• Title/Summary/Keyword: Local Government Directors

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Evaluating the Usefulness and Feasibility of "Guidelines for Contracting-Out of Public Library Services" (『공공도서관 민간위탁 가이드라인』의 유용성 평가와 현장 적용성 제고 방안)

  • Kwon, Nahyun;Song, Kyeong-Jin;Kim, Sun-Ae;Kim, Sujeong;Lee, Jinwoo;Jang, Jisuk
    • Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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    • v.47 no.2
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    • pp.45-73
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    • 2013
  • This study purported to evaluate the usefulness and feasibility of "Guidelines for contracting-out of public library services (2011)." The Guidelines have been developed by the Culture and Library Forum to provide principles and standards for local governments considering the contracting-out of public library services in their district. The research data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews with 17 local government officers who are responsible for the contracting-out of public library operations and two focus group interviews with eight directors of public libraries contracted out. It was found that the interview participants in both government and library sides generally perceived the Guidelines useful, yet their perceptions of feasibility in outsourcing were largely pessimistic due to local politics and many other hindrances in society. The study suggested specific directions to further improve the Guidelines' usefulness and feasibility.

Overview of Food Safety Issues in School Foodservice Operations in the United States

  • Kwon, Junehee
    • Journal of Community Nutrition
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    • v.5 no.4
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    • pp.239-245
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    • 2003
  • Millions people in the US suffer from foodborne illnesses each year. In the US, multiple government agencies work separately or together to ensure the nation's food safety for different audiences. FDA plays a key role in ensuring food safety in foodservice operations by providing the Food Code. School foodservice operations must follow the FDA guidelines on food safety and make sure that foods produced in school foodservice are safe. Despite the continuous efforts, school foodservice operations were responsible for numerous foodborne outbreaks. Currently, school foodservice operations serve younger children (<5 years) and children with medical conditions which make the food safety extremely important. There are many programs that foodservice operators can use to train and educate their employees. ServSafe$\^$ⓡ/tate or local food safety education programs, Serving It Safe, and HACCP workshop are common programs that can be used to train their staff. HACCP is a preventative program that can prevent foodborne illnesses before they occur. Although there are many benefits of utilizing HACCP and training programs, a majority school foodservice directors and managers still did not implement HACCP nor perceived their food safety training is adequate. Most reasons why not implementing HACCP program are lack of trained personnel, time, and financial resources in the school foodservice systems. The gap between what people know and what people do is another challenge identified as an obstacle food safety programs. Despite safe food sources in the US, continuous training is necessary to remove human errors and ensure food safety in the school foodservice systems. Future research is recommended to reduce gap between food safety knowledge and behavior. Foodservice operators and researchers may apply the systems developed in the US to their food systems.

Current Status of Overseas Korean Education Centers and Changes in their Users' Demand (재외 한국교육원 운영 실태 및 변화 요구 분석)

  • Chae, Jae-Eun
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.499-508
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    • 2022
  • The Korean Education Centers (KECs) are facing a growing demand for innovation in terms of roles and functions due to the new Korean wave. Thus, this study examined the organizational conditions of the KECs and the need for their changes in order to explore their development direction. For these purposes, a semi-structured interview was conducted with a total of 12 former and current KECs' directors. The major findings are as follows. Whereas the demand for changes in the KECs was growing due to the change of the generation of overseas Koreans and the increase in the demand for Korean language, it was difficult to switch their roles due to the Act on the Educational Support for Overseas Korean Nationals and lack of administration resources. Therefore, the Korean government should help the KECs transform their roles and responsibilities according to the changes in the local demands for Korean language education.

Corporate Governance and Managerial Performance in Public Enterprises: Focusing on CEOs and Internal Auditors (공기업의 지배구조와 경영성과: CEO와 내부감사인을 중심으로)

  • Yu, Seung-Won
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.31 no.1
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    • pp.71-103
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    • 2009
  • Considering the expenditure size of public institutions centering on public enterprises, about 28% of Korea's GDP in 2007, public institutions have significant influence on the Korean economy. However, still in the new government, there are voices of criticism about the need of constant reform on public enterprises due to their irresponsible management impeding national competitiveness. Especially, political controversy over appointment of executives such as CEOs of public enterprises has caused the distrust of the people. As one of various reform measures for public enterprises, this study analyzes the effect of internal governance structure of public enterprises on their managerial performance, since, regardless of privatization of public enterprises, improving the governance structure of public enterprises is a matter of great importance. There are only a few prior researches focusing on the governance structure and managerial performance of public enterprises compared to those of private enterprises. Most of prior researches studied the relationship between parachuting employment of CEO and managerial performance, and concluded that parachuting produces negative effect on managerial performance. However, different from the results of such researches, recent studies suggest that there is no relationship between employment type of CEOs and managerial performance in public enterprises. This study is distinguished from prior researches in view of following. First, prior researches focused on the relationship between employment type of public enterprises' CEOs and managerial performance. However, in addition to this, this study analyzes the relationship of internal auditors and managerial performance. Second, unlike prior researches studying the relationship between employment type of public corporations' CEOs and managerial performance with an emphasis on parachuting employment, this study researches impact of employment type as well as expertise of CEOs and internal auditors on managerial performance. Third, prior researchers mainly used non-financial indicators from various samples. However, this study eliminated subjectivity of researchers by analyzing public enterprises designated by the government and their financial statements, which were externally audited and inspected. In this study, regression analysis is applied in analyzing the relationship of independence and expertise of public enterprises' CEOs and internal auditors and managerial performance in the same year. Financial information from 2003 to 2007 of 24 public enterprises, which are designated by the government, and their personnel information from the board of directors are used as samples. Independence of CEOs is identified by dividing CEOs into persons from the same public enterprise and persons from other organization, and independence of internal auditors is determined by classifying them into two groups, people from academic field, economic world, and civic groups, and people from political community, government ministries, and military. Also, expertise of CEOs and internal auditors is divided into business expertise and financial expertise. As control variables, this study applied foundation year, asset size, government subsidies as a proportion to corporate earnings, and dummy variables by year. Analysis showed that there is significantly positive relationship between independence and financial expertise of internal auditors and managerial performance. In addition, although business expertise and financial expertise of CEOs were not statistically significant, they have positive relationship with managerial performance. However, unlike a general idea, independence of CEOs is not statistically significant, but it is negatively related to managerial performance. Contrary to general concerns, it seems that the impact of independence of public enterprises' CEOs on managerial performance has slightly decreased. Instead, it explains that expertise of public enterprises' CEOs and internal auditors plays more important role in managerial performance rather than their independence. Meanwhile, there are limitations in this study as follows. First, in contrast to private enterprises, public enterprises simultaneously pursue publicness and entrepreneurship. However, this study focuses on entrepreneurship, excluding considerations on publicness of public enterprises. Second, public enterprises in this study are limited to those in the central government. Accordingly, it should be carefully considered when the result of this study is applied to public enterprises in local governments. Finally, this study excludes factors related to transparency and democracy issues which are raised in appointment process of executives of public enterprises, as it may cause the issue of subjectivity of researchers.

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