New Public Management

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NPM redirects here. For other uses, see NPM (disambiguation)

[edit] New Public Management

is a management philosophy used by Governments since the 1980s to modernise the Public Sector. New Public management is a broad and very complex term used to describe the wave of public sector reforms throughout the world since the 1980s. Based on public choice and managerial schools of thought new public management seeks to enhance the efficiency of the public sector and the control that government has over it. The main hypothesis in the NPM-reform wave is that more market orientation in the public sector will lead to greater cost-efficiency for governments, without having negative side effects on other objectives and considerations.

Some modern authors define NPM as a combination of disaggregation (splitting large bureaucracies into smaller, more fragmented one), competition (between different public agencies, and between public agencies and private firms) and incentivization (On more economic/pecuniary lines) (see Dunleavy, Margetts et al, 2006) . Defined in this way NPM was the dominant intellectual force in public management outside the USA from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.

NPM, compared to other public management theories, is more oriented towards outcomes and efficiency through better management of public budget. It is considered to be achieved by applying competition, as it is known in the private sector, to organizations of public sector, emphasizing economic and leadership principles. New Public management adresses beneficiaries of public services much like customers (another parallel with the private sector) and conversely citizens as shareholders.

Problems that become causes of this management school have less clarity (the need for greater inspection and supervisory) and miscalculation of public opinion, which does not always seek for mere efficiency but rather political solutions and, more or less always, for a compromise.^{[citation needed]} ("citation needed")

Critics like Dunleavy et al (2006) also now proclaim that NPM is 'dead' and argue that the cutting edge of change has moved on to digital era governance focusing on reintegrating concerns into government control, holistic (or joined-up) government and digitalization (exploiting the Web and digital storage and communication within government).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts et, 'New public management is dead: Long live digital era governance', Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, (July 2006).
The New Public Management and its legacy - World Bank summary of the NPM track record (1990)
Analysis of NPM in one Japanese city