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The purpose of this paper is to enhance understanding of the conceptualisation and operationalisation of public value in practice by applying Moore's (1995) strategic triangle as an analytical framework to study strategic management and management control practices in relation to public value.

The paper uses an interpretative longitudinal case study approach including qualitative methods of document studies and interviews between 2017 and 2019.

In the strategic triangle, the three nodes of authorising environment, public value creation and operational capacity are interdependent, and alignment is a necessity for a strategy to be successful. But this alignment is vulnerable. The findings suggest three propositions: (1) strategic alignment is vulnerable to management control practices having a strong focus on performance measurements, (2) strategic alignment is vulnerable to standardised management control practices and (3) strategic alignment is vulnerable to politically driven management control practices.

With the strategic triangle as a base, this paper tries to understand what kind of management control practices enable and/or constrain public value, as there has been a call for this kind of research. In this way it adds to earlier research on public value, to the growing interest in the strategic triangle as an analytical framework in analysing empirical material and to the request for more empirical studies on the subject. The strategic triangle also embraces political factors, government agendas and political leadership for which there has also been a call for more research.

The purpose of this article is to share with leadership educators a writing exercise designed to provide doctoral students enrolled in an Administrative and Policy Leadership course an opportunity to gain experience with building collective will for policy advocacy on a social justice issue. This article describes the use of a letter writing assignment including the background and justification for using letter writing rather than other forms of writing across the curriculum, instructions for students to complete the assignment, and examples and ideas for grading and providing constructive and instructive feedback to leadership students. The article concludes with recommendations and potential assignment modifications for leadership educators that choose to adopt this type of writing assignment within their leadership training curriculum.