Complementing a neo institutional approach with a management tools’ approach? The case of internal performance contracts in the urban water sector in Uganda
Résumé
This paper sought to explore the role of management control tools in an institutionalisation process of a result-oriented logic throughout a New Public Management reform of a public organisation. With that aim, it brought together a neo institutional analysis with a management tools’ approach, building on Hasselbladh and Kallinikos’s framework (2000). We analysed the institutionalisation process of internal performance contracts in a corporatized public water utility in Uganda. Data were collected by means of open-ended interviews, observations and archives, with a multi level and historical perspective. Data analysis was made using content and discourse analysis. In that case, the management tools’ approach enabled to highlight a phenomenon of path dependency created by an embedded management tools, which acted beyond agency and institutional logic.