New Public Management

Abstract

New public management (NPM) has fitted public services into quasimarket models and introduced punishments and rewards to produce better services with lesser staff. Instead of having freed energies and creativity of the employees formerly shackled by their bureaucratic turfs, NPM reforms have bound energies into theatrical audit performances at the cost of work and killed creativity in centralizing resources and hollowing out the professional autonomy. Neglecting basic work has affected the sense of self-efficacy of the employees, thus thwarting the main reward of public calling. It cannot be compensated by money (and more money is not available). Fundamental deprivation of the legitimacy of public employees and the inability of the result and quality measurements to cover the contents of their work have traumatized many most-committed employees and driven others toward a Soviet-type double standard. Mutual trust is undermined and Western societies are sliding toward the failed states of Third World in lacking predictability. This tendency may be stopped and win–win situation between public employers, employees, and clients created, if employees could concentrate on the contents of their work (producing happiness) instead of changing organizations and defending themselves by numbers (producing malignant stress).