For the past three years, our research team has successfully developed the concept of government competitiveness along with an index, and conducted numerous researches on relationships between factors of the Government Competitiveness Index and relat ...
For the past three years, our research team has successfully developed the concept of government competitiveness along with an index, and conducted numerous researches on relationships between factors of the Government Competitiveness Index and related items. Starting from exploratory research, we are on track with the three-year plan where we conducted empirical studies, launched Government Competitiveness Index where we are allowed to rank different nations in accordance with cross-sectional studies and distribute such information.
Purpose of the research is to reconstruct the conceptual framework and theories behind government competitiveness with respect to time. Furthermore, we aim at introducing a novel set of indicators, which not only provides an accurate measurement of competitiveness but also compares and analyzes competitiveness of dissimilar nations in the long run. So far, the research has been conducted in accordance with the following three objectives.
First of all, it is important to analyze the role of the Korean government, its policies, and characteristics of the government bureaucracy within different stages of development as Korea grew rapidly in a short period of time. By analyzing the competitiveness of the Korean government in different time segments, we can benchmark and model the growth of Korea.
Another purpose of the research is to conduct empirical analyses on theoretical basis of government competitiveness, based on extensive investigations on the current nature of Korean communities. These investigations have exhibited people’s increasing distrusts and emotional non-compliance towards government policies, and an incompetence of the government to appropriately deal with multi-cultural communities and the aging population. We have realized that the Korean government has not met with the rapidly changing political, economic, and societal features, while it rather focused on contributing factors to government competitiveness in the past. This has resulted in an anachronistic discordance of changing reality and the government’s understandings. Thus our research for finding current and future contributors to a competitive government may be applicable to not only developing countries but also developed countries.
The last main purpose is to introduce a new index that integrates time and space factors and measures competitiveness of a government, but more systematic and persuasive than existing indices of IMD or WEF. We would like to further the research by disseminating data archives worldwide. Western researchers have been key players in measuring national competitiveness, but they have so far compared national competitiveness of different countries to that of the current temporal and spatial settings of developed countries. They have attempted at bringing up national implications in different countries in vain, because such attempts have failed to consider temporal and spatial characteristics of each country. This might have contributed to numerous failures in ODA projects for the last 50 years. Therefore, research on government competitiveness emphasizes the importance of developmental stages in different countries, at different administrations. Also, the research distinguishes common and differing factors with respect to time and space, all of which will help us differentiate government competitiveness of various countries at dissimilar developmental stages.
From September 2011 to June 2014, our research team published 6 research papers on SSCI journals, 4 on SCOPUS journals, 24 on listed journals, 2 on candidate journals (total 36) and 2 publications. One paper on SSCI journal and 5 papers on listed journals are outcomes of the first-year plan “Conceptualization and Factor Analysis of Government Competitiveness.” The second-year plan on “Diversified Communities and Government Competitiveness” was finalized with 4 papers on SSCI journals, 4 on SCOPUS journals, with added up to total of 24. The third year’s “Introduction of Government Competitiveness Index” has been landmarked by 2 publications and 6 research papers. After the three-year plan we have published 1 additional SSCI paper and 1 SCOPUS paper until February 2015, concluding the research plan with 7 SSCI papers, 5 SCOPUS papers, 24 listed-journal papers, 2 candidate-journal papers and 2 publications.
We have also hosted and sponsored numerous academic seminars and lectures in order to promote networking with various scholars and introduce the research outcomes. There have been 78 presentations at academic research conferences and symposia along with seminars, and important cooperating research opportunities have been tabled at international academic research conferences. These outcomes will become a source of cooperation with the Cabinet in terms of government policy making/implementation, and they have recently been introduced on a few newspaper articles as well as academic publications.
Lastly, we are providing our assistant researchers and research assistants with not only various research opportunities but also networking opportunities at academic conferences. Participating students have contributed to the research through 27 published research papers, 22 presentations at conferences, accompanied by 7 graduate degrees and employment of 2 PhD degree holders.