The Effects of IT Technology on Structures of Central Government in Korea

The Korean government’s E-government initiative is recognized as the best in the world. Although the effects of IT use on public organizations have long been debated in the literature, actual impacts on internal structure have rarely been investigated. This study explores the impacts of IT in terms of longitudinal changes in organizational structures at the central government level. First, changes in the absolute numbers of personnel as a result of Egovernment are examined. Because of the Korean government’s particular way of controlling agency size, the qualitative changes of span of control and subordinates’ functional specialization are considered. Although the total personnel numbers have not been critically affected by E-government, comparison of the morphology of each organization indicates that qualitative changes have been incurred since 1989. Interestingly, although IT has increased middle managers’ span of control (the ratio of middle managers to subordinates), the number of middle managers has not changed radically and in some cases has steadily increased. This phenomenon can be explained by the rigidity of the Korean government in terms of organizational management. This study proposes that autonomy for each agency in making the organizational structure fit the real work situation is a necessary condition for seeing the full effects of E-government.