Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?

The demand for efficient and effective management of higher education institutions is a recurrent theme. At least for the last four decades of the 20th century, institutions have attempted — voluntarily or otherwise — to adopt new management ideologies, techniques and processes. As mentioned in the introduction to this volume, much of the specific managerial push in higher education can be related to the new public management (NPM) movement in general. But, as also mentioned, NPM is not a coherent, clearly specified body of theories or practices. It has been interpreted in a variety of different ways according to the ideological preferences of the observer, while also expressing certain logical inconsistencies (see Hood 1995 for a critical overview). Nonetheless, NPM has had a significant impact on the management practices of a variety of different types of public sector institutions in numerous countries. And, in this respect, NPM has been more a source or fount of new ideas and ideologies on management from which different public institutions and systems have selectively borrowed, than a management blueprint that can be implemented in its entirety.

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