Sunday, 22 May 2016

NPM analysis

the fact that NPM techniques that were borrowed from management couldnt be successfully applied to public sectore both in developed and developing nations shows us that public and pvt are different

The first criticism of NPM involves a paradox of centralisation through decentralisation. To illustrate the point, Kaboolian (1998), and Maor (1999) pointed out that giving public managers more authority to manage programs may result in concentrating decisions making in them. 

Thus, NPM may lead to centralised decision making by public managers, rather than encouraging decentralization in public organizations as it claims.


The second criticism concerns applying private sector management techniques to the public sector. While NPM has encouraged the use of private sector management techniques, there may be risk associated with adopting some private sector practices. Many academic commentators such as Pollitt (1990) and Armstrong (1998) argued that most areas of public service and administration have distinct political, ethical, constitutional and social dimensions and these factors make the public sector different from the private sector.

A complementary view is provided by Savoie (2002) and Singh (2003), who argues that NPM is basically flawed because private sector management practices are rarely adopted into government operations. For them, NPM is inappropriate for the public sector as it has more complex objectives, more intricate accountabilities and a more turbulent political environment than the private sector. 

Moreover, the relationship between public sector managers and political leaders is of a different order to any relationships in the private sector. In support of the above mentioned argument, Painter (1997) contended that there is danger in using private business models in the public sector because of the contextual differences.

 Additionally, Cheung and Lee (1995) noted that NPM ideas have limitations in terms of using private techniques for the public sector. They argue that in the public sector there is not the same degree of freedom as there is in the private sector. They provide an example of Hong Kong where private companies lay off staff in times of recession and restructuring while in the public sector, the government gives careful consideration to staff morale issues 

Even though NPM provides transparency for the public sector, it can nonetheless lead to corrupt practices argued along the same line that in rich countries, NPM can undermine ethical standards and lead to corruption. To illustrate the point,Minogue (2001a) also noted that increased managerial autonomy has brought blurred accountability and higher risk for public managers to become corrupt, while Ormond and Loffler (2006) contended that increased freedom of management within public sector organisations allows more opportunities for unethical behaviour.

 Another ethical issue about NPM involves contracts. Hughes (2003) pointed out those contracts are supposed to offer improvement in accountability; however, contracts with government are often kept secret for reasons such as commercial research. Thus, there is no transparency in terms of practice

UNDP in 1997 pointed out that some items of NPM are not useful for developing countries since NPM ideas have derived from a few countries of the OECD. The ideas have been designed and implemented to suit the conditions in those countries rather than in developing countries.


Did the 6th pay commission recommendation of PRIS ,, a technique of NPM affect the performance--NO.

 Firstly, Polidano (1999) argued that the NPM does not suit developing countries since governments in these countries may lack the necessary expertise and have unreliable information systems. Polidano (2001) and Caiden and Sundaram (2004) noted along the same line that developing countries have lacked the resources and managerial capacity to adopt rather sophisticated NPM reforms, although countries like India have supported the reorientation of government role and menu of options for providing various functions and services, often extending beyond the original vision of NPM. Thus, it can be said that a state’s capacity is a precondition for successful implementation of NPM in developing countries.

For NPM to succeed it needs its very enemy ie a strong weberian state.. NWS


In developing countriesManning (2001) noted that rather than a single option, NPM provides a menu of choices. NPM is compared to a menu of techniques and developing countries are experimenting with some items on the NPM menu (Andrews, 2003Batley and Larbi, 2004;Caiden and Sundaram, 2004Turner, 2002Polidano, 1999Manning, 2001Schacter, 2000).

In relation to developing countries in Southeast Asia, Turner (2002) provided degrees of NPM adoption in order to demonstrate divergence and a variety of NPM initiatives within a particular region. Turner utilizes the metaphor of three contrasting diners faced with a menu of NPM dishes to characterize the countries in Southeast Asia. He identifies an enthusiastic diner, a cautious diner and one unfamiliar with the menu. Singapore and Malaysia are classified as enthusiastic diners since they have long term experience in producing public bureaucracies capable of learning and adapting from success elsewhere; while Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia are linked to cautious diners because decentralization and privatization are evident in these states but only minor changes have occurred within the central agencies and performance regimes are little developed. These states are willing to experiment with only a few selected items from the NPM menu. The final category of the diner who is unfamiliar with the menu consists of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. These states have not built capacity and systemic processes to initiate NPM and are reluctant to experiment although all have public administration reform programs. From these degrees of adoption, a similar metaphor sees NPM as ‘a shopping basket’ and developing countries as the shoppers. Each country may choose different items from the basket for different reasons (Pollitt, 1995). Implementation in variousdeveloping countries shows that these countries may build on national and local circumstances, taking into account the organizational diversity within their countries. Thus, a certain reform concept might work in one policy sector but not necessarily in another, due to difference of organizational structures and cultures

 A classic example of informality subverting contractual mechanisms in Ghana is provided by Christensen and Laegreid (1998). The country attempted to improve the performance of its state-owned enterprises through contracts which proved ineffectual, owing, among other things, to the political connections of managers.

Fourthly, Hughes (2003) argued that it is difficult for the government in developing countries to move to contractual arrangements for the delivery of service because the necessary laws and the enforcement of contract are not well established. If informal norms have long deviated significantly from formal ones (with regard to personnel practices, for example), simply introducing new formal rules will not change much. Where specialized skills are in short supply, performance contracts and other output based contracts for complex services may absorb a large share of scarce bureaucratic capacity to specify and enforce them (World Bank, 1997). It seems difficult for developing countries to move away from the bureaucratic system. Hughes (2003) pointed out that this old model of organization allows favoritism and patronage.
this also proved riggs ecological model .

No comments:

Post a Comment