This paper considers the sometimes serious and controversial political, legal, institutional and technological issues that were triggered by the mass transfer and copying of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper considers the sometimes serious and controversial political, legal, institutional and technological issues that were triggered by the mass transfer and copying of electronic presidential records by the Sixteenth President of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) at the end of his term of office.
Design/methodology/approach
During this administration, the Korean government made significant government‐wide recordkeeping innovations, mainly initiated and supported by the then President Roh Moo Hyun, and also supported by civilian professionals. The Public Records Management Act (PRMA) was revised, the Presidential Records Act (PRA) legislated and the National Archives of Korea tripled in staff size and made significant government records innovations. At the end of his term, the President copied all of his presidential records in electronic form and kept them for his own use, transferring the “authenticated” records to the National Archives. The National Archives subsequently charged his former secretaries with violation of the Presidential Records Act.
Findings
The paper summarizes the records issues to give further consideration to electronic records matters as well as dealing with politically sensitive records in the public archives. Can recordkeeping and politics be divorced? If so, how?
Originality/value
The paper provides insight into the political dimension of recordkeeping in the public, government context in Korea.
Details
Keywords
Human interaction gives rise to conflict. This paper addresses general characteristics of Korean and United States culture relative to conflict resolution. In general, in the…
Abstract
Human interaction gives rise to conflict. This paper addresses general characteristics of Korean and United States culture relative to conflict resolution. In general, in the United States, conflict resolution is characterized by a win‐lose philosophy. Americans approach disputes with an attitude that one party is wrong, one is right and the purpose of dispute resolution is to decide who is right. Americans also believe that though the legal system is time‐consuming and expensive it can (for the most part) determine right and wrong. As a general statement most Americans respect the legal system and the law, though they find the process of litigation time consuming and expensive. In general, Koreans approach disputes with an attitude that all parties are partly wrong and partly right. Disputes are to be resolved in indirect and nonconfrontational ways so that harmony is restored and the relationship between the parties returns to one of harmonious interaction. Koreans have little respect for the law and the legal system and tend to depend upon non‐legal techniques to resolve disputes.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to explore how an accounting association and its key members define, control, and claim their knowledge; adopt a closure and/or openness policy to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how an accounting association and its key members define, control, and claim their knowledge; adopt a closure and/or openness policy to enhance their status/influence; and respond to structural/institutional forces from international organisations and/or the state in a particular historical context, such as a globalised/neo-liberalised setting.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical tools (field, capital, habitus, and doxa) to understand how public sector accrual accounting was defined, and how the Korean Association for Government Accounting was formed and represented as a group with public sector accounting expertise. The research context was the implementation of accrual accounting in South Korea between 1997/1998, when the Asian financial crisis broke out, and 2006/2007, when accrual accounting was enforced by legislation. The authors interviewed social actors recognised as public sector accounting experts, in addition to examining related documents such as articles in academic journals, newsletters, invitations, membership forms, newspaper articles, and curricula vitae.
Findings
The authors found that the key founders of KAGA included some public administration professors, who advocated public sector accrual accounting via civil society groups immediately after Korea applied to the International Monetary Fund for bailout loans and a new government was formed in 1997/1998. In conjunction with public servants, they defined and designed public sector accrual accounting as a measure of public sector reform and as a part of the broader government budget process, rather than as an accounting initiative. They also co-opted accounting professors and CPA-qualified accountants through their personal connections, based on shared educational backgrounds, to represent the association as a public sector accounting experts’ group.
Originality/value
These findings suggest that the study of the accounting profession cannot be restricted to a focus on professional accounting associations and that accounting knowledge can be acquired by non-accountants. Therefore, the authors argue that the relationship between accounting knowledge, institutional forms, and key actors’ strategies is rich and multifaceted.