The 'Working State' as a 'Service Provider' revisited : professional identities of civil servants on the frontline after two decades of new public management in Germany

Abstract

"The New Public Management reform has challenged traditional notions of what constitutes 'good' work in public administration: According to the NPM reform, civil servants should act as efficient service providers and citizens should be regarded as customers. However, research rarely addresses the issue of how this shift affects the professional identities of civil servants. Drawing on qualitative data, this article describes how civil servants on the frontline cope with the dilemma of having to incorporate new objectives like customer orientation and cost-efficiency in their statutory tasks. Whether the civil servants experience the change as a positive enrichment or as a threat to core professional values depends on whether they consider enforcing the rules or serving the citizens as their main obligation." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Sondermann, A., Englert, K., Schmidtke, O. & Ludwig-Mayerhofer, W. (2014): Der "arbeitende Staat" als "Dienstleistungsunternehmen" revisited. Berufliches Handeln und Selbstdeutungen von Frontline-Beschäftigten nach zwanzig Jahren New Public Management. In: Zeitschrift für Sozialreform, Vol. 60, No. 2, p. 175-201. DOI:10.1515/zsr-2014-0205