Management Control, Results-Oriented Culture and Public Sector Performance: Empirical Evidence on New Public Management
检验了新公共管理（NPM）的三个核心主张：结果导向文化、绩效合同和分权对公共部门绩效的影响，发现结果导向文化确实与绩效正相关，但绩效合同和分权的效果与NPM预期相反。
New Public Management (NPM) has been guiding public sector reform for over 25 years. Its position on the design of effective management control rests on three key ideas: (1) performance improvement requires a results-oriented culture that emphasizes outcomes rather than inputs or processes; (2) public sector organizations need to introduce performance management based on targets, monitoring and incentives; and (3) public sector organizations should decentralize decision rights and reduce their reliance on rules and procedures. Focusing on the particularly influential version of NPM as advocated by the OECD, we examine the validity of these ideas theoretically and empirically. We conclude that NPM’s reform programme should be reconsidered. Although the evidence indicates that a results-oriented culture is positively associated with performance, we find little support for the assumed benefits of NPM-type performance contracting. In addition, the results suggest that both the effects of decentralization and the reliance on rules and procedures are opposite to NPM’s expectations.