We Need to Talk about Knowledge! Rethinking Management and Evidence-Based Practice in Welfare

Abstract

New Public Management (NPM) and Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) are two fundamental concepts within welfare professions. Both NPM and EBP are central to many debates within welfare, and often criticised as posing simplified or positivist approaches to management and knowledge utilization. Epistemologically, both are manifestations of modernity, with its emphases on standardization, control, simple causality and measurability. These epistemological similarities have not been explored as potential doorways for making modifications to NPM and EBP. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to new ways of thinking and doing management and EBP of complex welfare issues by increasing the epistemological understanding of these concepts. NPM and EBP are taken here as subjects for joint conceptual analysis. The paper is guided by the following question: What is an appropriate epistemology for professionals involved in EBP and managing? Literature on NPM and EBP are analyzed together with theoretical insights from scholarship on formalization and heterogeneity of expertise, and analyzed in light of empirical examples taken from a case of a subregional social sustainability/public health initiative. Drawing on the development of post-NPM and more complex versions of EBP, the paper ends by introducing the notion post-EBP, and concludes by outlining some implications of this concept for the working professions.