법인화에 따른 자율성효과의 불확실성: 서울대학교 사례

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Recent agentification reforms in South Korea are based on a theoretical rational called the logic of autonomy effects, which posit that organizational performance and accountability will be enhanced if ex ante control over public organizations is replaced by ex post control, including performance evaluation. The main argument of this article is that the transformation of control modes is not a sufficient condition in order to realize such autonomy effects and that successful agentification of public organizations is contingent upon other factors such as the managerial ability of top managers in agentified organizations. Based on a case analysis of Seoul National University in South Korea, this article finds that without proactive and strategic efforts by top university managers, the transformation of control modes brings considerable uncertainty to the agentified organization. The deregulation of SNU is in fact impeded through “hidden” means of ex ante control by the national government and also through the lack of internal efforts to take advantage of the deregulation. In addition, the other part of agentifcation, that is, the introduction of ex post evaluation of SNU`s organizational performance, may result in the politicization of performance evaluation or a disguised form of input resource regulation, mainly because of the inherent performance ambiguity of higher education institutions. This article concludes with the observation that it is imperative that top managers in agentified organizations make continuing and strategic efforts to fill the gap between formal autonomy and de facto autonomy after agentification.