The Korea Local Administration Review

All the local governments in Korea have strengthened their efforts to accelerate their international interchange with those in foreign countries(with cities) for their regional development and improvement of quality of life of the residents. When local governments internally maintain their distinct characters and externally build proper international base that satisfies diversity of international society, more effective and practical exchanges can be achieved. So, the primary purpose of this study was to analyze the determining factors of the international interchanges of local governments. Moreover, the secondary purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of the international interchanges of local governments. Also, based on the analysis attempts to examine policy implications which may improve quantity and quality of the international interchanges of local governments. The main hypothesis of this study was that the features of international interchanges of local governments are mainly determined by many factors, such as government size, organizational system, CEO(head of the local government) personality characteristics, citizen characteristics, motivation, partnership, environmental factors. The empirical results and implications are as follows. First, the greater organizational system, the greater international interchange. Second, the greater CEO personality characteristics and motivation, the greater international interchange. Third, the greater central government’s support and national consensus, the greater international interchange. As a consequence, this analysis provides some useful policy implications for the international exchanges of local governments in Korea.