John Storm Pedersen

Public Sector Reforms: New Public Management without Marketization? The Danish Case

Is it possible to imagine New Public Management without marketization? In Denmark the present liberal-conservative Government has, throughout its 10 years in power, designed and implemented more than 15 major management reforms in the public sector. Although most of the reforms are rhetorically firmly rooted in neo-liberal ideologies they have, in practice, promoted tools and mechanisms of the “traditional,” or Old, Public Management. Based on an empirical study of the reforms, we suggest that the notion of “pragmatic” New Public Management is introduced to enhance the current understanding of New Public Management in the Western industrialized societies.

How common is Public Sector Innovation and how Similar is it to Private Sector Innovation

This is a first attempt to compare innovation in public institutions with innovation in private firms in Denmark. Public institutions are often believed to be less innovative than private firms. However, innovations may, in fact, have always existed within the public sector – in forms similar to those found in the private sector. Innovations performed by employees in their daily work may even be critical to the reliability and overall stability of these institutions. This chapter argues that it is important to examine how innovation takes place in public sector institutions. While most of the discussions around New Public Management (NPM) and other government reforms have centred on their economic effects, much more attention could be devoted to innovation as a critical aspect of public sector change. Based on a comparison of two surveys to Danish public institutions and private firms, this chapter examines how frequently innovation does occur in public institutions, and compares similarities and differences between public and private sector innovation.

Value‐based management in local public organizations: a Danish experience

In this article the authors discuss the utility of value‐based management on the basis of the case of value‐based management in the Mayor’s office of the administration of the Municipal of Aalborg, Northern Denmark. This was done in response to the pressure on public organizations in complex Scandinavian welfare states. They argue that value‐based management was introduced as an efficient way to make the organization more open to stakeholder expectations and demands, in particular the increasing request for efficiency of public organizations by citizens. Accordingly, value‐based management is a way to make public organizations less bureaucratic and more service‐oriented in a welfare state which is more open to management strategies from private firms. In particular they emphasize the significance of middle managers for the success of the process in organizations. Middle managers are requested to internalize values in their daily work. If this is done value‐based management is an efficient way to improve boths the ethics and the utility of public organizations without transforming them totally in to private market‐driven organizations.

Human Resource Management in Denmark

Describes some characteristics of Danish human resource management and analyses recent trends that point towards future practices and HRM concepts. Presents a theoretical framework in which the HRM of the 1990s can be understood, based on empirical research in a number of Danish companies from 1989 to 1991. Concludes that Danish firms are gradually changing their HRM outlook, from one dominated by the fascination of new technologies combined with a traditional cost‐conscious economic strategy to a new techno‐human paradigm of HRM and work organization. Outlines a number of challenges that HRM specialists will face in the 1990s, within the framework of a new techno‐human paradigm.

Can Public Managers Make Their Welfare Organizations Adapt to the New Performance Landscape Shaped by the Current Austerity

How has the current austerity changed the public welfare organizations’ performance landscape in modern welfare states? Can public managers make their organizations adapt to the new performance landscape shaped by the austerity? These questions are answered on the basis of the Danish case of the provision of the services to the citizens with disabilities and/or social disadvantages. The result has implications, especially for public management in praxis. The case study shows that the managers’ most important managerial tool to make their organizations adapt to the new landscape is the challenging and decision-oriented dialogue.

Balancing values and economic efficiency in the public sector!: What can public welfare service institutions learn from private service firms?

Purpose – The paper discusses the balance between values and economic efficiency in the public sector in comparison with the private sector. The argument is that the public sector, hence the public welfare service institutions, can learn much from the private service sector, hence the private service firms with regard to the relation to values, ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and efficiency in order to improve the balance between values and efficiency in the public sector.Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses the concept of balance in relation to the development of the management of private service companies as a useful alternative to new public management (NPM). It discusses this with regard to three issues: the evolution of the management of private companies; what can the public sector, hence the public welfare institutions, learn from the evolution of management of private companies? How would it be possible for governments to work for an alternative to NPM, on the basis of t...

The digital society and provision of welfare services

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to: first, explain why a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens arises from the digital society; second explore some core elements of the competition between the new model of the provision of welfare services and the classic ideal model of the professionals’ provision of welfare services; third, suggest why it is most likely that the two models of the provision of services are combined into a symbiotic co-evolution scenario; and fourth, examine why and how this symbiotic co-evolution scenario results in new participatory spaces for the main actors associated with the provision of welfare services. Design/methodology/approach The review of the literature examines how the new model for the provision of welfare services facilitated by big data challenges the traditional professional model for the provision of welfare services. The authors use the Danish case to illustrate a number of themes related to this looking at the hospital sector as an example. Findings The proposition is that a symbiotic co-evolution scenario will emerge. A mix of the classic ideal model and practice of the service professionals’ provision of services and the digital society’s model of the provision of services is the most likely scenario in the years to come. Furthermore, Data-driven management (DDM) as an integrated key element in a symbiotic co-evolution creates (opens up) participatory environments and spaces for the main actors and agents associated with the provision of welfare services to the citizens. Research limitations/implications DDM’s impact on the provision of welfare services is still being realised and worked out, and more empirical research is needed before it is possible to point at the most likely scenario. However, according to the authors’ analytical framework, the institutional logics perspective, as presented in Section 2, a symbiotic co-evolution is most likely such that DDM will constitute a new logic within the provision of welfare services on the basis of which citizens as end-users could be provided with welfare services, but it is not likely that the new logic of DDM can displace the classic service professionals’ model of the provision of welfare services. Therefore, the new logic of DDM will be combined with and integrated into the existing logics within service provision, such as the Weberian bureaucracy, the Street-Level Bureaucracy, the New Public Governance and the Market. In spite of this, DDM can successfully be promoted by international management consulting firms, as a management concept which can remedy all the problems of the classic service professionals’ model of the provision of welfare services to citizens. Practical implications As a consequence of this, new relationships among professionals, data analytics, (middle) managers and citizens will be created regarding the provision of welfare services. Considering the new participatory environments and spaces and the new relationships among the classic service professionals, the data analytics, the (middle) managers and the citizens as end-users, the provision of welfare services may become an arena for negotiation of a new future model of the provision of welfare services to citizens. Originality/value The digital society has emerged from and developed further via: digitising, online information in almost real time, algorithms, data-informed decision-making processes, DDM and, ultimately, big data. The authors expect to see further digitising, more sophisticated algorithms and more big data. The authors suggest that a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens will emerge from the development of the digital society. The authors also suggest that this new model will compete with the classic model of the provision of welfare services.

European Integration — Prospects and Challenge to the ‘Scandinavian Model’

What will be the main tasks in the society of the 1990s? And in relation to this: What shall economic theory be able to explain and economic policies do for the society? One central task for the society in the 1990s will be to create development and growth with less diseconomies or social costs than the development and growth in the post-war period has generated seen in a long term perspective. To do so an economic theory of development and growth which takes account of the major aspects of diseconomies or social costs in a proper way is needed, as well as economic policies which can handle the diseconomies or social costs in an efficient way.