Author:

Keywords:

New Public Management, evaluation, outcomes, outputs, context, Europe

Abstract:

In order to assess the impacts of the NPM we first define NPM and then set out what we mean by impacts. Subsequently we report our analysis of our database of nearly 520 relevant studies (the database can be accessed through the COCOPS website at www.cocops.eu). Our main findings are, first, that only a minority of studies deal with outputs, and a very small percentage with outcomes. Most studies of NPM confine themselves to ‘internal’ changes in the activities and processes of public organizations. Subsequently we focus on the minority of studies that do report on outputs and outcomes. Whilst the largest proportion of these do register performance improvements, very substantial percentages report no change or even an actual worsening of performance. This high degree of variation appears to be connected with a number of contextual influences, so in the later sections of the paper we analyse the different types of contextual factors that seem to be important. Finally, we offer informed speculation on why NPM reforms have been so widespread when their evidence base appears so fragile.