Struggling with ambiguity : public managers as users of NPM-oriented management instruments
By: VAKKURI, Jarmo
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ArticlePublisher: Malden : Wiley-Blackwell, December 2010Public Administration: an international quarterly 88, 4, p. 999-1024Abstract: Improving public sector performance involves both knowing and doing problems. With the emphasis on the doing problem, this study examines public managers as users of management instruments (MI) in attempts to improve the performance of public services. The article explores uses of three MIs in Finnish local government by using the conceptual framework of ambiguity. The article demonstrates why and how the use of MIs does not always simplify the public management exercise. It may become even more ambiguous. It is important to comprehensively understand the ways in which uses and users of MIs intervene in the process of public service delivery. It is argued that understanding MI uses in public administration necessitates a more profound theoretical approach acknowledging the ways in which rational intentions' for performance improvements turn into situated, boundedly rational, managerial practice. In the context of productivity programmes, such understanding is essential to researchers and practitioners of public administration
Improving public sector performance involves both knowing and doing problems. With the emphasis on the doing problem, this study examines public managers as users of management instruments (MI) in attempts to improve the performance of public services. The article explores uses of three MIs in Finnish local government by using the conceptual framework of ambiguity. The article demonstrates why and how the use of MIs does not always simplify the public management exercise. It may become even more ambiguous. It is important to comprehensively understand the ways in which uses and users of MIs intervene in the process of public service delivery. It is argued that understanding MI uses in public administration necessitates a more profound theoretical approach acknowledging the ways in which rational intentions' for performance improvements turn into situated, boundedly rational, managerial practice. In the context of productivity programmes, such understanding is essential to researchers and practitioners of public administration
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