ABSTRACT
There has been a plethora of research into the introduction of New Public Management (NPM) to public sector organizations since the early 1980s. Most of the research found mainly negative impacts and consequences, outbalancing the positive results by far (e.g. Deem and Brehony, 2005; Kirkpatrick et al., 2005; Deem, 2001, 2004; Shattock, 2003; Spencer-Matthews, 2001; Hood, 1991; Pollitt, 1990). Some revealed even quite cynical motives behind many strategic change initiatives (e.g. Diefenbach, 2007; Clegg and Walsh, 2004; Clarke and Clegg, 1999). However, NPM is often justified and criticized as a rational concept, its consequences seen primarily in a strategically and organizationally functional sense. Against this backcloth I shall investigate how NPM is being used as an ideology for the justification and implementation of strategic change initiatives within public sector organizations. More importantly, as with any ideology, NPM is put forward by certain groups of proponents who benefit from it hugely. This chapter, hence, will particularly concentrate on how senior managers of public sector organizations use NPM – largely for their own benefit.
