The emergence of post-NPM initiatives: Integrated Impact Assessment as a hybrid decision-making tool

2017 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Sebastien Marchand ◽  
Maude Brunet
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
National Level ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
New Public ◽  
Administrative Structures ◽  
Decision Making Tool ◽  
Integrated Impact Assessment

Despite the criticism levelled at it, New Public Management (NPM) seems to be enduring. Post-NPM initiatives remain relatively theoretical and are slow to take root at the heart of the governmental apparatus. Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA), a tool for decision-making at national level, seems to be providing new answers. IIA has developed from NPM regulatory relief initiatives, but its objectives and effects are more in line with post-NPM principles. This article aims to explore the concept of IIA, its development and the implications of its institutionalization. A comparative analysis of IIA practice is carried out for four approaches: three at the national level (France, United Kingdom and Switzerland) and one at the supranational level (European Commission). IIA appears as a hybrid NPM and post-NPM tool, the use of which allows the implementation of certain post-NPM principles. The article concludes on future avenues for research. Points for practitioners Administrations often have to deal with issues related to evidence-based decision-making, transparency and the proliferation of statutory sectoral impact assessments. In a context of limited resources, Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) can be an attractive solution. However, a careful analysis of its development makes it possible to better understand what its institutionalization actually implies. The practice of IIA makes it possible to systematize consultation with stakeholders, but varies according to the methods used and the administrative structures in place. IIA could serve as a decision-making tool that adds a public interest component and better reflect public values in a decision-making situation.

About New Public Management Practices in Russian Universities (on Results of Field Studies)

Upravlenie ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-67
Author(s):  
Ломовицкая ◽  
V. Lomovitskaya ◽  
Хватова ◽  
T. Khvatova ◽  
Душина ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
New Public ◽  
Control Department ◽  
And Control ◽  
Russian Universities

New public management practices in prestigious universities are researched in this paper. Based on the field study — higher-education teaching personnel (HETP) interrogation — problem areas related to university managerialism policy have been revealed. It has been shown, that the administrative machine and control department extension, as well as low level of professorship involvement in decision-making destroy the academic autonomy and create a latent conflict between managers and HETP.

scholarly journals ADMINISTRACIÓN PÚBLICA Y REFORMAS JURÍDICAS: ¿HACIA DÓNDE VA LA BUROCRACIA? (PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND LEGAL REFORMS: WHERE IS THE BUREAUCRACY GOING?)

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (16) ◽  
pp. 54-77
Author(s):  
Luis Fernando Villafuerte Valdés ◽  
Dulce Yaneth López Romero
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
The Public ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
New Public ◽  
Toma De Decisiones

Resumen: El objetivo del artículo es reflexionar teóricamente acerca de la transformación del modelo de administración pública en México, en el que se marca un retorno hacia la vieja burocracia tradicional. Primero, analizamos las principales teorías de la administración pública, tales como la burocracia tradicional, así como la nueva gestión pública. Luego hacemos referencia al neopopulismo y la reavivación de las prácticas de la burocracia tradicional. Concluimos que es fallida la involución en el modelo de administración pública toda vez que ya no contamos con la abundancia de recursos que se tenían en la década de los setentas, tales como el petróleo. También, es posible concluir que este retroceso en el modelo de administración pública no se apega estrictamente al modelo weberiano, toda vez que no hay cumplimiento de la racionalidad administrativa, sino que destacan el autoritarismo, la centralización en la toma de decisiones y el patrimonialismo.Abstrac: The objective of the article is to reflect theoretically about the transformation of the public administration model in Mexico, in which a clear return to the old model of traditional bureaucracy is visualized. First, we analyze the main theories of public administration, such as traditional bureaucracy and new public management. Then we refer to neopopulism and the revival of the practices of the old traditional bureaucracy. We conclude that the involution in the public administration model is failed since we no longer have the abundance of resources that existed in the seventies, such as Petroleum. Also, it is possible to conclude that this setback in the public administration model does not strictly adhere to the Weberian model, since there is no compliance with administrative rationality, highlighting authoritarianism, centralization in decision-making and patrimonialism.

Transparency and Information Disclosure in E-Government

2011 ◽  
pp. 1566-1571
Author(s):  
D. Zinnbaur
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Due Process ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
The Internet ◽  
New Public ◽  
Use Of The Internet

The advent of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), in particular the Internet, has inspired bold scenarios about a new era of democratic governance and political empowerment that these technologies of freedom make possible. Most visions and strategic frameworks for e-government posit that this paradigm of citizen empowerment can be advanced in two ways: 1. By harnessing new ICTs in order to make the provision of government services more accountable and responsive to customers’ needs. 2. By harnessing new ICTs in order to decentralize and disintermediate collective decision-making. The first path, which could be called e-services, is influenced greatly by the theories of new public management, the zeitgeist flavor in thinking about public administration. New public management focuses on lean government. It conceptualizes the working of public administrations as a customer-service provider relationship, where a lean management team is tasked to put our tax money to work in order to produce those few services that the market cannot deliver. E-services, in this view, will advance democratic empowerment, because they involve the streamlining of government bureaucracies; because they can be deployed more efficiently and more flexibly and can be targeted; and because they limit the scope for abusing bureaucratic power by allowing customers to take greater control of the timing, format, and monitoring of due process in public service provision. The second path, which could be called e-democracy, subsumes the various plebiscitary uses of the Internet that have been put on the map by advocates of direct democracy and now are featured in many official e-government visions and strategies. Initiatives in this area include online voting, online polls, online deliberations, and use of the Internet to contact civil servants or legislators directly (Barber, 1998; Norris, 2002). New ICTs in this context are anticipated to engage individual stakeholders more directly in decision-making processes, to enhance the effectiveness of plebiscitary instruments, and to cut out intermediaries and reconnect citizens more closely with their elected representatives. Taken together, these two dominant themes of e-democracy and e-services constitute the main paradigm for envisioning what role the Internet can play in democratic governance and what public policies should be crafted in order to make this happen. Governments all over the world have bought into these concepts, some enthusiastically and some more reluctantly. But all of them appear to accept these dominant expectations of how the Internet ought to transform governance. E-services and e-democracy have become the public yardstick for performance and symbolic legitimacy. Adding to their persuasiveness is the fact that e-services and e-democracy complement each other ideally. They share a more fundamental suspicion of big government and seize upon the Internet to reassert individual freedom and self determination by making governments lean and by disintermediating deliberation and decision making. This convergence in large parts of the e-government community around a techno-libertarian value framework also is aligned closely with and, thus, reinforced by similar sentiments in the Internet developers’ and early adopters’ communities. With regard to Internet use in the trailblazing U.S. context, Norris (2001) finds that “users proved significantly more right-wing than non-users concerning the role of the welfare state and government regulation of business and the economy”. This wariness with regard to regulatory intervention is not confined to the Internet but reflects a long-standing suspicion against politicizing technologies (MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1999).

Management Through Metrics

2021 ◽  
pp. 143-152
Author(s):  
Rob Kitchin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Management Regime ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
New Public ◽  
Private Sector Organizations ◽  
Public And Private Sector ◽  
The Uk

This chapter studies how public and private sector organizations are increasingly using key performance indicators (KPIs) and technocratic procedures to manage work and workers and its consequences. Since the 1980s and the introduction of new public management (NPM) — an approach to running public sector institutions in a more business-like way — various kinds of assessment have been introduced to measure and track performance. Usually, these measures are institutionalized through formalized assessment schemes designed to improve efficiency, productivity, and quality. An entire bureaucracy has developed to oversee this datafication, and the management of institutions has transformed to become more instrumental and technocratic, guided by metrics. Decisions concerning individual promotion, departmental staffing and budgets, and strategic investments are informed by KPIs and rankings. In places like the UK and Australia, management through metrics has become deeply ingrained into the working lives of academics and the management of institutions. While Ireland has managed to avoid the worst excesses of management through metrics, it has not been totally immune. KPIs are now a part of the management regime and are used to guide decision-making, but they are used alongside other forms of information rather than narrowly determining outcomes.

Assessing impediments to NPM change

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Steane ◽  
Yvon Dufour ◽  
Donald Gates
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Public Services ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Disruptive Innovation ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Managers ◽  
Main Work ◽  
New Public

Purpose – When new public management (NPM) emerged in the mid-1980s, most governments such as New Zealand, Australia and Canada embraced it as a better way to provide public services. A more recent assessment of NPM would conclude that its appeal has faded. The purpose of this paper is to assess the serious impediments to NPM-inspired change. Design/methodology/approach – The literature is diffuse, and therefore its insights have been limited by the lack of synthesis. In this paper the authors set out to synthesize the main work already available. Findings – Change, such as breaking up large public sector hierarchies, or developing internal market-like competition and contracting out public services is indeed disruptive. Such change cannot be achieved without shifting decision-making processes, disrupting existing roles and working relationships and leaving some confusion and uncertainty among staff. Many of the changes feature numerous levels of ill-defined processes, ongoing multi-layered and complex decision making, and no easily agreed or clear path to resolution. Originality/value – The terms “wicked problem” and “disruptive innovation” are increasingly familiar to public managers and policy makers. This paper argues that managing NPM-style change represented yet another wicked problem in managing public organizations. The authors set out to synthesize the main work available, and in so doing, frame the various attributes of NPM-inspired change – five basic parts, five types of uncertainty and five fragmenting forces. The conceptual framework suggests hypotheses as the basis for further research.

scholarly journals Nomination vs. election: do they influence women’s access to institutional decision-making bodies?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Diogo ◽  
Teresa Carvalho ◽  
Zélia Breda
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Gender Balance ◽  
New Public ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Vertical Segregation ◽  
Portuguese Higher Education ◽  
The Way

Abstract Portuguese higher education institutions (HEIs) are excellent case-studies of women representation in academia, considering their significant presence and rapid growth in HEIs. Nevertheless, and despite efforts to minimise gender gaps, women are still underrepresented in top management and leading positions, contributing to increment the phenomenon of vertical segregation. Based on the reality of the Portuguese academia, and focusing on an in-depth case study of a Portuguese university, this paper analyses if and how the way decision-making bodies are constituted, influence the gender balance of their members. Recently, within the New Public Management (NPM) context, HEIs have been subjected to external pressures to create a new organisational environment aiming at substituting the collegial model of governance with a managerial one. In this context, there has been a trend to replace the election by the nomination as the dominant process to occupy decision-making positions. The opening hypothesis of this study is that the way decision-making bodies are constituted, impacts on their gender balance. More specifically, it is argued that the nomination process tends to be more advantageous to women than the election. However, although it is possible to conclude that the gender balance decreases with the increasing importance of the decision-making body, it is not accurate to say that there is a direct relationship between the way actors are chosen to these bodies and their gender balance. In other words, the way actors are chosen can not be seen as the only factor influencing the gender constitution of decision-making bodies. The study provides a relevant contribution to the literature on mechanisms and strategies to improve gender equality in institutional decision-making processes and bodies.

"Jedes starre Konzept ist schlecht und passt net' in diese Welt"

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (148) ◽  
pp. 369-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Ludwig-Mayerhofer ◽  
Ariadne Sondermann ◽  
Olaf Behrend
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Unemployed People ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Public Employment Service ◽  
New Public ◽  
Recent Reform ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
New Procedures

The recent reform of the Bundesagentur fijr Arbeit, Germany's Public Employment Service (PES), has introduced elements of New Public Management, including internal controlling and attempts at standardizing assessments ('profiling' of unemployed people) and procedures. Based on qualitative interviews with PES staff, we show that standardization and controlling are perceived as contradicting the 'case-oriented approach' used by PES staff in dealing with unemployed people. It is therefore not surprising that staff members use considerable discretion when (re-)assigning unemployed people to one of the categories pre-defined by PES headquarters. All in all, the new procedures lead to numerous contradictions, which often result in bewilderment and puzzlement on the part of the unemployed.

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