New public management, the job network and non-profit strategy

Abstract

As part of the most recent phase of liberalisation in the markets for public and social service provision, non-profit organisations have increasingly been called upon to ‘be strategic’ in a ‘for-profit’ sense. Unlike corporations, however, non-profits face significant barriers to appropriate strategy formulation, stemming principally from an over-reliance by regulators on ‘social capital’ and insufficient emphasis on conducive public management. The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of the ‘new public management’ (NPM) on strategy formation in non-profit organisations operating within the Job Network, drawing on fieldwork data from the CEOs of selected agencies. The principal finding is that, given their need to incorporate social considerations within contestable service delivery processes, non-profit managers are impelled to significantly broaden their strategic mindset. Narrow private sector corporate and business strategies are rarely effective, and the organisations are led to outward-focused ‘political’ strategies which dialogue with – and often contest – those of government and the public and for-profit sectors.