Search results

This article aims to analyze the role of performance management systems (PMS) in supporting public value strategies.

This article draws on the public value dynamic model by Horner and Hutton (2010). It presents the results of a case study of implementation of a PMS model, the ‘Value Pyramid’ (VP).

The results stress the need for an improved conceptualization of PMS within public value strategy. Through experimentation using the VP, the case site was able to measure and visualize what it considered public value and reflect on the internal/external causes of both creation and destruction of public value.

This article is limited to just one case study, although in-depth and longitudinal.

This article is one of the first attempting to understand the role of PMS within the public value strategy framework, answering the call of Benington and Moore (2010) to consider public value from an accounting perspective.

To fill the gap in the literature with regard to public value measurement (PVM) and to provide a model for measuring public value at an individual organizational level, based on managerial control systems (MCS).

This article helps review the literature on PVM and propose a model for measuring the value generated by individual organizations. Measurement challenges and potential solutions are investigated.

Public value generated by an individual organization can be calculated by measuring if and to what extent the organization’s outcomes and objectives have been achieved. Public value production and measurement are part of a wider PVM process, which is congruent with the major elements of MCS, from planning to operations, and measurement to evaluation.

This article provides knowledge to support the measurement of public value produced by public sector organizations. However, the suggested use of MCS for a comprehensive measure of the public value produced by a public body does not allow for a comparison of the public values generated by different organizations, as the value is calculated against the objectives set by that specific organization. More research is needed in order to fully utilize this model in practice.

The findings may help public sector organizations, policymakers and public managers measure the public value produced by a public organization as a whole.

This article may help citizens and other stakeholders understand the public value produced by a public organization.

This article is based on an original research undertaken by the author and faces the relatively neglected issue of PVM. It suggests the use of public value MCS as a model for measuring public value produced by individual organizations.

Approximately a decade ago, at the commencement to what has now become my vocation – namely teaching local government managers – a close colleague and myself ‘discovered’ the theory of public value creation that was initially set out by Mark Moore in his 1995 book Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government and subsequently published a few articles on it. Reflecting on teaching the theory for the ensuing decade, three consistent themes emerge from my engagement with students. First, the appeal of the theory as we originally encountered it, in both its parabolic form and in its more advanced articulation, as a theory of public management; also, as a theory of the state. Second, students are consistently drawn to the ethical dimension of the theory. Here, the author demonstrates this appeal by way of an example from the work of one of his recent students. Third, the author provides an account of what has emerged as a potential problem – that the theory has an emotivistic appeal. The author argues that this potential problem can be countered by a thorough understanding of the work, and ensuing developments.

Outlines some basic human embryological facts and considers several myths such as “the immediate product of fertilization is just a potential human being”. Gives medical facts to clarify these issues and concludes that these have far reaching implications for many areas of research. Argues that these decisions, at present, are based more on myth than science.

The purpose of this study is to assess the ability of a theoretically motivated statistical model to accurately forecast annual, national counts of terror attacks out-of-sample.

Bayesian multi-level models, classification analysis, marginal calibration plots

We find that the model forecasts reasonably well, but conclude that its overall performance suggests that it is not ready for use in policy planning. This is likely due to the coarse temporal and spatial aggregation of the data.

The implications of this study are that social scientists should devote more effort into evaluating the predictive power of their statistical models, and that annual, national data on violent conflict are probably too coarse to provide useful information for policy planning.

The primary value of our modeling effort is to provide a baseline against which to evaluate the performance of more region- and country-specific models to be developed in the future.

To understand whether new public management and public value theory are sufficient to guide the strategic behaviours adopted by public sector organizations for their service delivery companies.

This article uses a longitudinal case study of a joint stock company running an airport service in Tuscany.

Public value theory should be further developed to guide managerial behaviours in a very complex decision-making environment.

Only one case study is used so results cannot be generalized in a proper statistical way.

Public managers could learn the usefulness of managerial theories for their decision-making.

Theories aimed at providing managers with insights into decisions made in complex situations should be tested in the real world before being accepted or refused.

This article analyzes a case study operating under and applying the concepts proposed by new public management and public value theory. It therefore offers insights on their applicability, shortcomings and usefulness for decision-making.

This conceptual article aims primarily to illustrate the impact of public value thinking on the process of public sector modernisation. Public value management (PVM) is analysed from two perspectives. First, the principles and features of PVM approaches are detailed, including a comparison of the literature on the other approaches characterizing the modernisation process, that is, traditional public administration (TPA), new public management (NPM) and new public governance (NPG). Then PVM is contrasted with NPM and TPA. Subsequently, the elements connecting PVM with NPG are explored. Second, the theoretical and methodological frameworks within which public value has been operationalized are investigated. One of the core topics is the measurement of public value, which is illustrated focusing on the link between public value (in the singular) and public values (in the plural). The impact that the adoption of public value thinking exerts on the multiple performance objectives for public sector organisations is also investigated. Ultimately, the article aims to highlight the potential of the public value view – considered in conjunction with performance measurement and performance management systems – without neglecting the challenging and problematic aspects of this wave of reform. The comparison with other waves of reform is intended to provide a clearer picture of the way forward for PVM.

Theoretical and methodological investigation, elaborating on the relevant literature on the process of public sector modernisation, is carried out.

The approaches that have emerged during the last two decades (PVM, NPG) are other than alternative solutions. But also less recent waves of change have left, or are expected to leave, their own legacy for public administration over time. This could be the case for NPM, although, according to many scholars, it is in trouble and has lost its driving force, while others see it as simply ‘dead’ and doomed to give way to the ‘digital-era governance’. Several core elements of NPM are no longer in evidence either in PVM or in NPG. Different distinguishing elements have been brought into the foreground. For instance, the idea of the public as citizens characterises PVM and NPG, instead of the public as customers, qualifying NPM. What we are seeing is a progressive expansion of the public’s involvement, through co-production and participation. Contemporary public officials interact with members of the public in ways that involve all of their possible roles: as citizens, customers, partners. There are two salient aspects under which public value thinking can contribute. First, a focus on public value can – better than other approaches – represent a ‘glue’ capable of bringing together debates involving ‘values, institutions, systems, processes, and people’ (Smith, 2004, p. 18). Second, such a focus makes it possible to link insights from different analytical perspectives, fostering a broader view on the determinants of public sector change. This could be of decisive importance for the purpose of reshaping performance measurement and performance management systems, which is a crucial step in public sector reform.

Significant contributions are offered under two aspects. First, in terms of exploration of the concepts of public value (also in relation to public values) and private value. Second, in terms of analysis of the impact that PVM can exert on the logic of performance measurement and performance management.

This paper explores the role of accounting in ecological reconstitution and draws attention to the public value as a topic of strategic interest for developing it.

The process of ecological reconstitution described by Latour in the “Politics of Nature” is traced towards a distinct set of accounting practices. These accounting practices, designated here as full-tax accounting, offer indications of the changing shape and role of accounting in ecological renewal.

Full-tax accounting extends the planetary public towards the inclusion of nonhuman planetarians. It establishes matters of care in multimodal accounts and haunts constitutional processes with the spectre of exclusion. Starting with full-tax accounting, public-value accountants emerge as curators of matters of care.

The association of accounting in ecological reconstitution with matters of care highlights the mediating and immersive effects of accounting practice, inviting accounting scholars to explore these effects more systematically.

Accountants need to reconsider their stewardship role in relation to the fundamental uncertainties implied in planetary public-value accounting, support the process of ecological reconstitution by associating themselves with matters of care and develop ethics of exclusion.

Broad alliances among planetary accountants are needed to extend the terms of ecological reconstitution, to gain and preserve attunement to matters of care and defend these attunements, in the atmospheric politics of ecological renewal, against regressive tendencies.

In problematising public value, the paper draws attention to a convergence of interests among scholars in accounting, public sector research and the environmental humanities. It presents a case for planetary accounting in ecological reconstitution that calls for participation from across disciplines, professions, arts and environmental activism.