The purpose of this study is to explore the autonomy of performance-based pay for school teachers in Korea. In order to achieve this objective, two major research studies were conducted. First, this study conceptualized the rationale of autonomy through reviewing the literatures on performance-based pay for school teachers. Second, this study analyzed teachers' and directors' perspectives by conducting a survey and expert group interview. The major findings of this study are as follows: 1) the autonomy and accountability are closely related to the performance-based pay, 2) it is identified the different perspectives among the members. The suggestions to the autonomy of performance-based pay for school teachers are as follows: 1) enhancing accountability, 2) redesigning democratic management process, 3) deliberate considering a group-based performance award system.
Key words : performance-based pay, autonomy, accountability