Unintended Consequences of NPM Drive the “Bureaucracy”

Abstract

This article examines the unintended consequences following implementation of a new public management (NPM) reform—a performance-based salary system—in two Swedish public schools. Headmasters and central office personnel were interviewed. The expected reform results at last appeared a decade after implementation when salary-setting procedures adopted the bureaucratic framework. Despite the common view that NPM reforms, owing to unintended consequences, fail because they adapt poorly to the Weberian control regime at public organizations, this article argues that the unintended consequences of an NPM reform can drive the “bureaucratic” organization even when there is no evidence of debureaucratization.

Keywords:

• unintended consequences
• NPM
• bureaucracy
• individual salaries

Notes

¹ This explanation does not contradict the decoupling and colonization that occurs when NPM reforms are introduced, but it argues against the idea that NPM is a passing fancy.

² The Swedish name is Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting (SKL).

³ RRV (Riksrevisionsverket) is the Swedish National Audit Office.