25 years of (studying) New Public Management: Trends, accomplishments and dilemmas in top ranked journals

25 years ago, Christopher Hood made a substantial contribution to public administration research in his formulation of the concept New Public Management (NPM). In many ways, his article can be understood as an enabler of... [ view full abstract ]

25 years ago, Christopher Hood made a substantial contribution to public administration research in his formulation of the concept New Public Management (NPM). In many ways, his article can be understood as an enabler of research focusing on public sector reforms. To this day, numerous articles and books have been published, discussing the concept itself and the empirical phenomenon. In celebration of this anniversary, this article revisits the current knowledge through a systematic literature review of 299 articles published between 1991 and 2016. This approach enables a meta-analysis of research published in five top-ranked international public administration journals. We identify four important themes as emerging from our review; (i) a reform with a vague intention, (ii) the limping concept, (iii) the one-sided perspective and (iv) NPM as the new norm. An important effect of this is that Hoods framework may have been curtailed, leading to a distorted knowledge-base when it comes to future studies.