- A Case of the Regional Innovation of the Cheese Valley Project in Imsil-Gun -
The study on policy network is mainly focused on the policy of the central government. The method of approaching to the network also mainly focuses on the description such as relation between policy makers, their influence, and information exchange. The study on policy network should be focused on local government as well as the central government. It should be more than just the description on the relation between policy makers. It requires more practical analysis. Thus, the goal of this study is to practically analyze the relation and interaction between policy makers that participate in the cheese valley project of Imsil county. To achieve the goal, it used UCINET, the social network analysis program, based on analyzing books and performing surveys. It visualized the relation between policy makers and practically analyzed it. It will briefly show the results that are checked and analyzed in each chapter of this study.
First, chapter 2 showed the concept, characteristics and components of policy network that are mainly discussed in the analysis of the policy network. It also studied the concept, characteristics and types of local innovation system. It also explained the basic components, structure and analysis elements to understand the relation between local innovation and social network analysis.
Chapter 3 showed the status of agricultural and dairy industry of Imsil county, the background of cheese valley project, its vision and goal, main idea of the project, and environmental analysis of cheese valley project. It studied how the basic infrastructure for the cheese project in Imsil county is formed and why Imsil county is involved in cheese valley project.
Chapter 4 shows that the policy makers for Imsil cheese valley project is composed of 7 groups such as the central governmental departments, local governments, college and research centers, producers, governmental institutions and foundations, local communities and branches, and media organizations. It analyzed the relation among them. It also analyzed the relation and interaction between local innovation associations, cheese valley operation committee and local cooperation association. It analyzed the type of information and its frequency dividing them into two groups: a group to provide information and a group to receive information.
Imsil county leads the operation of local innovation association and cheese valley operation committee, but outside professionals of local cooperation association positively participate in Imsil cheese valley project. Many organizations have relations with one another making the network concentration very low. Information providers mainly give information on consulting, project participation and dairy environmental improvement. The information receivers mainly received information on project checking and estimation, education and data provision. So it was found that the level and quality of information should be improved.
Chapter 5 generally summarized the theoretical discussion and practical analysis of the study and suggested a policy for obtaining usefulness of policy network utilization at local governments and the successful development of Imsil cheese valley project.
The existing network analysis mainly described the relation. This study is meaningful as it visualized the relation between policy makers that participate in Imsil cheese valley and analyzed the direction of relation, density, relation focus and network concentration by applying network concept as a method through practical analysis for policy network of a local government. It can not only understand the dynamics of policy makers in the course of processing Imsil cheese valley project but also understand the policy makers that play main roles and analyze the strength.