The Korea Local Administration Review

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the role of institutional logic in institutional change through case analysis of local government system and evaluation. Recently, in order to explain institutional change, historical institutionalism has been focused on the endogenous causes that exist within the system itself, and the study using institutional logic is also applicable. Institutional logic refers to the social organization and historical patterning of practices, values, beliefs and rules related to the formation and change of policies and institutions. This study analyzed the characteristics and patterns of changes in the evaluation system of local public enterprises by applying the institutional logic. As a result, the management evaluation system of local public enterprises is changing to reflect the change of the governmental ideology, public institution reform, local autonomy system and local public enterprise system. The local public enterprise evaluation system was influenced by the complex institutional logic of efficiency, control, decentralization and autonomy in the higher system. Institutional changes were made to harmonize the conflicts and compatibility between the coexisting institutional logics. In particular, the system was evolving in the direction of suppressing the autonomy of the evaluator in the evaluation due to the prevailing control and efficiency.