Provision of public services in an age of managerialism: looking better but feeling worse

Abstract

PurposeThe paper seeks to examine the masculinist assumptions and effects of managerialism on public services through a trifocal model that considers their provision along professional, bureaucratic and managerial dimensions.Design/methodology/approachFor the purpose of this examination, this paper uses the arguments put forward in a recent public debate on the audit culture which enjoyed the participation of a significant number of academic professionals who have experienced it and question its legitimacy, and those in the position of authority who promote and reinforce it. The evidence from this debate suggests that understanding managerialism requires not only an analysis that defines its factor but also a story, because understanding managerialism comes from experience that can be conveyed through accounts of how it feels and not simply by theorising it.FindingsThe paper finds that managerialism, by elevating management to an “ism”, has shifted the focus from performance, which is about results, to conformance with an emphasis on norm‐following behaviour rooted in masculinist ontology. In other words, it has shifted the focus from what professionals can do to what professionals cannot do. It demonstrates that audit, as a symptom of managerialism and as one aspect of managerialist practice, has its origin in the Utopian craving for an imagined ideal public sector. However, when they crystallise into a culture, they can be distorted to such an extent that they conceal more than they reveal with the result that the actual policy pursued is the exact opposite of the professed ideal.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper identifies opportunities for innovation, research and reflection by establishing the need for balancing the professional, bureaucratic and managerial dimensions and considering ways in which these dimensions can be located on their strengths.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests that managerialism cannot be sustained indefinitely as it transforms public sector management from a moral endeavour to a self‐undermining amoral undertaking.Originality/valueThis paper introduces a radical shift in thinking, arguing for an end to managerialism not through a return to what preceded it but with an alternative that represents a way forward.