New public managements idéer i den svenska äldreomsorgens realitet : En fallstudie av styrningen och organiseringen av äldreomsorgen i Arvika kommun

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines how New public management has affected the governance of elderly care in Swedish municipalities.  In recent years, the Swedish media, unions for people working in elderly care and other societal actors, have reported on flaws in both the working environment for the people working in elderly care and in the care that is provided to the elders. This thesis examines how the ideas behind the term New public management are implemented in a public organization that is facing a lot of challenges and therefore is struggling to deliver good quality services to the residents. This is done by an in depth analysis of the governance of the elderly care in a single Swedish municipality, Arvika kommun. This analysis also aims to explore the relationship between the challenges that the Swedish elderly care is facing and the implementation of reforms that are associated with the term New public management.  The analysis is based on a model for ideal type analysis and the material that is analyzed consist of a policy document that describes the elderly care in Arvika kommun and transcribed interviews with four informants who are working as managers in the elderly care in Arvika kommun. The ideal types that have been constructed are based on the doctrines that Christopher Hood formulated as the content of the term New public management.  The results from the analysis shows that the ideas behind the term New public management are implemented in the governing of the elderly care in Arvika kommun in a large number of ways. For example in the use of explicit standards and measures of performance, private sector styles of management and the disaggregation of units. The most prominent way in which the ideas behind the term New public management are implemented in the governing of the elderly care is in the focus on discipline and parsimony in resource use which is something that affects the whole organization.  Like some of the previous studies that examine New public management in relation to Swedish elderly care, this thesis also presents the result that there is a connection between the challenges that the elderly care is facing and the implementation of reforms associated with New public management. New public managements focus on making everything more time- and cost effective gives the staff working in elderly care a more stressful working environment. The stressful working environment leads to people resigning and a staff shortage which in turn leads to a lower quality in the care that is provided to the elders.