The potential impact of new public management style reform policies on the erosion of public values among chilean public employees: an initial and exploratory effort using a public service motivation approach

Abstract

The New Public Management (NPM) has been a key issue in the public administration academic debate since Hood (1991) presented the concept. The debate regarding the real implications and characteristics of this so-called "paradigmatic" change in the manner in which public agencies are managed has been fruitful. Authors from all over the world have added new perspectives and analyses regarding how this new managerial approach has been implemented, initially in developed countries, and later on in less developed nations. The current paper is an effort to provide new insights in the particular topic of the impact, or potential impact, of NPM style reform policies in less developed countries. In particular, after presenting arguments supporting the notion that NPM style reforms and practices have been carried out in the Chilean public sector, the paper addresses the notion of potential erosion of public values among public employees.

This approach is grounded in the notion that NPM style reforms have relied in theoretical frameworks in some sense "alien" to the traditional public administration ethos. The use of incentives, particularly, monetary incentives, in public agencies is an expression of this new theoretical framework that supports NPM style reforms. Using these new managerial tools in a different context than the private sector where these instruments emerged, might have an impact in those public employees adapting these new techniques. The paper provides the results of a survey conducted to 767 Chilean public employees. The survey adopted in this research is the so called "Public Service Motivation Survey" (Perry, 1996), which was adopted as a proxy to address the issue of erosion of public values. The document addresses two propositions to unveil this potential erosion of public values among Chilean public employees. Some conclusions regarding this topic are presented, along with some recommendations for further research.