Moving Beyond New Public Management: How Business Type‐Management Is Embedded in the Swedish State Through Institutional Hooks
2025-09-15
In recent years, criticism facing Business‐Type Management within the state has led governments to call for new management models. In many cases, this ambition has not been accompanied by concrete actions signaling a clear break with BTM. There has been limited capacity for critical reflection, learning, and innovative thinking. Why is this? In this article, this question is discussed from a historical‐institutional perspective. Using Sweden as a case, it is argued that the inertia largely can be explained by various “institutional hook” on which BTM hung. These institutional hooks are interlinked and form an institutional infrastructure that is controlled by actors that work with and advocate BTM. The main argument is that BTM ideas and practices are deeply embedded organizationally into the state and that for new ideas to emerge and to be implemented, the Government needs to reorganize the policy sector of administrative reform.