A Note on the Coherence of New Public Management as a Managerial Philosophy

Abstract

Unlike its forebear, “Progressive-Era” Public Administration, which emphasized the distinctiveness of the public sector and stressed procedural rules to limit discretionary behaviour, New Public Administration (NPM) mirrors the post-Fordist accent on customised outcomes and organisational flexibility by focussing on the “freedom to manage” of public sector executives. Moreover, NPM draws heavily on recent developments in New Institutional Economics (NIE) and often prescribes competitive tendering, corporatisation, privatisation, outsourcing, etc. NPM may thus be described as an amalgam of managerialism and economics. But the question arises as to whether this marriage of ideas does indeed form a coherent body of thought. This paper examines the intellectual unity of NPM and especially its relationship to NIE.