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Accountable Management Reforms: Why the Norwegian Hospital Reform Experiment Got Lost in Implementation
Author(s) -
Pettersen Inger Johanne
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
financial accountability and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.661
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1468-0408
pISSN - 0267-4424
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0408.00090
Subject(s) - norwegian , business , payment , accounting , new public management , public sector , quality (philosophy) , quality management , public management , public administration , public economics , finance , economics , management system , political science , operations management , philosophy , linguistics , economy , epistemology
There is an international tendency to replace governmental funding based on fixed grants by different reforms implying accountable management methods. In this article we focus on the implementation problems of New Public Management reforms in the Norwegian hospital sector. These reforms are built on a belief that more accountable methods will improve efficiency and better resource allocation. The term New Public Management includes different cost‐improvement programmes like Prospective Payment Systems, which were introduced as a new basis of funding in four Norwegian hospitals during a three year experimental period. The studies presented here support the findings from similar reforms in other countries, stating that there are very few, if any, documented efficiency gains by these reforms. The explanation may be that the reforms have disregarded the importance of internal organisational processes, like high quality management, communication and participation as parts of the implementation phases.