The Origins and Main Tools of New Public Management

Kristin Reichborn-Kjennerud
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Kristin Reichborn-Kjennerud: OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University

Chapter Chapter 3 in Sustainable Urban Transitions and New Public Management, 2025, pp 21-36 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Research documents that New Public Management (NPM) has added a new layer of bureaucracy and red tape to the old rule bureaucracy, a so-called hybrid solution, without improving quality. Welfare services often appear as fragmented and system loyal rather than centred around the needs of employees and users of public services. This culminated in the demand for a trust-reform in Norway. This chapter describes the gradual introduction of NPM measures, including the fragmentation of public organizations, the use of competition, incentives, contractual methods, reporting, and documentation. This has led to less trust in employees, less real accountability, risk aversion, and less room for professional discretion. Complex societal results are seldom possible to trace back to measures from isolated public organizations. Therefore, NPM overestimates what is feasible to measure, promises more than it can deliver, and costs more than assumed.

Keywords: New public management; Management by objectives and results; Norway; Scientific management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-82307-7_3

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-82307-7_3

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