Managing Public Service Professionals Under New Public Management

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the effects of management ideas. In particular, it examines the transformation of the work situation of public service professionals generated by the core ideas associated with New Public Management (NPM). This change creatively absorbed management ideas such as ‘culture’, ‘leadership’, and ‘network’ and, overall, represented a paradigm shift in the meaning and relevance of ‘public service’. While NPM has undergone a series of reformulations—as technocratic, managerial, and neo-liberal—it continues to shape the institutional landscape in which public service professionals are embedded. In doing so, it presents them with a series of existential challenges to their occupational authority and identity that threaten to undermine their organizational power and control.