Originating in the Anglo-American world, the New Public Management paradigm appears to have swept over various Continental-European countries, producing convergence of administrative reform. Specific implementations of NPM, however, show a surprisingly large variety of forms, shapes and results. These include performance indicators, personnel reforms, creation and management of executive agencies, public private partnerships, benchmarking and evaluations of reforms. This volume demonstrates and explains how the ambiguous concept of NPM is crafted and shaped differently in various institutional contexts.