Changing market values? Tensions of contradicting public management discourses: A case from the Danish daycare sector

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address studies of New Public Governance (NPG) as a post-New Public Management (NPM) tendency. Although NPG is considered a contrast to NPM and its market incentives, it argues that the practices emerging in tensions of NPM and NPG discourses indicate not a clear-cut shift away from NPM, but rather changes that combine competition with collaboration and trust. Design/methodology/approach: It offers a discourse approach to advance the theorizing and empirical unfolding of the tensions of contradicting, yet co-existing discourses of NPM and NPG and their effects in practice. Drawing on a case study from the Danish daycare sector, it investigates local collaborative governance initiatives that develop new quality-management methods. Findings: The study elucidates how NPM and NPG discourses collide in local practices of public sector management within daycare. It shows that the discursive tensions between such value-laden practices indicate a changing marketization associated with collaboration and trust, yet also competition. Research limitations/implications: To research it becomes critical to advance theoretical and empirical knowledge on the constitutive effects of such complex discursive tensions in public organizations. Practical implications: To practice it becomes necessary to acknowledge and handle co-existing, yet contradicting management discourses, and not mistake their opposing values as necessarily distinct, but rather as entangled in practice. Originality/value: The paper contributes with original findings that shed new light on colliding management discourses in practices and their effects within the public sector area of daycare.