Characteristics of the New Public Management and its application in a public service of the city of Antofagasta, Chile

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Chile has undergone various processes of modernization of the State, mainly characterized by a management paradigm and model emanating from private companies, known as New Public Management. The consequences, both negative and positive, have been studied for a long time, so we wanted to verify its operation in a public service in the city of Antofagasta, Chile. Semi-structured interviews were applied to officials of the service under study as well as a content analysis of the complaints made by users through the data mining software Leximancer, so the type of research is qualitative. The main conclusions are that the employees are satisfied with the work delivered, as a result of the fulfillment of institutional goals, despite the fact that a user's case has not been resolved in its entirety. On the other hand, the users present a preconceived idea of how the public service should work, which generates an inconformity when requesting help from the institution.