114 5: Th eories of Public Management
in measurement, and a greater replication of fi ndings. Research using these
techniques indicates that NPM principles can result in a selective and short-run
increase in effi ciency; are negatively associated with fairness, equity, or justice; sel-
dom reduce costs; and have produced numerous innovative ways to accomplish
public or collective purposes (Berry, Chackerian, and Wechsler 1995; DiIulio, Gar-
vey, and Kettl 1993).
A particularly pointed empirical critique of NPM comes from Kenneth Meier
and Laurence O’Toole (2009), who base their inferences on an extensive series of
studies on public management produced by those involved with the Texas Edu-
cation Excellence Project, which has recently been subsumed into the more en-
compassing Project for Equity, Representation, and Governance. Th e sum of this
work allowed Meier and O’Toole to evaluate ten “proverbs” of NPM against the
evidence from the project. Specifi cally, they fi nd the following:
- Contracting out is oft en not done for reasons of performance and effi -
ciency, but rather to get rid of problems. - Lean and delayered organizations are vulnerable to external stress, such
as budget cuts or other emergencies. - Good management is not necessarily good for everyone. Th e distri-
butional consequences of management can aff ect some clientele more
than others. If equity is a concern, this is a troubling fi nding. - Organizations that are stable can perform well and adapt to changes in
their environment, and managerial fl exibility is not a necessary compo-
nent of change. - Organizations are not at the mercy of their political environments.
Decisions to network are choices rather than functions of the envi-
ronment. Further, organizations need not even match their environ-
ment; networking can be eff ective in a hierarchical environment, and
hierarchy can help in a networked environment. - Change-oriented managers are not necessarily better than conservative
managers. Change-oriented management works best only when the
political environment is stable. When the environment is less stable, a
more conservative approach is more eff ective. - Skilled management can overcome some of the failures of political ac-
tors. When political institutions fail to represent citizens, agencies with
skilled managers can still be successful. - Rather than good managers making all the diff erence, they make some
diff erence. Managers cannot do everything, and even though good
management matters, it can not be the “solvent for a wide range of eco-
nomic and social ills” (Pollitt 1990, 1). - Th ere is not necessarily a pattern to follow that will produce good man-
agement. Good managers consider their skills and the needs of their
organizations, and then make decisions about what to do.