This is a summary of the book 'Public Management: Performance, Professionalism, Politics' written by Noordegraaf.
The summary covers all chapters and consists of the most important parts of each chapter.
The abstract is 75 pages long and has an interactive table of contents (click on a chapt...
,Chapter 1 Introduction
In most Western countries, public and non-profit organizations are managed in such a way as to
optimize performance. Public and non-profit organizations have left their bureaucratic features
behind and have adopted businesslike management tools in order to become more effective, efficient
and accountable. This is known as ‘new public management’ (NPM) or businesslike management – a
collection of insights and instruments used to generate controlled organizational action.
Organizational performances are improved by strategic planning and management; by setting clear
targets; by planning and control systems; by monitoring techniques and quality control; and by tools
like cost–benefit analysis, (key) performance indicators, customer satisfaction ratings and service level
agreements. Market conditions are established by creating marketlike playing fields, with
competitive pressures and price-based relations between supply and demand. All of this fits a
neoliberal climate in which managerialism reigns, that is, the ideological awareness that managerial
and market logics produce low-cost and high-quality services.
Performance, but also professionalism and politics
These very same public and non-profit organizations, however, are also managed in such a way as to
resist performance pressures and strengthen professionalism. Most policy organizations and public
and non-profit services, as indeed many private companies, depend on knowledge and expertise as
well as professional operating cores for devising policies and delivering services. Professional
standards not only generate viable work environments; they also buffer services against the
dominance of cost-effectiveness and productivity.
Merely strengthening knowledge and professionalism is problematic, however, as expert
work and professional acts and values do not automatically generate appropriate strategies and
services. Public and nonprofit organizations must also be managed to serve political purposes, which
go beyond businesslike performance and professional values. Public organizations are stimulated to
create what is known as public value. They must identify stakeholders, ‘join up’ with other
organizations, operate in networks, including transnational networks, establish collaborative
governance and co-create services with the public, in order to get things done and secure legitimacy.
Osborne et al. even speak of the ‘era of new public governance’ (NPG) embodying the ideal of
valuable services that are co-produced in alliances between various stakeholders.
Coping with competing logics
Instead of proposing ‘one best way’ of managing public and non-profit organizations – whether new
public management, new public governance or any other theory – this book shows there are many
public management theories and multiple ways of managing in public and non-profit organizations.
There is no single best way of organizing. This book stresses the need for interplay. Competing
logics can be used to generate less single-minded and more intelligent or reflexive managerial action.
Logics can be contrasted and connected in various ways, depending on situations and circumstances,
which opens up many avenues for professional public management. The book has three objectives:
1. To describe the rise of public management and clarify why this can be interpreted as the rise
of multiple logics;
2. To describe the theoretical background of these logics and explain why they are inherently
contested;
3. To show how organizations and managers can deal with these competing logics, depending
on contexts, situations and practices.
Public management
All logics and the theories that ground public management have one thing in common: they
underscore the importance of managing. The functioning of public and non-profit organizations is
,affected by identifiable acts of managers and their reliance on mechanisms for changing, adapting
and improving aspects of organization, varying from organizational structures and routines to
climates and cultures.
Traditionally, management is defined as getting things done through others. Getting things
done implies that certain resources are used to create joint action. Joint action implies the
coordination of social action, not only inside but also outside organizations, aimed at establishing
health care, welfare and safety. Outside action is important, as it provides objectives and projects
public needs that the organization will have to accommodate in one way or another. This means we
can define public management as:
The use of organizational resources in and by public and non-profit organizations to
coordinate social efforts, so that objectives can be accomplished and public needs are met.
It has become important because society expects public and non-profit organizations to be managed
consciously, as they face challenging problems and tasks.
Theories, logics and practices
Instead of seeking for the essence or ‘core’ of public management, this book will argue that public
management lacks a clear essence. Because real issues out there come in different sizes and shapes,
because organizational action differs from situation to situation, and because public needs are
ambiguous and contested, management approaches will be differentiated. Organizations and
managers need sets of insights, skills and experiences – repertoires – that enable them to improve
organized action in appropriate ways.
We distinguish three major logics:
performance, professional and political logic. In
terms of our basic definition of public management,
these logics differ in terms of:
a. Which resources are predominantly used;
b. Which objectives and public needs are taken
into account;
c. What social action is coordinated and how
coordination takes place;
d. Which values are served by relying on
resources and social coordination.
The book will show the importance of situational
awareness: contexts and situations are important for
understanding the nature of public management, that is, which resources are used, what needs are
met, how social action is coordinated, and which values are served. The book will stress the
importance of linking knowing about logics to doing and dealing with logics. It will show how
different practices enact different managerial worlds, with different interactions, demands and
rhythms, calling for different styles and behaviors.
, Chapter 2 The rise of public management
Examples and beyond
Policing has clearly managerialized: most police forces are structured along the lines of executive and
managerial principles. They have a clear strategic apex, with a police chief who acts as CEO and often
police chiefs who perform CFO and CIO roles. They have units or divisions that have to produce police
activities and establish results, either in certain urban areas or regions, or with respect to certain
tasks or challenges (such as cybercrime or riots). These divisions are led by managers who are held
responsible for these results and for the budgets that are used to produce results. They have
management development programmes to strengthen these managers; they have client satisfaction
ratings and benchmarking systems in order to trace and compare results.
Policymaking nowadays has become a matter of strict definition, with a strong focus on
SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) plans and methods and systematic
desires for transparent and measurable outcomes. This happens in tightly controlled policy
organizations that are linked to political decision processes in which facts, evidence and objectivity
are valued highly.
Getting beyond examples
It is difficult to capture public management in strict and definitive terms. To begin with, public
management is both a practical phenomenon – including terms and instruments – and an academic
way of perceiving practices. It refers to real-life aspects of designing and running public organizations,
including people who act as ‘managers’. But it also refers to analytical perspectives on actual and
potential practical aspects of designing and running public organizations.
Definitions and meanings of public management
Nobody ‘owns’ public management, so there will be many interpretations of what it is and what it
looks like. It has a lot to do with combining resources, efficiency and discipline.
Internal or external?
Management theories might focus on how organizations are run and how they establish internal
discipline or other important internal values. Theories might also focus on how organizations get
things done externally: how they establish results in simple or complex environments. This variety is
highly relevant in case of public management, as public and non-profit organizations do not operate
for their own sake.
Narrow or broad?
How things get done through others, either internally or externally, can be elaborated in many ways
and these ways are not necessarily restricted to efficiency and discipline. Maintaining order means
administering things; influencing and changing order means managing things. Management then is
linked to leadership and (institutional) values: to setting direction and safeguarding certain values,
also in the light of change. Administration is static, management is dynamic. Leadership might be set
apart from management and might be seen as even more dynamic, for example, when management
is defined as ‘doing things right’ and leadership as ‘doing the right things’.
Products or processes?
The tools of management (instruments, techniques) and the products of management (outputs) may
be contrasted with the processes that occur when policy issues or public services are managed. This
has theoretical consequences, as the complexities of management processes or managing things calls
for an emphasis on practices and activities, as well as appropriate concepts.
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