A PUBLIC MANAGEMENT FOR ALL SEASONS
Abstract
This article discusses: the doctrinal content of the group of ideas known as ‘new public management’(NPM); the intellectual provenance of those ideas; explanations for their apparent persuasiveness in the 1980 s; and criticisms which have been made of the new doctrines. Particular attention is paid to the claim that NPM offers an all‐purpose key to better provision of public services. This article argues that NFM has been most commonly criticized in terms of a claimed contradiction between ‘equity’ and ‘efficiency’ values, but that any critique which is to survive NPM's claim to ‘infinite reprogrammability’ must be couched in terms of possible conflicts between administrative values. The conclusion is that the ESRC'S Management in Government’ research initiative has been more valuable in helping to identify rather than to definitively answer, the key conceptual questions raised by NPM.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Cites
Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes
Lakatos, I. (1970) · Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139171434.009 · Cited by 4,649 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
INNOVATION IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA
DE VRIES, H., BEKKERS, V., & TUMMERS, L. (2016) · Public Administration · doi:10.1111/padm.12209 · Cited by 1,214 · see citing works
Campbell, S. M., Roland, M. O., & Buetow, S. A. (2000) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00057-5 · Cited by 1,170 · see citing works
Grimmelikhuijsen, S. G., & Meijer, A. J. (2014) · Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory · doi:10.1093/jopart/mus048 · Cited by 565 · see citing works
The management of change in public organizations: A literature review
KUIPERS, B. S., HIGGS, M., KICKERT, W., TUMMERS, L., GRANDIA, J., & VAN DER VOET, J. (2014) · Public Administration · doi:10.1111/padm.12040 · Cited by 508 · see citing works
Madan, R., & Ashok, M. (2023) · Government Information Quarterly · doi:10.1016/j.giq.2022.101774 · Cited by 468 · see citing works
“The institutional perspective focuses on developing a typology of public values such as Hood (1991) and Bannister and Connolly (2014).”
Veale, M., Van Kleek, M., & Binns, R. (2018) · Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3173574.3174014 · Cited by 490 · see citing works
“then steered at opportune moments in the discussion towards topics of fairness and accountability, effectiveness and complexity/robustness (mirroring the public sector values framework introduced by [36]). At times, this steering was unnecessary and avoided, particularly as the nature of the study was made clear to pa…”
BackgroundStressing Academe: The Wear and Tear of the New Public Management
Chandler, J., Barry, J., & Clark, H. (2002) · Human Relations · doi:10.1177/0018726702055009019 · Cited by 251 · see citing works
Measurement of sustainability performance in the public sector
A. Adams, C., Muir, S., & Hoque, Z. (2014) · Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal · doi:10.1108/sampj-04-2012-0018 · Cited by 240 · see citing works
Government Openness and Public Trust: The Mediating Role of Democratic Capacity
Schmidthuber, L., Ingrams, A., & Hilgers, D. (2021) · Public Administration Review · doi:10.1111/puar.13298 · Cited by 180 · see citing works
Bezes, P. (2005) · Sociologie du Travail · doi:10.1016/j.soctra.2005.10.001 · Cited by 143 · see citing works
Lights on the shadows of public procurement: Transparency as an antidote to corruption
Bauhr, M., Czibik, Á., de Fine Licht, J., & Fazekas, M. (2020) · Governance · doi:10.1111/gove.12432 · Cited by 131 · see citing works
Bookkeeping, accounting, calculative practice: the sociological suspense of calculation
Vollmer, H. (2003) · Critical Perspectives on Accounting · doi:10.1006/cpac.2002.0528 · Cited by 125 · see citing works
Dougherty, K. J., & Natow, R. S. (2020) · Higher Education · doi:10.1007/s10734-019-00491-4 · Cited by 92 · see citing works
Bringing political science back into public administration research
Peters, B. G., Pierre, J., Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2022) · Governance · doi:10.1111/gove.12705 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Rethinking AI for good governance
Margetts, H. (2022) · Daedalus · doi:10.1162/daed_a_01922 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Defining Bureaucratic Autonomy
Bersch, K., & Fukuyama, F. (2023) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-051921-102914 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Anderson, G. (2017) · International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education · doi:10.1080/09518398.2017.1303211 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
The balanced scorecard equates interests in healthcare organizations
Funck, E. (2007) · Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change · doi:10.1108/18325910710756122 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Barandiaran, X. E., Calleja-López, A., Monterde, A., & Romero, C. (2024) · SpringerBriefs in Political Science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-50784-7 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
Anshari, M., Hamdan, M., Ahmad, N., & Ali, E. (2025) · Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management · doi:10.1108/jstpm-07-2023-0123 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
The academic as consumed and consumer
Page, D. (2020) · Journal of Education Policy · doi:10.1080/02680939.2019.1598585 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Automated, administrative decision‐making and good governance: Synergies, trade‐offs, and limits
Roehl, U. B. U., & Hansen, M. B. (2024) · Public Administration Review · doi:10.1111/puar.13799 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Chomchaiya, S., & Esichaikul, V. (2016) · Information Technology & People · doi:10.1108/itp-12-2013-0210 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Inside algorithmic bureaucracy: Disentangling automated decision-making and good administration
Roehl, U., & Crompvoets, J. (2025) · Public Policy and Administration · doi:10.1177/09520767231197801 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Law and public administration: convergence and symbiosis
Harlow, C. (2005) · International Review of Administrative Sciences · doi:10.1177/0020852305053886 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Changing Occupational Roles in Audit Society—The Case of Swedish Student Aid Officials
Bruhn, A. (2015) · Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies · doi:10.19154/njwls.v5i1.4764 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“Hood, C. (1991). A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69, 3–19.”
BackgroundDornan, T., Kearney, G. P., & Pyörälä, E. (2021) · Medical Teacher · doi:10.1080/0142159x.2020.1795102 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Mohamed, L. (2025) · International Journal of Innovative Technologies in Economy · doi:10.31435/ijite.4(52).2025.4497 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“Rooted in New Public Management (NPM) principles (Hood, 1991; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017), this approach promotes result-oriented public spending, managerial accountability, and evidence-based decision-making.”
- Authors
- HOOD, C.
- Affiliations
- University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- HOOD, CHRISTOPHER
- ORCID
- HOOD, CHRISTOPHER
- Venue
- Public Administration
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1991-03
- Volume
- 69
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3-19
- ISSN
- 0033-3298 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9299
- OpenAlex
- W1980406593
- Cited by
- 10,159
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 716 · 2025: 538 · 2024: 457 · 2023: 456 · 2022: 550 · 2021: 528 · 2020: 498 · 2019: 515 · 2018: 485 · 2017: 454 · 2016: 458 · 2015: 475 · 2014: 479 · 2013: 410 · 2012: 370
- FWCI
- 91.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Administration (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Political Analysis
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration in Developing Nations
- Keywords
- New Public Management, public management theory, public service delivery, equity-efficiency trade-off, administrative values
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
