Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Panel: Public Value as a Guiding Principle for Governance Author(s) Michal Sedlacko University of Applied Science FH Campus Wien Vienna Austria Dahlvik Julia, Title Public Value Management and Public Administration Traditions: An Analysis File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Michal Sedlacko Abstract In his literature review, Osborne (2017) recently stated that “the creation of value/public value in public services delivery” represents one of “the themes that may well come to dominate in the future.” The concept of public value sees increased use in practice and research, with its promise ranging from (i) strengthening legitimacy through increase in efficiency and targeting of delivery, achieved by measurement of the (monetary) value being produced by public action (Moore 1995, Kelly et al. 2002, Bozeman 2000), to (ii) providing a framework for studying and negotiating norms that drive the processes and structures of public administration (i.e. public values as plural, Jørgensen & Bozeman 2007), up to (iii) constituting a next ‘phase’ of public sector management that addresses market failure (Alford & Hughes 2008) or even (iv) offering a new, distinct, public administration paradigm (O’Flynn 2007). In this paper we pursue two objectives. First, we provide a critical overview of scholarly literature on public value with a focus on different positions in the use of the concept and interfaces to other existing debates. The public value approach was developed in reaction and reference to New Public Management and its attendant risks of neoliberalisation, but public value literature expresses a strong concern for common good and societal well-being that provides a common thread to other debates. Second, we analyse the fit of public value management to different public administration traditions, systems and cultures. It would 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).
