The New Public Management is not just the implementation
of new techniques, it carries with it a new set of
values, specifically a set of values largely drawn from the
private sector. As we have already noted, there is a longstanding
tradition in public administration supporting the
idea that “government should be run like a business.” For
the most part, this recommendation has meant that government
agencies should adopt practices, ranging from
“scientific management” to “total quality management,”
that have been found useful in the private sector. The New
Public Management takes this idea one step further, arguing
that government should not only adopt the techniques
of business administration, but should adopt certain business
values as well. The New Public Management thus
becomes a normative model for public administration and
public management.
In making their case, proponents of New Public Management
have often used the old public administration as
a foil, against which the principles of entrepreneurship
can be seen as clearly superior. For example, Osborne
and Gaebler contrast their principles with an alternative
of formal bureaucracies plagued with excessive rules,
bound by rigid budgeting and personnel systems, and preoccupied
with control. These traditional bureaucracies are
described as ignoring citizens, shunning innovation, and
serving their own needs. According to Osborne and
Gaebler, “The kind of governments that developed during
the industrial era, with their sluggish, centralized bureaucracies,
their preoccupation with rules and regulations,
and their hierarchical chains of command, no longer
work very well” (1992, 11–12). In fact, while they served
their earlier purposes, “bureaucratic institutions … increasingly
fail us”