Kilkon Ko

A Comparative Analysis of Job Motivation and Career Preference of Asian Undergraduate Students

This article examines how various job motivators and perception toward public service affect university students’ tendencies to choose public sector jobs in a comparative context. We address this question using survey data collected from undergraduate students in China, Singapore, and Korea. The findings indicate that a positive association exists between motivation to benefit society and public sector job preference among Singaporean and Korean students, although such a relationship does not exist among Chinese students. Job security and salary are commonly important motivators for students who prefer either public or private sector jobs. Finally, the divergent characteristics of students’ career goals serve to emphasize the importance of comparative studies in identifying context-specific and context-general factors that motivate students toward public service careers.

The impact of internship in public organizations on university students’ perceptions and career choice

Although internship has substantial implications for public administration, little is known about how it affects students. This article analyzes whether internships change students’ perceptions of public organizations, and whether they ultimately affect their choice between public and private sector jobs. We surveyed 818 Singapore university students and measured their perceptions of public organizations using a masculinity index. Then, we analyzed whether those with internship experience had different perceptions from those without it. Finally, we used logistic regression to test whether perceptions of public organizations and public internship experiences explain the probability of students’ job choices. These analyses were complemented by interviews with students. The with-internship group shows significantly lower masculinity index scores than the without-internship group. The less masculine their image of public organizations, the stronger their preference for public sector jobs. Students with an unsatisfactory internship confirm or strengthen their masculine image of public organizations and avoid public sector jobs. Points for practitioners Public organizations can utilize internship programs not only to draw talent into the public service but also to improve their image. This does not happen automatically, however. Universities and public organizations should closely monitor what students actually do during an internship and why they are satisfied or dissatisfied with it. Our research shows that a negative internship experience can have a more negative impact on the image of public organizations and the decision to work in these organizations than no internship at all. This finding suggests that the government should pay more attention to the needs of interns and institutionalize a procedure to evaluate students’ satisfaction with internship programs.

An Empirical Study on Public Service Motivation of the Next Generation Civil Servants in China

Why do the Chinese university students choose government jobs instead of private companies? Do they have similar job motivations as those who are seeking private sector jobs? Surprisingly, literature on public administration in China has rarely posed this question despite China’s adoption of the civil service system since 1993. Specific examination of public service motivation (PSM) literature also revealed a lack of empirical studies on the public service spirit of potential public sector employees. This article analyzes the differences in job motivations between public and private job seekers using survey data of 329 Chinese university students from the Peking University, Renmin University, Fudan University, and Nankai University. The results suggest that both private and public job seekers commonly rank “stable and promising future,” “high salary,” “chance to exercise leadership,” and “high prestige and social status” as the most important motivators. Notwithstanding the commonality, public job seekers, especially female students, show higher public service spirit than private job seekers.

The relationship between religion and corruption: are the proposed causal links empirically valid?

There is a growing interest in understanding how religion affects corruption. Many empirical studies have suggested that countries with strong hierarchical religions (such as Islam, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity) are more likely to suffer from corruption. These results are, however, controversial, largely due to the lack of empirical validity of the causal (or theoretical) links that explain such a relationship: obedience to authority, negative culture reinforcement, amoral familism and trust intermediation. Using the fourth wave World Values Survey (n = 87,988) of 64 countries, this study constructed a general estimation equation model to evaluate these four causal links after controlling for heterogeneity of individuals’ religious beliefs among the 64 countries. We did not find strong evidentiary support for the causal explanations.

Act in Good Faith? The Effectiveness of U.S. Voluntary Environmental Programs

This study identifies the factors and their associated motivations that can influence corporate environmental performance in U.S. voluntary environmental programs (VEPs). The effectiveness of the programs is discussed. We construct an ordered logit regression model to estimate the voluntary environmental performance of 330 firms that participated in the Green Lights/Energy Star for Buildings (GL/ESBs) program between 1995 and 2000. Our analysis suggests that corporate participants with motives that are aligned with market interests are more likely to complete their environmental pledges to a higher level than those whose primary intent is to relieve institutional and regulatory pressures. It also provides strong evidence of corporate opportunism in the program.

How Asian countries understand policy experiment as policy pilots

ABSTRACT Policymaking based on the classical experimental design is regarded as a golden rule in the field of public policy. Despite the methodological superiority of randomized control experiment, the practices of policy experiment differ across countries, reflecting the different intentions of policymakers. This paper reviews how policy experiments are practised in Asian countries, especially Korea, China, and Singapore. As our review suggests, the term ‘policy pilot’ is preferred to ‘experiment’ as the former is considered as an exemplar proposed by the central government. At the same time, the selection of pilot sites depends on central government’s political and practical (rather than methodological) consideration. Moreover, the utilization of policy pilots does not solely depend on the success of the pilot programme or the effect size per se. As the policymaking process is a complex endeavour involving multiple streams of actors, resources, and solutions, Asian countries use policy pilot results to get ideas on how different actors respond to policy, instead of a determinant of policy decision. Therefore, we conclude that Asian countries emphasize less the rigorousness of experimental design than the possibility of pragmatic utilization of policy pilots.

Critical review of welfare dependency in active labor market programs in Korea: existence, causes, and interpretations

Abstract This paper comprehensively analyzes the existence and causes of welfare dependency in active labor market programs (ALMPs) administered by the Korean Government. For this analysis, we utilize the Ministry of Employment Labor’s database, using data collected from 306,410 ALMP participants from 2006 to the first quarter of 2012. According to our analysis, 4.4–12.9% of ALMP participants are likely to be in the ‘welfare trap.’ The probability of falling into the welfare trap is affected by individual characteristics. For instance: the elderly, women, and highly educated people are shown to be particularly vulnerable. Moreover, when ALMPs’ benefits are larger than the official minimum wage, individuals tend to stay in the job programs longer. At the same time, if a participant lives in a district with more people in the welfare trap, he or she is less likely to exit from ALMPs. Despite the fairly significant proportion of participants shown to have fallen into the welfare trap, most of the cases are not due to moral hazard or generously designed financial incentives; rather, our research suggests that people with a lower level of job capacity for the private labor market cannot but stay longer in ALMPs.

Integration of Integrity Information into Performance Evaluation: The Impact on Korean Public Enterprises

ABSTRACT This article analyzes Korean public enterprises that have integrated integrity information within their performance evaluations. Performance and integrity often tend to be separately managed because they are regarded as mutually exclusive. In the Korean case, some public enterprises had expected that the integration of performance and integrity management would not produce significant changes, mainly because of the lack of direct incentives and the light weight (3%) given to integrity in performance evaluation. However, this article shows a positive correlation between performance and integrity. Moreover, we can observe an improvement in integrity following the integration of integrity information into performance evaluation. Such a change was possible not only because of financial incentives, but also because of the increasing attention CEOs placed on integrity management, which made it easier for public enterprises to institutionalize their own ethical management policies. At the same time, competition amongst public enterprises over performance scores expedited the diffusion of innovative integrity policies.