New Public Management i praktiken. En studie av organiseringen av arbetet avseende löner i en kommunal verksamhet ur arbestgivarens perspektiv.

Sammanfattning: New Public Management in practice. A study of employers´strategies in wage policy settings in a minicipality. The purpose of this study was to contribute to a better understanding of the implementation of wage policies and pay criteria's in a municipality from the perspective of the employers. The study is thus an attempt to analyse how employers in a municipality, in southern Sweden, implement wage policies. The overall point of departure was to examine how employers' have been influenced by the introduction of ideas and models presented by New Public Management (NPM). NPM is a management philosophy, which emphasizes the effectiveness and new models of governing, and has been used by governments across the world to modernise the public sector. NPM is in this study used as a way of describing under what circumstances municipalities has changed and under what conditions employers develop strategies in relation to the Swedish model of labour market regulation, with a special focus on wage setting. In order to understand how NPM has been implemented in Sweden, the Scandinavian institutional theory was used as a theoretical perspective to enhance understanding of change through reform. The study is based on qualitative methods. The empirical material consists of interviews and document analysis. Six interviews with high officials in the municipality was thus carried out and further analysed. The results show that the local organization of wages has distinct features of the NPM. The employer follows up five collective agreements. Policy decisions on wage policy have however a low anchor in practice. The politicians' visions, goals for action and policy on wages may be of symbolic significance. Implementation of the municipality's wage policy and social services pay criteria are the most critical.