Osborne’s Trilogy: A Critique of the Management Philosophy of David Osborne

Abstract

Given the public attention rendered to Osborne’s writings on public management, it is both timely and necessary to provide a critique of his key books with various coauthors. His message is a simplistic version of NPM without any foundation in organisational theory or rational choice. His recommendations go against the wisdom of public administration and they are not strategy-proof from the point of view of asymmetric game theory.