Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 26th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Main Conference Theme Author(s) Michal Sedlacko University of Applied Science FH Campus Wien Vienna Austria Dahlvik Julia, Title Public Value and Public Value Managers: Implications for different Public Administration Traditions and Systems File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Michal Sedlacko Abstract 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 latter was developed in reaction and reference to New Public Management and its attendant risks of neoliberalisation, and 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 through all of these understandings, 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.