ABSTRACT
The appeal of the New Public Management (NPM) lies in the claim that it delivers improved public services and that it represents an empowerment of those it employs and those it seeks to serve. This chapter examines through an exploration of the claims of the NPM against the experiences of two professional groups in Britain: hospital doctors and university lecturers. One of the purposes is to explore the usefulness of this approach to explaining the changes impacting on the UK health and educational professionals. In education and health care, as well as in many other public sector organisations, there exists no set of unambiguous institutional principles. Evidence suggests that the revision of 'scripts' will lead in turn to a greater objectification of the new role of medical/academic manager; one that has forced doctors and academics to take account of the resource implications of their decision-making than previously but one that has not, ultimately, meant their (clinical/academic) autonomy being fundamentally questioned.
