What Comes – Hopefully – After New Public Management?: One Practical Example Scrutinized

Author(s):

Søren Willert(presenting / submitting)Rikke Alice Bille(presenting)Ann Cherie Fleron

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

32. Organizational Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

32 SES 11, Workplace Learning and Educational Management

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-24

17:15-18:45

Room:

K3.18

Chair:

Line Revsbæk

Contribution

Collaboration between authors (hereafter RB, CF and SW) started during Autumn term 2015. At the time RB&CF were last-term students at a continuing education program (Master of Organizational Coaching, Aalborg University), SW being their thesis supervisor.

The practical-empirical project undertaken by RB&CF was intended as a combined exploration and (hoped-for) reactivation of an ambitious professional enhancement scheme involving a municipal childcare department. Heavy budget cuts decided by the State (in 2013) had been the original triggering event for the launching of the scheme. Municipal heads of Department (HODs) had been intent on finding ways of linking budget reductions with professional quality enhancement. During a two-year period (2013-15) a broadly conceived search process aimed at locating distinct ways of meeting such intentions had been instigated. Viewed through ‘traditional’ New Public Management lenses, the search process was designed in a remarkably open-ended, inventive, and participatory fashion. One result of the search process was the particular scheme investigated by RB&CF. Its aim was to establish horizontal, inclusion-oriented support linkages across all municipal day-care institutions as a means towards enhancing their capacity to deal constructively with children who, till then, had been seen (or diagnosed) as ‘outside the normal range’, and as such have been made subject to ‘special’ – and costly – pedagogical treatment.

RB&CF’s (co-authored) Master’s thesis (Fleron & Bille 2016) was a presentation and methodological assessment of their chosen investigation method that had been designed with inspiration from Patricia Shaw’s work (2002) on Changing Conversations in Organizations (see methods section below). The method’s supposed capacity to combine knowledge-enhancing exploration with veritable organizational build-up processes was validated.

After RB&CF’s graduation the author trio decided to explore the scheme-under-investigation further. This decision resulted in an article called Reflexive exploration creates managerial learning spaces (Bille et al. Forthcoming) accepted for publication in a forthcoming anthology on ‘learning spaces in leadership and management’). Here RB&CF’s investigative activities were scrutinized in the context of the larger municipal professional enhancement scheme referred to above. What had originally prompted RB&CF to take on their investigative roles was the fact that, in spite of all the care and inventiveness displayed by HODs, their efforts seemed, then and there, to have been of little avail. Half a year after the formal inauguration of the cross-institutional ‘horizontal, inclusion-oriented support linkages’, not one single institution had actually availed itself of such support. Complete silence reigned as far as ‘children with special educational needs’ were concerned. RB&CF’s investigative activities changed that. By simply engaging in conversations with municipal leaders (“Nothing seems to be happening! – How come?”) the apparent activity block became unblocked. Written as an analysis of change implementation, or the lack thereof, our second publication arrives at understanding the large-scale municipal search process and RB&CF’s small-scale investigations as being both necessary, and even complementary to each other: The overall strategic change direction is worked out through the former; organization members’ preparedness to actually change their habits in line with these new directions becomes shaped through the informal shared intimacy created by RB&CF within their conversation activities.

In our second publication, we also briefly touched upon the theme that shall be our main topic in the paper proposed for the ECER-2017: What comes – hopefully – after New Public Management? NPM is over-arching socio-political context for the described municipal change endeavors. Internationally (Bourgon 2011; Hood & Dixon 2015) as well in a Danish setting (Greve 2012; Majgaard 2013a, 2013b;Torfing 2013) scholars are pointing at the growing need for a softening of top down-heavy NPM practices. Our paper will scrutinize the municipal case as possibly having prototypical traits in this regard.

Method

Four methodological ‘items’ shall be touched upon in our paper. Three items belong to the realm of professional practice, the fourth to the analytical realm: 1. Large scale reflexive exploration: As we see it, the ‘slow’, open ended, participatory ways in which change processes were introduced and given shape in our municipal case present a clear and noteworthy alternative to habitual, top down-heavy NPM practices. In our earlier analyses of the implemented change process design (Bille et al. forthcoming) we drew conceptual inspiration from Danish complexity-inspired public administration theorist Klaus Majgaard (2013a, 2013b). 2. Small-scale reflexive exploration: This methods item refers to RB&CF’s Patricia Shaw (2002)-, and thus also complexity-inspired conversation practices during Autumn term 2015 – later followed up by RB through municipal employment. 3. Horizontal, inclusion-oriented support linkages across all municipal day-care institutions: This methods item refers to the cross-institutional counseling procedures that must now, as a result of the municipal change endeavours, be observed with regard to children with seemingly special educational needs. These procedures represent steps towards a replacement of expert-based, top down-authorized diagnostics and intervention by peer-supported professional empowerment of front-line staff. 4. Qualitative data analysis: RB&CF’s thesis-oriented investigations were heavily documented with process logs, audiotape recordings etc. Analyses in Bille et al. (forthcoming) were further empirically based on focus group interviews with municipal HODs and day-care institutional leaders. As a means for widening and updating our knowledge of past and present states of affairs, further interviews will be conducted.

Expected Outcomes

As has become apparent from the above, we see ourselves in a process of gradually unpacking and explicating the (as understood by us) timely, exemplary qualities inherent in one particular Danish municipal change process case covering the period 2013-now. Critical voices expounding the limitations and adverse side-effects of NPM are growing in force and numbers. But as the saying goes: Quitting smoking may not be all that difficult – the challenge lies in finding out what else to put in its stead. Concrete images, the more practical the better, of what may supersede NPM are needed (Bourgon 2011; Majgaard 2013a; 2013b). Generally speaking, our aim is to work out one such concrete practice-based image – for further discussion. In earlier publications our main focus has been on change process design. In the paper here proposed, we shall, on the one hand generalize earlier findings, and also add new perspectives dealing with the organizational ways of functioning that were brought about by the change processes.

References

• Bille, R.A., Fleron, C.F. & Willert, S. (forthcoming) Refleksiv eksploration skaber læringsrum I ledelse. In: Frimann, S. & Keller, H.D. (eds) Læringsrum I ledelse. Aalborg: Aalborg Universiet Press. • Bourgon, J. (2011) A new Synthesis of Public Administration. Kingston (Ont.): Queens Univ. School of Policy Studies • Dewey, J. (2014/1910) How We Think. Charleston (S.C.): Nabu Press • Fleron, A.C. & Bille, R.A. (2016) “Om at tage organisationens levede erfaringer alvorlige I forandringsprocesser” – En undersøgelse af en kompleksitetsinspireret metode. Aalborg: Aalborg Universitet. Fortroligt masterspeciale. • Greve, C. (2002) New Public Management. http://overlund.dk/samf/NPC.pdf • Greve, C, (2012) NPM eller/og NPG – Hvad kan de bruges til. Væksthus for ledelse, 16.11.2013 • Hood, C. & Dixon, R. (2015) A Government that Worked better and Cost Less? Evaluating Three Decades of Reform and Change in UK Central Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Kolb, David A. (1984) Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs:Prentice Hall, • Luhmann, N. (1973) Zweckbegriff und Systemrationalität – Über die Funktion von Zwecken in Sozialen Systemen. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. • Madsen, B. (1996) Organisationens dialogiske rum. I: Alrø, H. (red.) Organisationsudvikling gennem dialog. Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag. • Majgaard, K. (2013a) Offentlig styring. København: Hans Reitzel • Majgaard, K. (2013b) Fra simpel til transformativ rationalitet – og tilbage igen. Kognition og pædagogik, 23. årg., Nr. 87, 48-63 • Shaw, P. (2002) Changing Conversations in Organizations. A Complexity Approach to Change. London: Routledge • Solsø, K. & Thorup, P. (2015) Ledelse i kompleksitet. København: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag • Stacey, R. (2007) Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics. The Challenge of Complexity. 5th ed. Harlow: Prentice Hall • Torfing, J. (2013) Offentlig ledelse er I et vadested. Væksthus for ledelse, 15.03.2013 • Willert, S. (2002) Organisatorisk selv-bevidsthed som proceskonsulentens arbejdsredskab. I: Bertelsen, P. et al. (red.) Vinkler på selvet. Århus: Forlaget Klim

Author Information

Søren Willert (presenting / submitting)

Aalborg University

Risskov

Rikke Alice Bille (presenting)

Gentofte Municipality, Denmark

Ann Cherie Fleron