Four Ideal Type Organizational Responses To NPM Reforms and Some Consequences - 2005

International Review of Administrative Sciences
http://ras.sagepub.com Four ideal-type organizational responses to New Public Management reforms and some consequences
Tor Hernes International Review of Administrative Sciences 2005; 71; 5 DOI: 10.1177/0020852305051680 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ras.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/71/1/5
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
International Institute of Administrative Sciences
Additional services and information for International Review of Administrative Sciences can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ras.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ras.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations (this article cites 9 articles hosted on the SAGE Journals Online and HighWire Press platforms): http://ras.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/71/1/5
Downloaded from http://ras.sagepub.com at LAWRENCE INST OF TECH LIBRARY on August 28, 2007 2005 International Institute of Administrative Sciences. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
International Review of Administrative Sciences

Four ideal-type organizational responses to New Public Management reforms and some consequences Tor Hernes
Abstract With its dual focus on service and accountability, New Public Management (NPM) accentuates the inherent tension between the logics of service and accountability respectively in local public administration. The present article explores, from an organization theory perspective, possible organizational responses to tensions created by the introduction of NPM. The article identifies four possible ideal-type organizational responses to NPM. First, paralysis, whereby unresolved conflict leads to a stand-off situation between management and staff. Second, ritualistic decoupling, in the sense of decoupling between espoused and enacted practices. Third, loose coupling between functions and individuals. Fourth, organic adaptation, whereby the tension is handled constructively through internal structural and cultural differentiation. Possible causes and consequences of each of these responses for management are discussed.
The organizational dilemma posed by NPM

New Public Management (NPM) may be defined broadly as a set of ideas and methods that aim to combine accountability and efficiency in public administration. Efficiency is sought through methods such as decentralization of authority to the technical levels while ensuring accountability to society at large. Alternatively, it may imply the creation of market mechanisms for the delivery of services, such as contracting out. There is no real unifying definition of what these ideas and methods are but, for this article, it is retained that NPM represents a dual focus on service to the public and accountability to society at large. The traditional dual role of public administration is both to be at the service of the local community and to enforce legislation and standards stipulated by the political
Tor Hernes is Professor at the Norwegian School of Management BI, Oslo, and adjunct Professor at Oslo University College.
Copyright 2005 IIAS, SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) Vol 71(1):517 [DOI:10.1177/0020852305051680]
6 International Review of Administrative Sciences 71(1)
system at the wish of society as a whole. Service implies proximity to the local population. It implies communication and readiness to serve locals as customers. Service implies attention to individual needs. It requires flexibility and the application of expertise in technical and social matters. In other words, it requires local authority agents to engage with the citizen as an individual and not just as a member of a community. At an organizational level, this implies responsibility devolved to professionals, which again increases their scope for influence on institutional decisionmaking processes as well as the distribution of organizational resources. Accountability, in contrast, implies distance. It implies, in the spirit of Webers bureaucracy, treatment based on objective, common criteria, in order to achieve equitable fairness of treatment: It is decisive for the modern loyalty to an office that, in the pure form, it does not establish a relationship to a person (Weber, 1968: 959; emphasis in the original). Whereas agents in a service logic are expected to practice professional expertise, in an accountability logic agents are expected to practice administrative expertise. In the former logic, citizens are served, in the latter the relations between citizens and agents are administered. At an organizational level, the basis of the service tends to be contact (bottom-up), whereas the basis of accountability tends towards surveillance (top-down). Studies of public administration point out the inherent tensions caused by the introduction of NPM logics (e.g. Lynn, 1998; Aucoin and Heintzmann, 2000). Aucoin and Heintzmann (2000), for example, point to obvious tensions between accountability and performance. They conclude from their study that accountability is no guarantee for performance, yet performance can but with difficulty come about without accountability. A classic study of inherent tensions is that by Kaufman (1967) of rangers in the US forest service. Kaufman points out how the forest service fostered a strong internal cohesion in order to help the forest rangers operating alone in local communities to resist the centrifugal forces from the local community. Kaufmans solution is the fostering of culture; however, culture is an uncertain and unpredictable way of obtaining intended results across the board of many agencies of public administration. NPM is, first and foremost, a structural intervention with a system of formal and tangible criteria and mechanisms aiming to increase efficiency and accountability. Although there are relatively few studies to date focusing explicitly on the organizational tensions following in the wake of the introduction of NPM, there are signs that NPM tends to exacerbate tensions between the logics of service and accountability. A study by Hjlund and la Cour (2003) of the reform of elderly care in Danish local government suggests that when accountability was introduced through standardized and centralized procedures, tensions and ambiguity arose, leading to disruptive conflict. In this particular case, the logic was changed from a typical elderly care system based on personal contact and trust between client and agent towards a system where the contact was governed by contracts which were again monitored by the administration. Frustration arose from agents having to cope with incompatibility between the traditional institutional norms of care, on the one hand, and regulatory demands, on the other hand (Hjlund and la Cour, 2003: 286). In this case, the frustrations went beyond the local organizational context and caused repercussions in media, eventually leading to a hearing in the Copenhagen City Council. Hovdal (2004), from a study of local reform in Norway, points towards a similar phenomeDownloaded from http://ras.sagepub.com at LAWRENCE INST OF TECH LIBRARY on August 28, 2007 2005 International Institute of Administrative Sciences. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
Hernes Four ideal-type organizational responses to NPM 7
non. With the introduction of NPM, strong tensions arose between professionals and administrators. Hovdals study suggests that the local organization could not find a way out of the tensions, leading to stand-off and partial paralysis. It is not surprising that the introduction of NPM causes disruption in the form of aggravation of tensions between the logics of service and accountability. Vabo (2000) suggests, for example, that managerial methods may cause reluctance among politicians because strategic leadership implies a withdrawal from the habitual proximal style of managing. Studies so far, however, are not conclusive about the types of organizational reactions that are made in response to the introduction of NPM. The studies mentioned earlier focus more on the reactions among staff and the corresponding organizational consequences. At a more aggregate level of analysis, it is possible to conceptualize organizational responses to the introduction of NPM. Such works have a long history in organization theory, where a wealth of studies have been undertaken to understand organizational responses to changes in the environment. Of particular relevance for public organizations have been studies focusing on the tension between the need for legitimacy and for efficiency. In this tradition, we find work by Meyer and Rowan (1977), showing how public organizations effectively decoupled their structures in order to appear legitimate to the outside environment while at the same time solving their problems of efficiency. This is done by maintaining a faade reflecting the prevailing rationalized myths of good organization. Inside the organizations, however, the actual state of the organization tended to be different and more oriented towards the tasks at hand. Works such as that by Meyer and Rowan have been largely influential, particularly in the study of public reform. They work well as a generalized set of explanations, applied to a wide range of settings. For studying the effects of a coherent approach such as NPM, it is possible, indeed desirable, to consider several possible types of organizational responses, of which the decoupling response is one. In the present article, four different responses are discussed, one of which is the ritualistic decoupling observed by Meyer and Rowan (1977). The other three responses are referred to as paralysis, loose coupling and organic adaptation. The responses are seen as ideal-type responses, which means that they are conceptualized as distinct from each other. In practice, of course, organizational responses will tend to be hybrids of the ideal-types.
Three ways of conceptualizing public sector reform

Organizational reform may be conceptualized as taking place in three different ways: as internal reform, as the adoption of a new approach or as a reproduction of a particular organizational logic across institutional contexts. A simple schematic representation is shown in Figure 1. Each of these ways implies a different way of conceptualizing the relationship between organization and reform, between reform attempts and outcomes, between actors and attempts. Each way implies, in particular, a different way of conceptualizing how reform attempts tie in with the organizational structure. When organizational change is seen as internal reform, the focus is on how
8 International Review of Administrative Sciences 71(1) Figure 1 Three ways of conceptualizing organizational reform
Diffusion to different institutions Internal reform Reproduction across institutional contexts
management plans and implements change programmes. Examples are shown by Brunsson and Olsen (1990), for example, in the case of reform at the Swedish Railway Corporation. Brunsson and Olsen show how attempts at introducing ideas from the private sector in order to make the railway corporation more efficient and user-friendly stranded, largely due to failure on the part of top management to understand the power of the existing cultural mechanisms to thwart reform attempts. Brunsson and Olsen also point out that reform was difficult because senior management was impatient with the introduction of reforms. They point out an interesting paradox in that whereas the reforms themselves were rooted in a rationalist view of organizational change, the reform attempts themselves had a good dose of irrationality, notably in the perception of the time and resources needed to change the prevailing institutional culture. Their finding corresponds to Moes (1994) argument in the case of NPM that its successful introduction depends on a corresponding shift of culture and behaviour (Moe, 1994), a main reason being that NPM represents not just a set of techniques but also a particular form of management culture. The perspective of internal reform focuses typically on factors appropriate to the organization in question, such as its history, leadership, culture and power balances. The outcomes of analyses tend to focus on whether or not a reform led to the desired results and the extent to which it did or did not is explained by the interaction between the reform, senior management and the institution, represented by influential groups or their embedded practices. A second view of conceptualizing organizational reform is based on the idea that organization and management concepts travel across institutional contexts and are adopted partially or wholly. An early study of the spreading of particular methods is Fligsteins (1985) study of the diffusion of the M-form in firms between 1919 and 1979, in which he suggests that the spread of the M-form is partly explained by strategy but also by imitation. Whereas Fligstein studied corporations in the private sector, numerous studies from an adoption perspective are undertaken in the public sector. Rieder and Lehmann (2002), for example, describe at what levels NPM reforms have taken hold in Switzerland. They show how certain elements of NPM
have penetrated in certain functions and levels whereas others have not. Such works are useful in that they provide a topography of how methods of organization and management are received over time and space. Studies focusing on adoption exhibit two analytical characteristics that distinguish them from internal reform studies discussed earlier. First, institutional characteristics are of lesser importance, as explanatory weight is accorded more to the characteristics of the reform concept than to institutional traits. A conceptualization is provided by, for example, Rvik (1996, 2002) of what enables some models to be adopted among great numbers of institutions in a relatively short space of time. Explanations of how and why concepts of organization and management spread are found more in the traits of the concepts and factors in the institutional environment. For example, Lynn (1996) suggests that NPM is a concept that fits with our modern conception of the world, with efficiency, competition and customer focus: At the very least, proponents might argue, we are witnessing structuration of the international administrative field, as sociologists might put it, under the spreading influence of public choice doctrines or of a revived business-based managerialism (Lynn, 1996). A second analytical characteristic of such studies is the assumption that as far as they are adopted by institutions the adoption is a matter of strategic choice (e.g. Lane, 2000). Whereas explanations may vary about whether the choice is based on needs for legitimacy or efficiency, choice is made by central managers or decision-makers who are assumed to exercise the authority to decide on behalf of the organization. In such studies, little weight is accorded to the individual institution, its history, leadership, culture or power balances. A third way of conceptualizing public sector reform is to study the dynamics by which practices actually reproduce themselves across institutions. Concepts do not merely extend in a linear fashion; they also continually reproduce themselves. A case in point in organization theory is the enormous extension of bureaucracy in the 20th century. Bureaucracy, in a Weberian sense, entails the framing of activity over time and space by the use of formal rules. Such binding of resources enables stability and predictability in a way that appeals to management and organization members alike. Webers argument for bureaucracy, and also his fear of bureaucracy, was its popularity and functional appeal. This is incontestably an important explanation of its adoption. The more companies and public agencies are subjected to standards ranging from accounting to quality, safety and equality (Brunsson and Jacobsson, 2000), the more alike and widespread such mechanisms also become. Whereas the mechanisms may be dominant, they are reproduced inside the organizational boundaries in the form of structures that perform according to the logics of bureaucracy. Hence, in order for a concept to extend, it needs to be capable of reproduction, i.e. to be able to evolve recursively over time and space. This is, for example, a tenet of Bourdieu and Passerons (1977) well-known study of the French educational system, in which they demonstrate how structure and class relations are reproduced socially across institutions of society. When organizing concepts are reproduced in an institution, we are looking at a set of idealized practices that encounter an existing set of arrangements. Some arrangements will be upset or threatened by the arrival of new principles, which will lead to a certain degree of deflection. In the case of NPM reform, for example, we can expect such responses at the levels of practitioners, who tend to see their work as geared
towards local needs and that these should not be interfered with by administrators. Other existing arrangements are closer to the principles of NPM, such as monitoring, evaluation and financial planning. For arrangements such as these, resistance and deflection may be considered to take place to a much lesser extent. Organizational responses may also be related to national public administration cultures. Karkatsoulis (2000) suggests, for example, that the introduction of benchmarking stands a better chance of succeeding in public administration in AngloSaxon countries, where there is a stronger tradition of competition and where the state is more subsidiary in character. A study of reform from the point of view of reproduction between institutions is done by studying the interaction between a general concept of organizing with an existing institutional environment with its history, actors, beliefs and practices. Such a perspective cannot afford to ignore either the principles of the reform or the particularities of individual institutions, because the dynamics of adoption takes place as concepts reproduce themselves across institutional boundaries. The remaining part of this article will concentrate on a perspective of production of concepts between institutions. The focus is on the possible organizational responses that NPM may generate as it is reproduced across institutional boundaries. Four ideal-type organizational responses are considered: paralysis, ritualistic decoupling, loose coupling and organic adaptation. These four categories of organizational response allow for degrees of adaptation to NPM reforms.
Paralysis
Smith (1995) lists eight unintended consequences that may result from the introduction of monitoring systems, one of which is ossification or paralysis. Paralysis refers essentially to an inability to take action or implement new procedures. Paralysis is not an inherent quality of any organization but it is a contingent condition. This means that, in the face of certain changes, paralysis may occur whereas under other circumstances adaptation may happen. Paralysis, then, is a response rather than a quality in itself. A range of different factors may trigger paralysis. Studies of organizational change show, for example, that when different reform attempts happen too often, the result is a tiring of the institution and subsequent paralysis. In the case of NPM, it is likely that paralysis also depends on the extent to which 1 it threatens the existing organizing modes and 2 those who risk being negatively affected by the reform are aware of this; and 3 those who are at risk are able to bring to halt or otherwise impair organizational practices and functions so that reform becomes extremely difficult. The first of these factors is mentioned by Karkatsoulis (2000) as the possible cause of organizational paralysis. His point is that incompatibility between old and new values may cause confusion and organizational paralysis. Whereas Karkatsoulis bases his observations on the introduction of reform in the Greek public sector, a similar concern is voiced from study of Dutch public agencies. Van Thiel and Leeuw (2002) suggest that paralysis is one of several unintended consequences of the introduction
of performance measures in public administration. Van Thiel and Leeuw, being mainly concerned with the paradoxes of monitoring as well the fact that monitoring produces unintended consequences, are less concerned with the internal mechanisms actually producing paralysis. Neither of these two studies, however, concern themselves with the internal behavioural mechanisms of paralysis. In a study of the introduction of NPM into a small local administration in Norway, Hovdal (2004) reports on the behavioural aspects of organizational paralysis. At the outset, the management team wanted to reform the administration in two ways. First, they aimed at introducing NPM practices of monitoring and managerial control. Second, they aimed at fostering a culture of communication and trust between managers and professionals. After two years, there was a situation of stalemate and paralysis in the administration. A curious phenomenon arose whereby attempts to create trust actually produced mistrust. Consequently, in this void of noncommunication and non-collaboration, further measures became difficult to introduce. This example shows the importance of trust. Hovdals study also shows that those who work against the reform matter. In his study, middle managers felt threatened by it, opposed it and enlisted others in their resistance, thus creating a stand-off situation. Thus, paralysis results, maybe not just from an unwillingness to resolve tensions but also from an inability to resolve tensions. It is a particular behavioural situation where attempts to resolve the tensions actually aggravate them rather than ease them. It is inevitably an interpersonal problem where major actors in the institution do not enjoy sufficient mutual trust in order to resolve thorny issues.
Ritualistic decoupling
A large body of institutional theory has, over the last three decades, paid increasing attention to the ritual character of public institutions. Meyer and Rowans (1977) article can be seen as an important contribution to the understanding of how a formal structure is both a means of instrumental efficiency and a ritual act of adopting socially legitimized prescriptions for formal organizational structures. Meyer and Rowans argument is basically that modern society consists of a number of formal structures that are socially and institutionally legitimized, such as personnel recruitment procedures, financial planning and many others. Because such structures come to be taken for granted, not so much for their efficiency as for their legitimacy, they can be seen as rationalized myths. It is not obvious how Meyer and Rowan draw the distinction between legitimacy and efficiency. They do, however, point out that solutions tend to work because they are considered right by actors at several levels in institutions. Still, although they are myths, they contribute towards overall efficiency because they tend to stabilize transactions between institutions. As a result, there is a gradual trend of isomorphism among institutions in the sense that they increasingly come to exhibit similarities in their structure. Institutions practice isomorphism with important environmental institutions, in the sense that they reproduce structures that are considered right. Failure to incorporate the proper elements of legitimized structures is considered negligent and irrational. No doubt in this day and age NPM is considered such a legitimized structure, where the failure to
adapt to the NPM logic may be considered more questionable than adapting to it. In contemporary society, public institutions are no longer guaranteed an eternal existence, as the service may just as well be outsourced or eliminated, therefore they increasingly struggle for institutional survival. According to Meyer and Rowan, public institutions, in particular, increase their chances of long-term survival if they adopt elements of the legitimized structures. The adotion act itself is ritualistic as it portrays an intention of being with the times. However, because institutions still have to attend to demands of efficiency, they sometimes have trouble reconciling efficiency in dealing with their constituents, on the one hand, and fully incorporating legitimized structures, on the other hand. In Meyer and Rowans own words, Technical activities and demands for efficiency create conflicts and inconsistencies in an institutionalized organizations efforts to conform to the ceremonial rules of production (p. 354, emphasis added). The way in which they deal with this dilemma is to decouple the one from the other. Indeed, what led Meyer and Rowan to their study was observations in public schools suggesting a gap between the formal structure and what was actually practised by teachers. Bearing out Meyer and Rowans idea of decoupling, Tooley and Guthrie (2003) found in a study of the introduction of accounting as part of NPM reform in New Zealand, that there was a divergence between what they call the NPM normative mode and the operational mode in the use of accounting technologies and the processes at the school site. Their argument is that the introduction of the reform had less to do with substantive efficiency and more to do with conforming to the rationalized myth of the reform. A decoupling between the ritualized and the operational gives the impression that public institutions lead a sort of double life, something like a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde existence, where appearance is everything and substance nothing. Although Meyer and Rowan suggest that they are able to uphold the decoupling by introducing ambiguous rules, technologies and performance criteria, it is unlikely that institutions can uphold strict decoupling between ritual and practice over long periods of time. The tension will eventually become untenable, internally as well as externally. Institutionalization consists inevitably of nested processes (Holm, 1995) where technologies, programmes and human actors interact and thus reshape reality, more often than not as a result of unintended consequences, therefore the two systems cannot be kept apart indefinitely. Assuming that there is an element of rapprochement between ritual and reality, a key question is how it influences the organizational response to NPM over time. The fact that adaptation in this case is ritualized implies formal commitment. Hence, the chance may increase that attempts are made to make operational and ritualistic structures interact and influence one another over time. Consequently, for ritualized decoupling, it is possible that a pragmatic adaptation to NPM may take place over time. However, the extent to which this is made possible is likely to depend on the relative proximity between current arrangements and the elements of NPM that are introduced. A too wide gap between the two and ritualized decoupling may lead to paralysis. The same result may occur if too many measures are introduced in too short a period of time, laying too heavier a burden on available resources.
Loose coupling
Karl Weick (1976), in a study of educational institutions, observed that the interaction between organizational units was more loosely coupled than normally assumed. Since his study, loose coupling in organizations has, in many studies, been seen more as the rule than the exception. A major problem, Weick (1976: 4) claims, is that organizational members do not understand the nature of looseness of coupling, which makes them predict organizational outcomes such as in planning processes wrongly. Weick focuses on loose structural coupling, whereas loose coupling may also be assumed between actors and intentions and participation, such as in Cohen et al. (1972) who metaphorized organizational decision-making processes as garbage cans. Garbage-can decision-making processes typically arise in what they call organized anarchies, such as educational institutions. The loose coupling in decision processes, according to Cohen et al., is marked by problematic preferences, unclear technology and fluid participation. Works such as those by Weick and Cohen et al. aim to uncover the basic traits of institutions that had escaped analytic attention at the time when they were written. But it is also possible to see loose coupling as an organizational response to attempted reform. Loose coupling may come about as an avoidance strategy whereby units pay lip-service to the coordinating mechanisms while largely pursuing their own goals. Cohen et al. (1972), in analysing decision-making, also point out that many decisions are actually made by actually avoiding making them. Similarly it is possible that organizations avoid change by structurally loosening up. Looseness of coupling cannot be indefinite but it can probably go as far as units paying enough attention to the coordinating mechanisms to avoid collapse of the system. Consequently, overall organizational performance may be sub-optimal yet sufficient to maintain a minimum level of service. This may be done in a number of ways. One is, as Van Thiel and Leeuw (2002) report, that agencies end up using indicators of input and output only, thereby avoiding indicators on productivity, quality and cost. This means that the institution is run with indicators that are too coarse to produce information on how individual units actually perform. In other words, the indicators are sufficiently coarse in order for the organization to perform at sub-optimal levels but not too coarse to provoke serious questions about its overall efficiency. In this case, the loose coupling lies in a weak correlation between performance indicators and performance itself. A number of strategies are available. For example, managers may confine themselves to reporting on the performance of parts of the organization, preferably those parts that are most efficient (sub-optimization), or on shortterm objectives (myopia) (Van Thiel and Leeuw, 2002). Whatever the strategy, avoidance is produced to uphold the loose coupling. Once looseness of coupling is activated as a response, restoring the organization to a higher level of performance may be difficult. The main reason is that changing the organizing logic requires competent conflict resolution. However, looseness of coupling, such as in the form of organized anarchies function according to quasiresolution of conflict (Cohen et al., 1972). For organizational units or individual actors to enter competently into conflict-solving processes may thus require boot-strap pulling, which is unlikely to solve the conflict, without the intervention of external help.
Organic adaptation
NPM brings with it a series of measures that correspond to a mechanistic logic of organizing, which is sometimes imposed upon an existing system of professional discretion which has elements of organic organizing in the form of professional communities. The distinction between organic and mechanistic modes of organizing goes back a long way in organization theory, at least to Burns and Stalkers (1961) seminal work. Burns and Stalkers observation was that whereas mechanistic modes of organizing imply formal rules, hierarchy, routines and stability, organic modes imply informal coordination, discretion, improvisation and change. These two modes are ideal-types of tendencies that are more or less present in every organization. Much depends on the extent to which organic and mechanistic modes are able to co-exist inside the same organization. Whereas there is not necessarily any a priori incompatibility between the two, experience shows that their co-existence is usually problematic. In cases in which co-existence appears successful, informal processes work to bridge the mechanistic and organic organizing modes. Nyland and Pettersen (2004) studied the introduction of NPM in a large Norwegian hospital. The scenario was that of a classic opposition between clinicians, on the one hand, and administrators, on the other hand. In this case, clinicians felt a strong moral obligation towards the patients and they did not perceive the use of budget and accounting information as important. Nyland and Pettersen thus infer an inconsistency in the norms and values between the clinical and managerial worlds of the hospital. However, while there may be inconsistency between the two worlds, it seems that, in this case, they could co-exist and remain mutually complementary in the overall running of the hospital. Adaptation to the budgeting and accounting system without disruption of the existing professional community was made possible by frequent and informal communication that served effectively as a buffering function in that it offered meeting points for negotiation and adjustments. This point corresponds in part to Burns and Stalkers emphasis on the informal mechanisms of organic organization. Nyland and Pettersen suggest that such coordination takes the form of network-based organizing which they argue can be favourable in managing organizational interdependencies. In other words, for mechanistic and organic logics to co-exist in a complementary manner, organic (informal) mechanisms were activated to bridge the gaps between the two. Thus, in this case, the co-existence of two organizing modes was made possible by an essentially organic form of adaptation. Because organic adaptation is cultural and interactive rather than structural and formal, the case offers cues about conditions under which NPM reforms may be made to co-exist fruitfully with existing professional communities. An important point is that informal mechanisms are essentially trust based. If they work like network mechanisms, as Nyland and Pettersen claim, they work only as long as the central actors enjoy sufficient levels of mutual trust. A key element of operating networks is trust, as found by Kreiner and Schulz (1993) in their study of R&D professionals. Trust makes it probable that expectations of reciprocality are met. It also matters which actors in the institution enjoy mutual trust. To act as efficient brokers between two modes of organizing does not necessarily require that they occupy central formal roles. It is likely that
successful organic adaptation depends more on the ability of persons placed centrally in the managerial and professional cultures to bridge inconsistencies. Thus, it would seem that the existence of mutual trust between key actors is a contributing factor for two seemingly inconsistent modes of organizing to co-exist. The case briefly described here is one where professional discretion prevailed prior to the reform. A different situation presents itself when there is co-existence between professionalism and managerialism prior to the introduction of NPM. It is to be expected that organic adaptation is possible when existing arrangements already contain mechanisms similar to those of NPM and those mechanisms already interact with the professional community. In such cases, one would expect the adaptation to be more a matter of the translation of existing arrangements (Latour, 1987) into NPM logics.
Summing up
In Table 1, a simple schematic presentation is made of the four ideal-type organizational responses discussed earlier. Paralysis leaves little hope for adaptation because, in a paralysed system, lack of interpersonal trust becomes a major barrier to collaboration. In a paralysed system, attempts to create trust may just as well produce the opposite result. In the case of the other two responses (loose coupling and ritual decoupling), the introduction of NPM may not worsen the situation but it is likely, at least in the first instance, that performance will remain sub-optimal and that the substantive operations of the institution may not change much. One explanation is that these two responses are typical avoidance responses. Over time, however, especially in the case of ritual decoupling, it is possible that a pragmatic adaptation to NPM may take place. In the case of organic adaptation, informal relations operate to bridge any divergence between NPM and the existing arrangements such that, although based on different logics, they may operate complementarily in the organization of the institution.
Table 1 Organizational responses and the ability to adapt to NPM Organizational response Adaptation ability Paralysis Inability to adapt Loose coupling Ritual decoupling Modest adaptation over time Organic adaptation Ability to adapt
Admittedly, the typification of responses described in this article is a simplification of the reponses. They have been referred to as ideal-type responses because they exist primarily as a way of conceptual differentiation. In practice, of course, reforms, as well as responses to reforms, exist in the form of processes. Although reform processes, as well as response processes, may be envisaged by reformers as being coherent and logical, practice suggests otherwise. The practice of reforms and responses is a messy reality, as has been pointed out by many writers, with processes changing and nesting over time and where causes and effects melt into one
another. Processes, however, are hard to represent and generalize from. Therefore, the types that we use do serve as proxies, or as idealized snapshots, of complex processes, even with all their imperfections.
References
Aucoin, Peter and Heintzmann, Ralph (2000) The Dialectics of Accountability for Performance in Public Management Reform, International Review of Administrative Sciences 66: 4555. Bourdieu, Pierre and Passeron, Jean-Claude (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage. Brunsson, Nils and Jacobsson, Bengt (2000) A World of Standards. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brunsson, Nils and Olsen, Johan P. (1990) The Reforming Organization. London: Routledge. Burns, Tom and Stalker, Jeremy M. (1961) The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock. Cohen, Michael D., March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P. (1972) A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, Administative Science Quarterly 17(1): 125. Fligstein, Neil (1985) The Spread of the Multidivisional Form among Large Firms, 19191979, American Sociological Review 50: 37791. Hjlund, Holger and la Cour, Anders (2003) Standards for Care and Statutory Flexibility, in Tore Bakken and Tor Hernes (eds) Autopoietic Organization Theory, pp. 27295. Oslo: Abstrakt, Liber, Copenhagen Business School Press. Holm, Petter (1995) The Dynamics of Institutionalization: Transformation Processes in Norwegian Fisheries, Administrative Science Quarterly 40(3): 398422. Hovdal, Knut Arne (2004) De Profesjonelle i Endring, unpublished doctoral thesis, Copenhagen Business School. Karkatsoulis, Panagiotis (2000) The Social Context of a Value for Money Based Administrative Reform, International Review of Administrative Sciences 66(3): 46378. Kaufman, Herbert (1967) The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behaviour. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kreiner, Kristian and Schulz, Majken (1993) Informal Collaboration in R&D. The Formation of Networks across Organizations, Organization Studies 14(2): 189209. Lane, Jan-Erik (2000) New Public Management. London: Routledge. Latour, Bruno (1987) Science in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lynn, Laurence E. (1996) The NPM as an International Phenomenon: A Skeptical View, paper presented at the conference on The NPM in International Perspective, St Gallen, Switzerland, 1113 July. Lynn, Laurence E. (1998) A Critical Analysis of the New Public Management, International Public Management Journal 1(1): 10723. Meyer, John W. and Rowan, Brian B. (1977) Institutional Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony, American Journal of Sociology, 83: 34063. Moe, Ronald (1994) The Reinventing Government Exercise: Misinterpreting the Problem, Misjudging the Consequences, Public Administration Review 52(2): 11122. Nyland, Kari and Pettersen, Inger Johanne (2004) The Control Gap: The Role of Budgets, Accounting Information and (Non-) Decisions in Hospital Settings, Financial Accountability & Management 20(1): 7798. Rieder, Stefan and Lehmann, Luzia (2002) Evaluation of NPM Reforms in Switzerland: Empirical Results and Reflections on Methodology, International Public Management Review 3(2): 2543. Rvik, Kjell Arne (1996) Deinstitutionalization and the Logic of Fashion, in Barbara Czarniawska and Guje Sevn (eds) Translating Organizational Change, pp. 13972. Berlin: De Gruyter. Rvik, Kjell Arne (2002) The Secrets of the Winners, in Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson and Lars Engwall (eds) The Expansion of Management Knowledge: Carriers, Flows, and Sources, pp. 11344. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Smith, Peter (1995) On the Unintended Consequences of Publishing Performance Data in the Public Sector, International Journal of Public Administration 18: 277310.

Tooley, S. and Guthrie, J. (2003) Devolved School-based Financial Management in New Zealand: Observations on the Conformity Patterns of School Organizations to Change, Working Paper No. 216. Massey (New Zealand): School of Accountancy, Massey University. Vabo, Signy Irene (2000) New Organizational Solutions in Norwegian Local Councils: Leaving a Puzzling Role for Local Politicians?, Scandinavian Political Studies 23(4): 34372. Van Thiel, Sandra and Leeuw, Frans L. (2002) The Performance Paradox in the Public Sector, Public Performance & Management Review (25)3: 26781. Weber, Max (1968) Economy and Society An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weick, Karl E. (1976) Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems, Administrative Science Quarterly 21(1): 119.

Four Ideal Type Organizational Responses To NPM Reforms and Some Consequences - 2005

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Título original

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Four Ideal Type Organizational Responses To NPM Reforms and Some Consequences - 2005

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

International Review of Administrative Sciences

International Institute of Administrative Sciences

International Review of Administrative Sciences

The organizational dilemma posed by NPM

6 International Review of Administrative Sciences 71(1)

Hernes Four ideal-type organizational responses to NPM 7

Three ways of conceptualizing public sector reform

Diffusion to different institutions Internal reform Reproduction across institutional contexts

Hernes Four ideal-type organizational responses to NPM 9

10 International Review of Administrative Sciences 71(1)

Hernes Four ideal-type organizational responses to NPM 11

12 International Review of Administrative Sciences 71(1)

Hernes Four ideal-type organizational responses to NPM 13

14 International Review of Administrative Sciences 71(1)

Hernes Four ideal-type organizational responses to NPM 15

16 International Review of Administrative Sciences 71(1)

Hernes Four ideal-type organizational responses to NPM 17

Você também pode gostar