Public value: conjecture and refutation, theory and ethics (original) (raw)
Related papers
As Good as It Gets? On the Meaning of Public Value in the Study of Policy and Management
The American Review of Public Administration, 2014
Public values are being promoted as a core concept in the study of public administration, in particular, in discourses surrounding Moore’s public value management and Bozeman’s public value failure. This article outlines the approaches to the concept of values and public values. Particular attention is paid to the founding distinction between facts and values, which proves to be less clear than usually assumed. After discussing a range of possible characteristics of public values, an encompassing definition is attempted, which consequently has to accommodate opposing characteristics. It is concluded that the concept of public value is a fuzzy concept, and that is probably “as good as it gets.”
The purpose of the present paper is threefold: (i) to provide a critical overview of scholarly literature on public value with a focusing on different positions in the use of the concept, (ii), to analyse the fit of public value management to different public administration traditions, systems and cultures (iii) to provide a research agenda based on the preliminary findings of this paper. The public value approach was developed in reaction and reference to New Public Management and its attendant risks of neoliberalisation, and is resting on preference deliberation, plural and political processes providing a safeguard against uncertainty and change (Stoker 2005). Although a strong concern for common good and societal well-being provides a common thread, a more thorough review of the literature reveals several tensions and contradictions that characterize the discourse on public value, not the least the risks of producing a new variant of neoliberal rationality (Dahl and Soss 2014). In addition, it would also seem that the architecture of political-administrative relations and public administrative tradition plays a strong role in how the public value concept is being conceived and received, and vice versa, public value offers particular understandings of 'public managers', compatible with existing public administrative systems to varying degrees (Rhodes & Wanna 2007). Based on the literature review and the analysis of the possible use of the public value approach in different political-administrative settings, we identify a research agenda sensitive to the different understandings, objectives and functions of public value in various country contexts.
Public value, politics and public management: a literature review
2006
This paper summarises the findings of the literature review on politics and public management and sets out the theoretical background that underpins the concept of Public Value. It explores its potential as a theory of public management, which aims to guide the actions of public managers delivering services to the public funded through taxation.
2006
Building on existing academic and policy work around public value, The Work Foundation's project aims to help policymakers, public managers and institutions understand the concept of public value and see how it can be applied in practice. Public value addresses many of the contemporary concerns facing public managers. These include problems of securing legitimacy for decision making, resource allocation and measuring service outcomes. This research project draws together diff erent strands of the current debate around public value, clarifi es its elements and seeks to further understanding of this topical and important conceptual innovation in public service delivery. The project's objectives are to: provide a clear defi nition of public value provide public managers with a set of guiding principles that orient institutions to the creation of public value use sector and case studies to illustrate how organisations might understand where gaps occur in achieving public value clarify the components and processes of public value in order to facilitate its future capture and measurement.
The Work Foundation, 2006
Building on existing academic and policy work around public value, The Work Foundation's project aims to help policymakers, public managers and institutions understand the concept of public value and see how it can be applied in practice. Public value addresses many of the contemporary concerns facing public managers. These include problems of securing legitimacy for decision making, resource allocation and measuring service outcomes. This research project draws together diff erent strands of the current debate around public value, clarifi es its elements and seeks to further understanding of this topical and important conceptual innovation in public service delivery. The project's objectives are to: provide a clear defi nition of public value provide public managers with a set of guiding principles that orient institutions to the creation of public value use sector and case studies to illustrate how organisations might understand where gaps occur in achieving public value clarify the components and processes of public value in order to facilitate its future capture and measurement.
Public value and political astuteness in the work of public managers: The art of the possible
The public value framework, with its call for more entrepreneurial activities by public managers, has attracted concern and criticism about its implicit breaching of the politics/administration dichotomy. This paper explores the role of political astuteness not only in discerning and creating public value, but also in enabling public managers to be sensitive to the dichotomy. We employ a conceptual framework to identify the skills of political astuteness, and then articulate these in relation to identifying and generating public value. Drawing on a survey of 1012 public managers in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and depth interviews with 42 of them, we examine the perceptions and capabilities of public managers in producing value for the public while traversing the line (or zone) between politics and administration. We conclude that political astuteness is essential to both creating value and maintaining allegiance to democratic principles.
Public Value Theory: Reconciling Public Interests, Administrative Autonomy and Efficiency
Public Value Theory aims at reinvigorating the role of publicly formed values in public administration theory and research. It attempts to reconcile the conceptual antagonisms between Traditional Public Administration that seeks to limit corruption and bring expertise to administration by establishing a more autonomous legal rational organization and New Public Management that focuses almost exclusively on sharply reducing public bureaucracy through measures and organizational practices based on economic efficiency. Rather than viewing these divergent approaches to public administration either as dichotomies or rejecting them, Public Value Theory recognizes the important dimensions of public administration that they raise and incorporates their most salient features in a more inclusive approach that emphasizes the role of values. This paper locates Public Value Theory in the historical formation of theoretical approaches to public administration. Focusing on key theoretical texts and secondary sources, the paper provides internal critiques of Traditional Public Administration and New Public Management and discusses the limits of Public Value Theory. Substantively, the paper shows that Public Value Theory seeks to reconcile and balance contradictory approaches to public administration and the implementation of public policy. Public Value Theory attempts to join economic efficiency, organizational practices, rationality and independence in public administration, and the formation of public values and interests in an encompassing approach. Public Value Theory is both less insistent on specific organizational forms of public administration than Traditional Public Administration and less focused on narrowly construed criteria of efficiency than New Public Management. The paper concludes by briefly considering criticisms of Public Value theory that are concerned with its insufficient attention to the political formation of values and interests.
Readers Insight, 2020
It has been well over two decades now when new public management emerged as a management paradigm. As a management doctrine, new public management is centered on private sector practices implemented in the public sector. Although it has registered some success stories but most of the intended objectives were not met. The public value concept emerges as a response to the weaknesses of new public management and to better equip public sector managers to create public value for the society.