Retrofitting Collaboration into the New Public Management: Evidence from New Zealand (Elements in Public and Nonprofit Administration)

By: Rosemary O'Leary and Elizabeth Eppel

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Synopsis: This Element is about the challenges of working collaboratively in and with governments in countries with a strong New Public Management (NPM) influence. As the evidence from New Zealand analyzed in this study demonstrates, collaboration – working across organization boundaries and with the public – was not inherently a part of the NPM and was often discouraged or ignored. When the need for collaborative public management approaches became obvious, efforts centered around “retrofitting” collaboration into the NPM, with mixed results. This Element analyzes the impediments and catalysts to collaboration in strong NPM governments and concludes that significant modification of the standard NPM operational model is needed including: Alternative institutions for funding, design, delivery, monitoring and accountability; New performance indicators; Incentives and rewards for collaboration; Training public servants in collaboration; Collaboration champions, guardians, complexity translators, and stewards; and paradoxically, NPM governance processes designed to make collaborative decisions stick.