If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.*Related content and download information correct at time of download. Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implementation of initiative e-procurement in decentralized system on Indonesia's local government system. Design/methodology/approach -The authors combine quantitative and qualitative methods. The central finding of this research is that human resources are the pivotal factors that determine the performance of local e-procurement in three cities. This research focusses on three local governments in Indonesia -Yogyakarta City, Tangerang City, and Kutaikartanegara Regency. Findings -The central finding of this research is that human resources are the pivotal factors that determine the performance of local e-procurement in three cities. However, Tangerang City is going institutionalization phase in e-procurement initiative to ensure its sound local regulation.Research limitations/implications -There are several limitations to this study including the recent nature of decentralized procurement in Indonesia, limited standardized and disaggregated data on local government procurement expenditures and performance. Practical implications -The study recommends that human resources management in procurement needs to be addressed by both local and central government.Originality/value -e-Procurement is an important instrument for preventing corruption in goods and services procurement. Indonesia has been implementing an e-procurement policy since 2008 based on a Presidential Decree. The president has issued annual orders (presidential instructions), and all central ministries and local governments have been required to comply with them to obtain their budget through the e-procurement system. However, as of 2012 fiscal year, only around 10.26 percent of the central government institution procurement budget and 10 percent of the local government procurement budget in Indonesia went through the e-procurement system, with wide variations among cities.

This paper analyses the sweeping changes in industrial relations in South Korea that have taken place since democratisation in 1987, which gave workers the right to organise themselves, and critically reviews the development of social dialogue since the financial crisis of 1997. A number of international labour specialists have maintained that social dialogue plays an important role in enhancing economic restructuring and the stability of industrial relations in order to compete in a global economy. Contrary to the positive assessment of social dialogue, the paper argues that the Korean Tripartite Commission has not reduced the antagonism between unions and employer organisations due to the influence of embedded, state-led economic development. The financial crisis of 1997 merely provided a catalyst to propel the 'historic compromise' of February 1998, without creating effective institutional arrangements to maintain social dialogue. It is worth noting that the uncertainty of social dialogue results from the inability of the Korean Tripartite Commission to encourage employers and workers to trade off wage restraint for job security in the context of a lack of social welfare protections. The paralysed Korean Tripartite Commission provides fertile ground for reflecting on the complex relationship between social dialogue and institutional arrangements.a pv_1432 288..303

This article analyzes the political dynamics of South Korea’s recent administrative reform. We argue that successive South Korean governments’ New Public Management-inspired reform programs have only achieved partial success. In particular, they have largely failed to attain their ultimate goal – i.e. significant weakening of the traditionally strong elite bureaucracy in policymaking. The bureaucracy in the country has not become weakened as a result of the reform. Rather, the central government ministries have augmented their power and institutional autonomy. Those who were in charge of designing and implementing reform measures were bureaucrats themselves who were supposed to be the ‘target’ of the reform. Such situation, in which the reformers were expected to reform themselves, has resulted in numerous incidences of sabotage, delay, obstruction, and distortion of the reform. This article concludes that it is crucial to consider the local contexts in which reform initiatives are adopted, interpreted, accepted, legitimated, and concretized for implementation. Points for practitioners Administrative reform often brings unintended consequences. New Public Management-inspired reform, with its intention to weaken the strong elite bureaucracy, could ironically result in the augmentation of the bureaucracy. The main reason for this is because it is usually the bureaucrats themselves who design and manage the process of administrative reform. It is also the elite bureaucrats who define, operationalize, and implement specific reform measures. Therefore, it is crucial for the reform supporters to ensure adequate popular oversight mechanisms outside the bureaucracy at various stages of the reform process, such as citizen monitoring or civic participation.

Previous literature has demonstrated that the apparent global convergence between public management reforms is misleading because there are major differences in how a global paradigm of reform is implemented. This is not only a question of implementation, but also of interpretation. Even when reforms are similar with respect to the administrative measures that are implemented, they can have significantly different political and cultural meanings, depending on the broader state—society relations within which they are embedded. A cross-national analysis of reforms must therefore take sufficient account of the historical development of the position of the state and of state—civil society relations. To demonstrate the point, the article compares public management reforms in the Netherlands and South Korea. Points for practitioners Although cross-national comparison of public management reforms can be a source of inspiration, it is crucial to keep in mind that similar reforms can have different meanings depending on the national context and thus can result in different policies, programmes, and institutions. For practitioners in public management and administration, this implies that, before importing ‘good’ practices from elsewhere, it is imperative to assess how those practices were part of broader historical developments in the country of origin and to what extent the conditions within the country of destination are different.

Organizational cynicism is associated with undesirable outcomes such as reduced organizational performance. In this study we examined factors leading to organizational cynicism in a public organization undergoing market-oriented reforms. Participants were 275 employees at Korea Post, Korea. Our empirical results showed that organizational cynicism is decreased by coworker trust and transformational leadership and increased by job stress. Also, the positive role of job stress was stronger for employees who are silent than for those who express their opinions in the workplace. The findings suggest that organizations would benefit from actively managing factors that may affect the level of organizational cynicism among employees.