Human resource management and new public management: Options of federal and Quebec managers

Since managers play a predominant role in the implementation and thus the success of government programs, the authors interviewed several in the Canadian and Quebec public services, all working in Quebec, to learn their opinions about the new public management (NPM). It was expected that managers would be inclined to favour the introduction of this new form of state administration. However, a number of them did not view favourably some of the new techniques of personnel management stemming from the NPM. Federal managers interviewed were generally more inclined to favour and to use such techniques. In an effort to explain the observed differences, the authors have developed a historical-institutional argument. While federal administrators have a long experience of managerial reforms, the egalitarian bureaucratic ethos of the sixties and seventies may have led Quebec managers to resist the individualist and competitive techniques of the NPM.