Samenvatting

Governments throughout the whole world feel the need to cut spending due to the current financial crisis. The Netherlands are no exception in this matter. Top civil servants are up to the task to implement these cutbacks within their own organizations. However, not much is known about what influences their choice for certain implementation strategies. One factor of interest are the values of top civil servants, which are supposed to be influenced by their work experience. This is a relevant factor, since the introduction of New Public Management made it more common for managers from the private sector to reach the higher echelons of government. Top civil servants with different backgrounds and from different Dutch ministries were interviewed for this study. It seems that using across-the-board cuts are present within Dutch ministries, sometimes combined with targeted cuts. Surprisingly, no differences in values and implementation strategies were found between managers with and without experience in the private sector, contrary to expectation. The implementation strategies used seem mainly influenced by values such as soberness and thrift, values which are not present in current public values literature.