter to be controlled by the government and each institution alone. So it is necessary for each institution to make efforts in enhancing its management capacity and management stability in order to alleviate a negative impact which can influence on the profitability negatively.