Raising Seoul's global competitiveness: developing key performance indicators

• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Author: Seong‐Ho Cho
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1628
• Date: 01 November 2017

PRACTITIONER PAPER

Raising Seoul’s global competitiveness: developing key

performance indicators

Seong‐Ho Cho

†

School of Business Administration, Hongik

University, Seoul, Korea

E-mail: shcho11@hongik.ac.kr

Correspondence

Seong‐Ho Cho, School of Business

Administration, Hongik University, 72‐1,

Sangsu‐dong, Mapo‐gu, Seoul 121‐791, Korea.

Email: shcho11@hongik.ac.kr

Abstract

This paper develops a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) for Seoul city administration, inau-

gurated in 2006. Proper establishment and application of the KPIs into its administration would

not only help in accomplishing municipal leadership’s strategic initiations but also enhance

Seoul’s global competitiveness. At the same time, the KPIs can be a good communication tool

through which the leadership and city customers can communicate with each other.

1|INTRODUCTION

The purpose of the study is to develop a set of key performance indi-

cators (KPIs) for a city administration, Seoul metropolitan city. As a

newly inaugurated mayor or the chief executive of Seoul, he would like

to establish a set of definitive and specific goals achievable during his

tenure for fulfilling not only his long‐lived vision but also some of his

election promises and his administration’s policy initiatives. Further-

more, he would like to see that Seoul be ranked high in its global

competitiveness among the competing cities in the world.

For the sake of these purposes, the new leadership wants to have

a set of KPIs or operational measures indicating the progress of city’s

established goals or targets. If the KPIs are designed and developed

so that Seoul’s competitiveness should be constantly evaluated and

monitored, it is most likely that its global competitiveness could be

managed to improve.

The operational KPIs can be valuable in various aspects. In the

context of communicating with City’s customers domestically and

abroad such as Seoul citizen, foreigners who are or plan to be in Seoul,

potential foreign direct investors, and tourists, the KPIs could be a

good communication vehicle. Through the KPIs, Seoul’s present status,

performance progress, and what to be done next year or in 3 years can

be communicated with the customers in terms of its global competi-

tiveness, its policy‐related projects, or both.

In accordance with the current global practice of empowering the

people is the City’s effective and timely updating of the citizens

regarding its latest performance progress. The use of KPIs to keep

the citizens up to date and well informed is a meaningful effort by

the City to promulgate particular basic democratic foundation to the

people. From the perspective of citizens, the KPIs can be a tangible

means to evaluate and monitor the work done by the Mayor and the

City. From the perspective of the Mayor, the KPIs can be a vital

communication tool to update the citizens the progress and status of

the Mayor’s projects, promises, and visions in a palpable form.

In the context of management and operation of Seoul City admin-

istration, the KPIs can be the targets to be accomplished by the city

government officials or staffs. The city leadership can offer the indica-

tors as a roadmap and definitive targets for his administration,

establishing specific and detailed expectations for each particular

department of the City government, allowing the city leadership in turn

to utilize the KPIs for monitoring and management purposes. If properly

used by matching performance and compensation, the KPIs could be a

good managing tool governing the behavior of city workers. The possi-

ble long‐term benefit of the KPIs would be that it may plant securely a

performance‐based work environment, nurturing such conditions as to

establish a positive tradition and culture within the city organization.

Interactive communication via the predefined KPIs among the

Mayor, City officials, and citizens may create a win‐win result by

increasing clarity, transparency, accountability, and clear responsibility

in managing the city administrations, more importantly through which,

placing Seoul in the higher ranks among world‐class cities.

In section 2, the conceptual background is described for perfor-

mance indicators and their driving factors. Section 3 presents the

method to derive the KPIs for Seoul administration. Results are

discussed in section 4. In section 5, conclusions are presented.

2|CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND

The study aims primarily to determine a handful number of the most

focal and imperative KPIs, which will lead to enhance the city’s global

†

This study is funded by Hongik University and KDI School of Public Policy and

Management..

Received: 15 June 2016 Accepted: 11 August 2016

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1628

J Public Affairs. 2017;17:e1628.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1628

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of10