Competition or cooperation? -A longitudinal case study of NPM reforms’ influence on strategic management in upper secondary schools

NPM reforms are often argued to promote efficiency, because they enhance strategic and competitive behaviour among public organisations. Oppositely, critics argue that strategic behaviour can be problematic for public organizations, because cooperation and collaboration is needed to increase the general public value rather than just maximizing organizational profit. In this paper, we study how an NPM reform (introducing self-government for upper secondary schools coupled with quasi-markets with activity based funding) in the Danish secondary school sector changes strategic management both in regard to strategic orientation and strategic processes.