공기업의 사회적 가치: 개념과 측정

This paper discusses how to define and measure the social values of public enterprises, which have the characteristics both of for-profit enterprises and of social ones. Traditionally, the concept of social values of for-profit enterprises has long been studied in the form of philanthropy and CSR (corporate social responsibility) that emphasizes the distribution of economic outcomes to their respective communities and a society as a whole while that of social enterprises is somewhat defined differently, depending on what kind of benefits they provide to the communities, and whom they serve since the very reason for their being is to create “social” values. Despite the fact that public enterprises have both the characteristics of for-profit and of social ones, current assessment scheme for them still remains to focus on their CSR activities, which is very similar to that for the for-profit enterprises. In this paper, we argue that the social values of public enterprises should be evaluated in a more balanced manner so that it should consider both aspects of how sound the economic values created by their inherent jobs are, and of how efficient their business processes are for the good of their respective communities. To exemplify our point, a case study is conducted using the data of KORAIL, and a discussion follows.