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This qualitative interview study compares public value prioritizations of ministers, members of parliament and senior public managers in the Netherlands. This article aims to answer the following central research question: how do Dutch political elites and administrative elites differ in their interpretation and prioritization of public values?

Based on coding and categorization of 65 interviews this article shows how government elites in advanced western democracies interpret and assess four crucial public values: responsiveness, expertise, lawfulness and transparency.

Political elites and administrative elites in the Netherlands are more similar than different in their prioritization and perceptions of public values. Differences are strongly related to role conceptions and institutional responsibilities, which are more traditional than most recent literature on politico-administrative dynamics would suggest.

Our qualitative findings are hard to generalize to larger populations of politicians and public managers in the Netherlands, let alone beyond the Netherlands. However, the testable research hypotheses we derive from our explorative study merit future testing among larger populations of respondents in different countries through survey research.

Experienced values differences between both groups are smaller than their mutual perceptions would suggest.

Most research on public values is quantitative in nature and focuses exclusively on public managers. By adding the politician to the equation we improve our understanding of how public values are enacted in real life and set the tone for a more inclusive research agenda on public values.

The purpose of this chapter is to consider a public value(s) approach as a response to the challenges besetting public management and to investigate the implications of such an approach for management education.

The chapter investigates the concepts of public value and public values and their influence on the norms and practices of public management. It then focuses on the way in which management education has responded to a changing context resulting in innovation and realignment in order to enable public managers to espouse public values and achieve public value. The chapter concludes by exploring the philosophical and practical impact of a public value(s) approach in mid-career public management education.

A public value(s) approach provides not only a relevant discursive framework for public managers but also an appropriate mode of management for the changeable context in which they work. This changes their expectations of mid-career education and influences programme content and pedagogy, enabling innovation and experimentation.

The chapter identifies and analyses the benefits, outcomes and challenges of the public values(s) approach in the mid-career classroom.

Over 100 years ago, the bureaucratic compact and five professions were established: city/county management, city planning, civil engineering, landscape architecture, and architecture. In exchange for merit employment and independence from politics, these professions offered expertise and related values. To understand those values and changes in the compact from the 1900s to today, codes of ethics from the five professions were examined. Anticipated changes were a movement from traditional public values to business values including New Public Management. However, findings show traditional values persisting over time (e.g. public interest), but not many New Public Management values (e.g. innovation). Modern values do appear and expand professionalsʼ responsibilities into environmental protection, sustainability, and human rights, which influence what these professions offer as they seek to uphold their end of the bureaucratic compact.

Currently, our understandings of the dynamics behind the effects of politicization on values and on administrative decision-making remain largely muddled and far from complete. The richness of theoretical accounts, amassed over the past eight decades, has yielded only a limited number of empirical examinations. This failure to develop a coherent collection of empirical works can be for the most part attributed to the complexity associated with studying values, particularly to the lack of clear and testable theories and models. This article attempts to address this deficit and to add to our understandings of the association between values and administrative decision-making at the individual level by explicitly testing the Broker-Purist (BP) model (within a sample of public procurement specialists). It is found that the BP model fits the data well, which suggest the framework as a valid and useful perspective for conceptualizing the effects of environmental politicization on administrative decision-making in public procurement specifically, and in public administration in general.

Co-production with citizens brings about the challenge to orchestrate public values which might be in conflict with each other. However, little is known about what types of value tensions occur in co-production and how actors cope with them. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap.

The paper is based on three case studies of co-production in Germany. In total, 24 semi-structured interviews with public managers, citizens, and third parties were conducted.

The analysis identified three major public value tensions occurring in co-production: the inclusiveness-accountability-tension, the flexibility-accountability-tension, and the productivity-diversity-tension. Furthermore, six strategies of coping with these tensions are examined.

As the paper is based on case studies, further research is required to explore possible other public value tensions emerging from different manifestations of co-production.

This paper bridges the fields of public values and co-production. By including perceptions of all actor groups, a more comprehensive understanding of public values in co-production and how they are in conflict is provided. A novel coping strategy is revealed, which has previously not been mentioned in the literature.

The purpose of this research is to identify and analyze the core values of the Peruvian public sector in the particular context of recent public management reforms.

After distinguishing between traditional private and public sector values, the paper compared the presence of each of these types of values in two very different sources of data: input from employees' values survey and formal values statements of Peruvian public sector organizations. The analysis includes both a comparison of the presence of traditional public and private sector values in the two sources of data and the identification of the cultural profile of the public sector of Peru using the tri-axial model.

The findings indicate a large gap between values at the theoretical level and values at the practical level. While values statements of public organizations in Peru clearly reflect traditional public sector values, in practice, public sector employees appear to follow a mixture of public and private sector values. Strengthening this conclusion is the finding that the cultural tri-axial profile of the sector is purely economic-pragmatic, which suggests that ethical and emotional values are positioned lower on the values hierarchy.

This paper provides the first evidence of two important cultural phenomena in the Peruvian public sector: a broad adoption of private sector values and a gap between the values that are proposed as ethical guidelines (ideal) and the values that are followed in practice (real). The combination of these two phenomena suggests a potential risk to the ethical functioning of the public administration. This risk is especially significant in a developing country like Peru, where many of its poor citizens depend on government support. The paper discusses both the research and practical implications of this study.

Many changes taking place in the public sector raise value questions. Examples are New Public Management, mixed governance forms, globalised recipes on good governance, transnationalisation of public organisations and clashes between Christian and Islamic values in most European states. How to deal with value confusion and value conflicts, thus, is an important challenge for the public manager. Stated in 10 normative prescriptions, various strategies are suggested in the paper. The basic questions addressed are two. How can public management distinguish the central values from those of lesser interest? And how can public management handle value conflicts and organisational design conflicts

The past 30 years have been a period marked by extensive modernisation programmes in the public sector. Principles taken from the New Public Management agenda have been adopted, and market solutions have been implemented across a broad range of service areas. These reforms have challenged the existing organisational culture of many public sector institutions. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there has been a detectable change in the dominant values found in professional organisations within the public sector over the past decade, and if so, what challenges the leaders are faced with as a result of these changes.

The empirical data are based on a quantitative survey of leaders in a large Norwegian municipality with a total population of 189 such leaders. Of these, 155 returned the questionnaires, giving a response rate of 82 per cent.

The results of the study show that two central values connected to the New Public Management agenda have gained increased importance over recent years – namely “meeting the needs of individual users”, and “renewal/innovation”. Of the listed values perceived as having become more important, these were ranked as the top two. At the same time, values traditionally associated with the public ethos continue to enjoy a strong position, whereas purely economic values remain relatively insignificant.

All in all, this study shows that the landscape of values in the public sector is changing, and there are strong indications that traditional values have come under pressure from new values embedded in the on‐going institutional reforms.

The paper shows that in a situation where values are changing, leaders may need to put greater emphasis on value‐based leadership.

This article reports the results on a particular management issue of a recent Danish qualitative interview survey on experiences with fee‐based public library services. It also includes a systematic comparison between underlying values, revealed through the survey, and the results of a recent large scale survey of Danish public sector values. The article outlines the evolution of the library charging discourse and investigates to what extent and how values associated with fee‐based services differ and resemble the general public sector values. In particular, it will be examined to what extent fee‐based services facilitate the penetration of New Public Management oriented values into public libraries. Finally, management practices concerning fee‐based services are considered, focusing, in particular, on possible discrepancies between expressed values and actual practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the competing values framework (CVF) could be used by public service leaders to analyze and better understand public sector leadership challenges, thereby improving their ability in leading across borders and generations.

This paper applies the CVF, originally developed for understanding leadership in the private sector and shows how it can be adapted for analyzing and developing skill in addressing different leadership challenges in public sector contexts, including setting out specific learning exercises.

The paper has four parts. The first provides an overview of the origins, logic, and evolution of the CVF. The second part shows how the CVF is relevant and useful for assessing management and leadership values in the public sector. The third part identifies specific leadership challenges and learning exercises for public sector leaders at different stages of development. The final part concludes by reflecting on the CVF and similar frameworks, and where future research might go.

Because of the chosen research approach, propositions within the paper should be tentatively applied.

This paper provides guidance for the better understanding of complex leadership challenges within the public sector through the use of the CVF.

The social implications of the paper could include the more widespread use of the CVF within the public sector as a tool to lead more effectively.

This paper adapts and extends an analytical tool that has been of high value in the private sector so that it can be used in the public sector.