Information Technology Resources of Local Governments: A Comparative View of Korea and the U.S.

Abstract

The intensity of computer applications in Korean local government is as poor as the short history of its local autonomy system. This paper provides a comparative view of information technology (IT) resources of Korean and the U.S. local governments, to shed light on the challenging issues faced by many Korean local governments. Two local governments with similar sizes of population, area and public employees were selected to conduct a case study. While the City of Bellevue of the U.S. and the City of Uiwang of Korea are very comparable in size (with the approximate population of 110 thousand and 400–500 public employees each), they differ in great scale in terms of IT resources. Bellevue excels Uiwang as much as 37 times in terms of IT department budgets, 8 times in the number of IT personnel, and 9 times in the number of computer application systems. Another fundamental problem of Korean local governments regarding computer application is related to the decisionmaking and implementation process of IT projects. No formal process has been established in clarifying main players and participants in IT application. In addition, current budgetary and legal constraints make city governments of Korea too dependent on national and provincial governments.