Analysing the Impact of City-County Consolidation on Promotion Practices of Local Government Employees : Application of System Dynamics

시군통합이 자치단체 공무원 승진에 미치는 영향분석 : 시스템다이내믹스의 적용

This paper aims to analyse the impact of city-county consolidation on promotion practices of local government employees, using system dynamics approach. The cases employed in this study are Cheongju City and Cheongwon County which reached the referendum stage twice but without success. While the idea of consolidating two neighbouring local governments via a merger sounds enticing, some opponents argue that consolidation may cause some problems on the part of local government employees, emphasizing that consolidation could lengthen actual time period needed for local government employees' promotion. The majority of the existing literature on city-county consolidation, however, tends to describe the most successful cases, focusing on the achievements it has made or the political processes associated with it. With this in mind, this paper attempts to identify the impacts of consolidation on the local government employees' promotion time period, utilizing system dynamics approach. It concludes that consolidation could rather shorten the time period of promotion of local government employees concerned from the long term perspective.