The Impact of New Public Management Reforms on Public Servants’ Ethics: Towards a Theory

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed an increasing concern about the impact of New Public Management (NPM) reforms on public servants’ ethics. The academic literature about this topic is still characterized by considerable confusion and the article proposes a falsifiable theory as a way out of this. Specifically, it demonstrates that, when all the claims in the literature are translated into the proposed conceptual framework, they amount to an integrated set of propositions (that is, a theory) about the causal relationship between organizational processes (as changed by NPM‐reforms) and public servants’ ethics. Such an integrated theory is possible because, although the normative positions taken by the authors are clearly rival ones, their empirical claims are complementary. With the diverse claims thus integrated into one theory, the article provides a basis for empirical research and for the NPM‐ethics debate to proceed in a more explicit and systematic way.

Multidimensional Analysis Applied to the Quality of the Websites: Some Empirical Evidences from the Italian Public Sector

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“…Freederickson (1997) is an excellent example of the growing concern in terms of the weakness of public values or of their conversion into market values in the professional ethics of public administration leaders. Maesschalck (2004) argues that the excessive protagonism offered to private sector values has been to the detriment of the sole set of values required to serve the public interest. An alternative approach contrasts this vision, clearly supporting the existence of a series of public service values that are immune to reformist policies.…”

“Pembebasan” Etos Akuntabilitas Anggaran Daerah: Sebuah Analisis Kritis Habermasian Atas Kolonisasi Lifeworld

“…Nilai intrinsik yang termasuk di dalamnya ialah komitmen, integritas, imparsialitas, dan perilaku citizenship organisasional (Foster dan Wilding, 2000;Lawton, 1998;Needham, 2006). Reformasi dan perubahan kontekstual atas sektor publik di bawah kedok New Public Management (NPM) telah mengubah pola pelayanan publik (Ferlie et al, 1996;Lane, 2000;Lynn, 2006), serta mendorong adopsi nilai-nilai dan prinsip-prinsip manajemen sektor swasta (Maesschalck, 2004;Maesschalck et al, 2008;Pollitt dan Bouckaert, 2000).…”