Kil Pyo Hong

Although “agility” is a popular term today, an understanding of its meaning and key components is lacking. The term “agile government” has been increasingly used in various studies and reports but remains unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to review agile government studies, overcome the various new challenges against such trends, and identify possibilities of building an effective agile government. First, business agility studies and agile development methods are reviewed, followed by an overview of agile government studies and an evaluation of the present and future uses for agile governments. Finally, this paper identifies various challenges and suggests new tasks toward a more agile government based on the reviews.

South Korea (hereafter Korea) has had a later start than advanced Western countries in the use of performance management methods. However, over the past 15 years or so, Korea has had experience in using various performance management systems in many different areas. This study first explains the development of performance management and the level of its application in the Korean public sector. After that, this study attempts to identify the constraining factors (the competitive environment, incentives and discipline, management governance, value orientation, and the time frame of the performance process) on the effectiveness of performance management in the public sector and seeks ways to overcome such limitations, based on the diverse experience of performance management systems in the Korean public sector.

The development and commercialization of advanced technologies will depend increasingly on efficient technology transfer and technology trading systems. This requires the development of technology markets or exchanges and hence a reliable technology valuation methodology. This paper develops a methodology for an objective and impartial valuation of fully developed technologies.A web‐based technology valuation system is developed with which interested users can make efficient and real‐time evaluations of technologies.

In a rapidly changing society, governments could use the HRM reform measures provided in the World Public Sector Report 2005 (WPSR 2005) as important guidelines for realizing continuous innovation and recovering trust in public administration. The 2005 report provides a nearly full set of methodologies as well as informative advice in promoting public sector reform, including HRM reform, for many countries, particularly for developing nations or transitional economies. Nonetheless, the 2005 report has limitations. Thus the purpose of this article is as follows: to identify major contents of, and lessons learned from, the measures for reforming ‘HRM in the public sector’ (hereafter PHRM) proposed by the 2005 report; to critically review the PHRM reform measures suggested in the report; and to propose future research agendas to provide developmental and structured PHRM reform measures that are required by governments in many countries around the world, particularly in developing countries and transitional economies.