Memorandum 1

Memorandum HomeworkHelp

Symposium
Introduction

John M. Bryson is the McKnight

Presidential Professor of Planning and

Public Affairs in the Humphrey School of

Public Affairs at the

University of Minnesota

.

He wrote Strategic Planning for Public

and Nonprofi t Organizations and co-

wrote, with Barbara C. Crosby, Leadership

for the Common Good. He received

the 2011 Dwight Waldo Award from the

American Society for Public Administration

for “outstanding contributions to the pro-

fessional literature of public administration

over an extended scholarly career.”

E-mail: bryson001@umn.edu

Barbara C. Crosby associate professor

in

the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at

the University of Minnesota, has taught and

written extensively about leadership and

public policy. She is author of Leadership

for Global Citizenship and coauthor,

with John M. Bryson, of Leadership for

the Common Good. As former academic

codirector of the University of Minnesota’s

Center for Integrative Leadership, she

conducted training for senior managers of

nonprofi t, business, and government organi-

zations in the United States and abroad.

E-mail: crosb002@umn.edu

Laura Bloomberg is associate dean in

the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at

the University of Minnesota. Her teaching,

research, and publications focus on U.S.

education policy and administration,

cross-sector leadership, and program

evaluation. Previously, she was an urban

high school principal and executive director

of the University of Minnesota’s Center for

Integrative Leadership. She worked with

former U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton

to launch the global Women in Public

Service Project.

E-mail: bloom004@umn.edu

This article has been updated with minor copy-editing changes after fi rst online publication. 445

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 4, pp. 445–456. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12238.

approach. In this regard, the emerging approach
reemphasizes and brings to the fore value-related
concerns of previous eras that were always present
but not dominant (Denhardt and Denhardt 2011;
Rosenbloom and McCurdy 2006). Th is renewed
attention to a broader array of values, especially to
values associated with democracy, makes it obvious
why questions related to the creation of public value,
public values more generally, and the public sphere
have risen to prominence. Th is article highlights some
of the key value-related issues in the new approach
and proposes an agenda for the future.

First, we outline what we believe are the main con-
tours of the emerging approach. Next, we clarify the
meaning of value, public value, public values, and the
public sphere; discuss how they are operationalized;
and summarize important challenges to the concepts.
We then discuss how public value and public values
are used in practice. Finally, we present an agenda for
research and action to be pursued if the new approach
is to fulfi ll its promise.1

An Emerging View of Public Administration
Public administration thinking and practice have
always responded to new challenges and the short-
comings of what came before (Kaufman 1969; Peters
and Pierre 1998). Table 1, which builds on a similar
table in Denhardt and Denhardt (2011, 28–29),
presents a summary of traditional public administra-
tion, the New Public Management, and the emerg-
ing approach. Th e new approach highlights four
important stances that together represent a response
to current challenges and old shortcomings. Th ese
include an emphasis on public value and public
values, a recognition that government has a special
role as a guarantor of public values, a belief in the
importance of public management broadly conceived
and of service to and for the public, and a heightened
emphasis on citizenship and democratic and col-
laborative governance. Th ese concerns, of course, are
not new to public administration, but their emerging
combination is the latest response to what Dwight

A new public administration movement is emerging to
move beyond traditional public administration and New
Public Management. Th e new movement is a response to
the challenges of a networked, multisector, no-one-wholly-
in-charge world and to the shortcomings of previous
public administration approaches. In the new approach,
values beyond effi ciency and eff ectiveness—and especially
democratic values—are prominent. Government has a
special role to play as a guarantor of public values, but
citizens as well as businesses and nonprofi t organizations
are also important as active public problem solvers. Th e
article highlights value-related issues in the new approach
and presents an agenda for research and action to be
pursued if the new approach is to fulfi ll its promise.

Creating public value is a hot topic for both public administration practitioners and schol-ars (Van der Wal, Nabatchi, and de Graaf
2013; Williams and Shearer 2011). Why is that?
What is going on? We believe the answer lies with the
continuing evolution of public administration think-
ing and practice. Just as New Public Management
supplanted traditional public administration in
the 1980s and 1990s as the dominant view, a new
movement is now under way that is likely to eclipse
it. Th e new approach does not have a consensually
agreed name, but many authors point to the need for
a new approach and to aspects of its emergence in
practice and theory (e.g., Alford and Hughes 2008;
Boyte 2005; Bozeman 2007; Denhardt and Denhardt
2011; Fisher 2014; Kalambokidis 2014; Kettl 2008;
Moore 1995, 2013, 2014; Osborne 2010; Stoker
2006; Talbot 2010). For example, Janet and Robert
Denhardt’s excellent and widely cited book Th e New
Public Service (2011) captures much of the collabora-
tive and democratic spirit, content, and governance
focus of the movement.

While effi ciency was the main concern of traditional
public administration, and effi ciency and eff ectiveness
are the main concerns of New Public Management,
values beyond effi ciency and eff ectiveness are pursued,
debated, challenged, and evaluated in the emerging

Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public
Administration and the New Public Management

John M. Bryson
Barbara C. Crosby
Laura Bloomberg

University of Minnesota

446 Public Administration Review • July | August 2014

Table 1 Comparing Perspectives: Traditional Public Administration, New Public Management, and the Emerging Approach to Public Administration

Dimension Traditional Public Administration New Public Management
Emerging Approach to Public Administration (e.g.,

Denhardt and Denhardt’s [2011] New Public Service)

Broad Environmental and Intellectual Context

Material and ideo-
logical conditions

Industrialization, urbanization, rise of
modern corporation, specialization,
faith in science, belief in progress,
concern over major market failures,
experience with the Great Depres-
sion and World War II, high trust in
government

Concern with government failures,
distrust of big government,
belief in the effi cacy and
effi ciency of markets and
rationality, devolution and
devolution

Concern with market, government, nonprofi t and civic
failures; concern with so-called wicked problems;
deepening inequality; hollowed or thinned state;
“downsized” citizenship; networked and collaborative
governance; advanced information and communication
technologies

Primary theoretical
and epistemologi-
cal foundations

Political theory, scientifi c management,
naive social science, pragmatism

Economic theory, sophisticated
positivist social science

Democratic theory, public and nonprofi t management
theory, plus diverse approaches to knowing

Prevailing view of
rationality and
model of human
behavior

Synoptic rationality, “administrative
man”

Technical and economic rationality,
“economic man,” self-interested
decision makers

Formal rationality, multiple tests of rationality (political,
administrative, economic, legal, ethical), belief in public
spiritedness beyond narrow self-interest, “reason-
able person” open to infl uence through dialogue and
deliberation

The Public Sphere or Realm

Defi nition of the
common good,
public value, the
public interest

Determined by elected offi cials or
technical experts

Determined by elected offi cials or
by aggregating individual prefer-
ences supported by evidence of
consumer choice

What is public is seen as going far beyond government,
although government has a special role as a guarantor
of public values; common good determined by broadly
inclusive dialogue and deliberation informed by evi-
dence and democratic and constitutional values

Role of politics Elect governors, who determine policy
objectives

Elect governors, who determine
policy objectives; empowered
managers; administrative politics
around the use of specifi c tools

“Public work,” including determining policy objectives via
dialogue and deliberation; democracy as “a way of life”

Role of citizenship Voter, client, constituent Customer Citizens seen as problem-solvers and co-creators actively
engaged in creating what is valued by the public and is
good for the public

Government and Public Administration

Role of government
agencies

Rowing, seen as designing and imple-
menting policies and programs in re-
sponse to politically defi ned objectives

Steering, seen as determining
objectives and catalyzing service
delivery through tool choice and
reliance if possible on markets,
businesses, and nonprofi t
organizations

Government acts as convener, catalyst, collaborator;
sometimes steering, sometimes, rowing, sometimes
partnering, sometimes staying out of the way

Key objectives Politically provided goals; implementation
managed by public servants; monitor-
ing done through bureaucratic and
elected offi cials’ oversight

Politically provided goals;
managers manage inputs and
outputs in a way that ensures
economy and responsiveness to
consumers

Create public value in such a way that what the public
most cares about is addressed effectively and what is
good for the public is put in place

Key values Effi ciency Effi ciency and effectiveness Effi ciency, effectiveness, and the full range of democratic
and constitutional values

Mechanisms for
achieving policy
objectives

Administer programs through central-
ized, hierarchically organized public
agencies or self-regulating professions

Create mechanisms and incentive
structures to achieve policy
objectives especially through use
of markets

Selection from a menu of alternative delivery mechanisms
based on pragmatic criteria; this often means helping
build cross-sector collaborations and engaging citizens
to achieve agreed objectives

Role of public
manager

Ensures that rules and appropriate
procedures are followed; responsive
to elected offi cials, constituents, and
clients; limited discretion allowed to
administrative offi cials

Helps defi ne and meet agreed
upon performance objectives;
responsive to elected offi cials
and customers; wide discretion
allowed

Plays an active role in helping create and guide networks
of deliberation and delivery and help maintain and
enhance the overall effectiveness, accountability, and
capacity of the system; responsive to elected offi cials,
citizens, and an array of other stakeholders; discre-
tion is needed but is constrained by law, democratic
and constitutional values, and a broad approach to
accountability

Approach to
accountability

Hierarchical, in which administrators are
accountable to democratically elected
offi cials

Market driven, in which aggre-
gated self-interests result in out-
comes desired by broad groups
of citizens seen as customers

Multifaceted, as public servants must attend to law, com-
munity values, political norms, professional standards,
and citizen interests

Contribution to the
democratic process

Delivers politically determined objec-
tives and accountability; competition
between elected leaders provides over-
arching accountability; public sector
has a monopoly on public service ethos

Delivers politically determined
objectives; managers determine
the means; skepticism regard-
ing public service ethos; favors
customer service

Delivers dialogue and catalyzes and responds to active
citizenship in pursuit of what the public values and what
is good for the public; no one sector has a monopoly on
public service ethos; maintaining relationships based on
shared public values is essential

Sources: Adapted principally from Denhardt and Denhardt (2011, 28–29), with further adaptations from Stoker (2006, 44); Kelly, Mulgan, and Muers (2002);
and Boyte (2011).

Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management 447

how to govern, not just manage, in increasingly diverse and com-
plex societies facing increasingly complex problems (Kettl 2002;
Osborne 2010; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011). Natural disasters,
failures of large parts of the economy, unevenly eff ective health care
and education systems, a stagnant middle class, deepening inequal-
ity, and bankrupt communities off er recent examples that have
challenged not just governments but also businesses, nonprofi ts,
and civil society generally. In the United States, these challenges are
occurring at a time of historic distrust of a broad range of institu-
tions (Gallup 2014).

The Emerging Approach
Th e responses to these new challenges do not yet constitute a
coherent whole, but the outlines of a new approach are becoming
clear in, for example, Janet and Robert Denhardt’s (2011) widely
cited framework called the New Public Service, as well as in Gerry
Stoker’s (2006) public value management, Barry Bozeman’s (2007)
managing publicness, Stephen Osborne’s new public governance
(2010), and political theorist Harry Boyte and colleagues’ (Boyte
2011) new civic politics. Th ese scholars draw on diff erent theo-
retical and epistemological foundations than traditional public
administration or New Public Management. Citizens, citizenship,
and democracy are central to the new approach, which harks back
to Dwight Waldo’s (1948) abiding interest in a democratic theory
of administration. Th e approach advocates more contingent,
pragmatic kinds of rationality, going beyond the formal rationalities
of Herbert Simon’s (1997) “administrative man” and the “eco-
nomic man” of microeconomics. Citizens are seen as quite capable
of engaging in deliberative problem solving that allows them to
develop a public spiritedness of the type that Tocqueville saw in the
American republic of the 1830s when he talked about the preva-
lence of “self-interest rightly understood” (Tocqueville 1840; see
also Mansbridge 1990).

Scholars arguing for the new approach see public value emerging
from broadly inclusive dialogue and deliberation. Th e conversation
includes community members from multiple sectors because, as
Jørgensen and Bozeman note, “public values and public value are
not the exclusive province of government, nor is government the
only set of institutions having public value obligations, [though
clearly] government has a special role as guarantor of public values”
(2007, 373–74). Th is aspect of the approach has many precursors,
including, for example, the work of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom
(Ostrom 1973; Ostrom and Ostrom 1971), which also provides
important underpinnings for understanding networked and col-
laborative governance (McGinnis and Ostrom 2012; Th omson and
Perry 2006). Th e approach encompasses what Boyte terms “public
work,” meaning “self-organized, sustained eff orts by a mix of people
who solve common problems and create things, material or sym-
bolic, of lasting civic value” (2011, 632–33), while developing civic
learning and capacity as part of the process. Th is work can engage
many diff erent kinds of people, including public-spirited managers
from across sectors and citizens. Citizens thus move beyond their
roles as voters, clients, constituents, customers, or poll responders
to becoming problem solvers, co-creators, and governors actively
engaged in producing what is valued by the public and good for the
public (Briggs 2008). Budd (2014) captures the importance of work
in general for the creation of public value and the special role that
labor unions have often played in its creation.

Waldo (1948) called the periodically changing “material and
ideological background.” Whether the new approach can live up to
its promise—and particularly its democratic promise—is an open
question that we explore later.

Traditional Public Administration
Traditional public administration (Stoker 2006; Waldo 1948)
arose in the United States in the late 1900s and matured by the
mid-twentieth century as a response to a particular set of condi-
tions. Th ese included the challenges of industrialization, urbaniza-
tion, the rise of the modern corporation, faith in science, belief in
progress, and concern over major market failures. Mostly success-
ful experience with government responses to World War I, the
Great Depression, and World War II helped solidify support for
traditional public administration and built strong trust in govern-
ment as an agent for the good of all. In its idealized form, politics
and administration were quite separate (Wilson 1887). Goals were
determined in the fi rst instance by elected offi cials and only second-
arily refi ned by technical experts in response to political direction.
Government agencies were the primary deliverers of public value
through the way they designed and implemented politically defi ned
objectives (Salamon 2002). Effi ciency in government operations
was the preeminent value. Citizens were viewed primarily as voters,
clients, or constituents. Of course, traditional public administration
in practice was always more deeply enmeshed in politics than its
idealized form would suggest (Denhardt and Denhardt 2011, 6–7;
Waldo 1948), and government agencies were themselves prone to
failure (Wolf 1979).

New Public Management
After a long gestation period, the New Public Management (Hood
1991) became the dominant approach to public administration in
the 1980s and 1990s. In the United States, the change was marked
by Osborne and Gaebler’s best-selling book Reinventing Government
(1992) and the Bill Clinton administration’s National Performance
Review (Gore 1993). New Public Management arose out of a con-
cern with government failures, a belief in the effi cacy and effi ciency
of markets, a belief in economic rationality, and a push away from
large, centralized government agencies toward devolution and
privatization.

In New Public Management, public managers are urged to “steer,
not row.” Th ey steer by determining objectives, or what should be
done, and by catalyzing service delivery, or how it should be done
(rowing), through their choice of a particular “tool” or combination
of tools (e.g., markets, regulation, taxes, subsidies, insurance, etc.)
for achieving the objectives (Salamon 2002). Markets and competi-
tion—often among actors from diff erent sectors—are the preferred
way of delivering government services in the most effi cient and
eff ective way to recipients seen as “customers,” not citizens. Public
managers should be empowered and freed from constrictions so that
they can be “entrepreneurial” and “manage for results.” In practice,
of course, managers often face the worst of circumstances in which
they are accountable for results but not allowed to manage for
results (Moynihan 2006).

While the challenges that prompted traditional public adminis-
tration and New Public Management have not disappeared, new
material conditions and challenges have emerged. Th ey center on

448 Public Administration Review • July | August 2014

Th e emerging approach is partly descriptive of current and emerging
practices, partly normative in its prescriptions regarding the role of
government and public managers, and partly hopeful as a response
to the challenges posed by a “changing material and ideologi-
cal background.” In contrast to traditional public administration
and New Public Management, however, the emerging approach
often looks ambiguous, unevenly grounded theoretically, relatively
untested, and lacking in clear guidance for practice. Yet what else
can one expect in a shared-power, multisector, no-one-wholly-in-
charge world? (Cleveland 2002; Crosby and Bryson 2005). Old
approaches have their own problems, and the new approach is still
emerging. One thing is clear, however, and that is the fundamental
importance in the emerging approach of understanding what is
meant by public value, public values, and the public sphere. Progress
must be made on clarifying, measuring, and assessing these concepts
if the new approach is gain added traction.

Value, Public Value, Public Values, and the Public Sphere
Th e dictionary defi nition of value as “relative worth, utility, or
importance” of something (Merriam-Webster, accessed online
April 1, 2014) leaves open a number of questions that have troubled
philosophers for centuries and reappear in the current debate over
public values, public value, and the public sphere. Th ese questions
concern at least the following: (1) whether the objects of value
are subjective psychological states or objective states of the world;
(2) whether value is intrinsic, extrinsic, or relational; (3) whether
something is valuable for its own sake or as a means to something
else; (4) whether there are hierarchies of values; (5) who does the
valuing; (6) how the valuing is done; and (7) against what criteria
the object of value is measured. We return to these questions as we
discuss four major contributions to the public value literature and in
our conclusions.

Th e public value literature distinguishes among (1) public values,
which are many (e.g., Andersen et al. 2012; Bozeman 2002, 2007;
Jørgenson and Bozeman 2007; Meynhardt 2009; Van Wart 1998);
(2) creating public value, defi ned as producing what is either valued
by the public, is good for the public, including adding to the public
sphere, or both, as assessed against various public value criteria
(Alford 2008; Alford and O’Flynn 2009; Benington and Moore
2011; Stoker 2006); and (3) the public sphere or public realm,
within which public values and value are developed and played out
(Benington 2011).

Barry Bozeman on Public Values
Bozeman, a leading voice in the public value literature, focuses on
the policy or societal level. He writes, “A society’s public values are
those providing normative consensus about: (1) the rights, ben-
efi ts, and prerogatives to which citizens should (and should not) be
entitled; (2) the obligations of citizens to society, the state, and one
another; and (3) the principles on which governments and policies
should be based” (2007, 17). Although public values in a democ-
racy are typically contested, a relative consensus is discernible from
constitutions, legislative mandates, policies, literature reviews,
opinion polls, and other formal and informal sources (Jørgensen
and Bozeman 2007).

What Bozeman terms public value failure occurs when neither the
market nor the public sector provides goods and services required

In the new approach, government agencies can be conveners,
catalysts, and collaborators—sometimes steering, sometimes row-
ing, sometimes partnering, and sometimes staying out of the way.
In addition, the way in which government’s key objectives are
set changes. In traditional public administration, elected offi cials
set goals, and implementation is up to public servants, overseen
by elected offi cials’ and senior administrators. In New Public
Management, elected offi cials still set goals. Managers then manage
inputs and outputs in a way that ensures economy and responsive-
ness to customers. In contrast, in the new approach, both elected
offi cials and public managers are charged with creating public value
so that what the public cares about most is addressed eff ectively and
what is good for the public is pursued. Th is change for public man-
agers raises obvious questions of democratic accountability, an issue
to which we will turn later. On the other hand, the change is essen-
tially a recognition that managers have always played an important
role in goal setting because of the advice they give to elected offi cials
and the need to act in the face of often ambiguous policy direction.

As noted, in the emerging approach, the full range of democratic
and constitutional values are relevant. Policy makers and public
managers are also encouraged to consider the full array of alternative
delivery mechanisms and choose among them based on pragmatic
criteria. Th is often means helping build cross-sector collaborations
and engaging citizens to achieve mutually agreed objectives (Agranoff
2006; Fung 2006; McGuire 2006). Public managers’ role thus goes
well beyond that in traditional public administration or New Public
Management; they are presumed able to help create and guide net-
works of deliberation and delivery and help maintain and enhance
the overall eff ectiveness, capacity, and accountability of the system.

Th e nature of discretion also changes. In traditional public admin-
istration, public managers have limited discretion; New Public
Management encourages wide discretion in meeting entrepreneurial
and performance targets. In the emerging approach, discretion is
needed, but it is constrained by law, democratic and constitutional
values, and a broad approach to accountability. Accountability
becomes multifaceted and not just hierarchical (as in traditional
public administration) or more market driven (as in New Public
Management), as public servants must attend to law, community
values, political norms, professional standards, and citizen interests
(Dubnick and Frederickson 2010; Mulgan 2000; Romzek, LeRoux,
and Blackmar 2012). In the emerging multisector collaborative
environment, no one sector has a monopoly on public service ethos,
although government plays a special role; in addition, there is less
skepticism about government and a less strong preference for mar-
kets and customer service.

Finally, in this emerging approach, public administration’s contribu-
tion to the democratic process is also diff erent. In both traditional
public administration and New Public Management, managers are
not very directly involved in the democratic process, viewed mainly
as elections and legislative deliberation. In contrast, in the emerging
approach, government delivers dialogue and catalyzes and responds
to active citizenship in pursuit of what the public values and what is
good for the public. Th e extent to which it is possible for dialogue
and deliberation to do so in practice remains unclear, however, in
systems that favor elites and are stacked against ordinary citizens
(Dahl and Soss 2014).

Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management 449

arbiter of public value when collectively owned assets of government
are being deployed. Second, collectively owned assets include not
only government money but also state authority. Th ird, assessing
the value of government production relies on an aggregation of costs
and benefi ts broadly conceived, as well as on collective determina-
tions concerning the welfare of others, duties to others, and concep-
tions of a good and just society. Moore (2013, forthcoming) uses
these philosophical premises to develop a public value account. On
the benefi t side is the achievement of collectively valued outcomes,
while on the cost side are the costs of using public authority and
collectively owned assets.

Moore argues that public managers should use the strategic triangle
(1995, 22–23). Strategy must be (1) aimed at achieving something
that is substantively valuable (i.e., must constitute public value),
(2) legitimate and politically sustainable, and (3) operationally and
administratively feasible (see also Alford and O’Flynn 2009). Moore
“equates managerial success in the public sector with initiating and
reshaping public sector enterprises in ways that increase their value
to the public in both the short and the long run” (1995, 10), which
requires a “restless, value-seeking imagination” (Benington and
Moore 2011, 3).

Moore is speaking primarily to current and prospective public man-
agers in a democratic society and secondarily to their elected leaders.
Like Bozeman, an implication of Moore’s work is the need for a
healthy democracy with supporting institutions and the processes
necessary to forge agreement on and achieve public values in practice.

For Moore, like Bozeman, public value generally refers to objective
states of the world that can be measured. Also like Bozeman, Moore
sees public value as extrinsic and also intrinsic to the functioning
of an eff ective democratic polity. Again, like Bozeman, something
being evaluated may be deemed to hold inherent value or may
be seen as a means to something else. Unlike Bozeman, Moore
does assume a hierarchy of values in which public organizational
eff ectiveness, effi ciency, accountability, justness, and fairness in the
context of democratic governance are prime values. For Moore,
ultimately, elected offi cials and the citizenry do the valuing, but
public managers also play an important role. Th e valuing can be
shown through the public value account.

Rhodes and Wanna in particular have criticized Moore and his
supporters. Not clear, they say, is whether their approach is “a
paradigm, a concept, a model, a heuristic device, or even a story . . .
[As a result,] it is all things to all people” (2007, 408). Th ey believe
Moore downplays the importance of politics and elected offi cials,
overly emphasizes the role of public managers, and trusts too much
in public organizations, private sector experience, and the virtues of
public servants (409–12).

Alford (2008; see also Alford and O’Flynn 2009) mounts a spir-
ited defense of Moore and off ers refutations of each of Rhodes and
Wanna’s points. He emphasizes Moore’s strategic triangle, which sees
the authorizing environment as placing “a legitimate limit on the
public manager’s autonomy to shape what is meant by public value”
(Alford 2008, 177). Alford also believes Rhodes and Wanna operate
out of an “old” public administration paradigm that draws a sharp
distinction between politics and administration and thus ignore the

to achieve public values, which are operationalized in terms of a set
of eight criteria, for example, political processes and social cohe-
sion should be suffi cient to ensure eff ective communication and
processing of public values, and suffi cient transparency exists to
permit citizens to make informed judgments (Bozeman 2002, 2007;
see also Kalambokidis 2014). Public value creation is the extent to
which public values criteria are met, where these are some combi-
nation of input, process, output, and outcome measures. Public
values for Bozeman thus are measureable, although clearly there
can be disagreements about how the values are to be conceptual-
ized and measured. One implication is that analysts, citizens, and
policy makers should focus on what public values are and on ways
in which institutions and processes are necessary to forge agreement
on and to achieve public values in practice (Davis and West 2009;
Jacobs 2014; Kalambokidis 2014; Moulton 2009).

Note that Bozeman’s approach is both positive, when he asks what
the normative consensus on values is, and normative, when he
argues that public values failures should be corrected. Note, too,
that Bozeman (2007) is silent on the role of the nonprofi t sector
and, to a lesser extent, on the public sphere more generally; on the
rights, responsibilities, or weights to be given to noncitizens; and
on the role and importance of power in contests over public values.
Regarding the eff ects of political power, Jacobs (2014) believes that
in the U.S. context, Bozeman severely underestimates the extent
of dissensus, the disproportionate infl uence of affl uent citizens and
organized interests, and the extent to which governing structures
favor inaction and drift.

Mark Moore on Creating Public Value
Whereas Bozeman focuses on the policy or societal level, Mark Moore
(1995, 52–55), another important voice in the literature, focuses on
public managers. He, too, is concerned about devaluing of govern-
ment and public managers in an era of economic individualism and
market ascendency, and he initially conceived of public value as the
public management equivalent of shareholder value. He seeks both a
persuasive rhetoric and an approach to discerning, championing, and
achieving public value—or what he calls creating public value. Public
value primarily results from government performance, so his view of
public value creation in this early book is narrower than that in much
of the later literature.

Moore believes that citizens want from their governments some
combination of the following that together encompass public
value: (1) high-performing, service-oriented public bureaucracies,
(2) public organizations that are effi cient and eff ective in achieving
desired social outcomes, and (3) public organizations that operate
justly and fairly and lead to just and fair conditions in the society
at large. While Moore’s defi nition of public value is vaguer than
Bozeman’s, it highlights reasonably specifi c public values: effi ciency,
eff ectiveness, socially and politically sanctioned desired outcomes,
procedural justice, and substantive justice. Like Bozeman’s, Moore’s
defi nition of public value can encompass input, process, output, and
outcome measures.

Moore (2014) develops the philosophical foundations of his
approach to public value as a prelude to establishing what he calls
“public value accounting.” He makes three assertions: First, a public
collectively defi ned through democratic processes is the appropriate

450 Public Administration Review • July | August 2014

in individuals, constituted by subjective evaluations against basic
needs, activated by and realized in emotional-motivational states,
and produced and reproduced in experience-intense practices.

In contrast to Bozeman and Moore’s approaches, Meyhnardt’s is
nonprescriptive; it is far more psychologically based; and it empha-
sizes more the interpenetration of public and private spheres.
Unlike the other two authors, he pays little attention to the
institutions and supra-individual processes involved in public value
creation. However, like Bozeman and Moore, Meynhardt also sees
public value as measurable, in his case against the dimensions he
outlines.

John Benington on the Public Sphere
Beyond public values and creating public value, there is the public
sphere. John Benington sees the public sphere as “a democratic
space” that includes the “web of values, places, organizations, rules,
knowledge, and other cultural resources held in common by people
through their everyday commitments and behaviors, and held in
trust by government and public institutions” (2011, 31). It is “what
provides a society with some sense of belonging, meaning, purpose
and continuity, and which enables people to thrive and strive amid
uncertainty” (43). Like Dewey (1927), Benington believes that the
public is not given but must be continuously constructed. Public
value is necessarily contested, and it is often established through a
continuous process of dialogue. For Benington, the public sphere
is thus the space—psychological, social, political, institutional, and
physical—within which public values and public value are held, cre-
ated, or diminished. Public value includes what adds to the public
sphere. While Benington himself is committed to democracy, note
that his extended defi nition of the public sphere can apply to other
forms of government.

Operationally, for both practitioners and scholars, determining who
and what the “public” is can be problematic (Frederickson 1991).
Nonetheless, Meynhardt sees the “public” is an “indispensable
operational fi ction necessary for action and orientation in a complex
environment” (2009, 205). In other words, as complexity increases
the more “the public” becomes a social construct “necessary for act-
ing, but hard to pin down” (204).

In practical terms, the public may already be known, may need
to make itself known, or may need to be created. For example,
Moore’s normative approach requires public managers to look to
their “authorizing environments” for direction, although they may
conclude that the public can be best served by working to change
aspects of the authorizing environment. Moore also asserts that
elected offi cials and the citizens (often through elections) are the
arbiters of public value (1995, 38), even when political decision
making is deeply problematic on moral grounds. In democratic
societies, citizens and managers can challenge these questionable
decisions, but not ignore them (Moore 1995, 54–55). For Dewey
(1927), a public is “created” when citizens experience the nega-
tive consequences of situations beyond their control (resulting, for
example, from market or governmental activities). In other circum-
stances, public administrators may need to “call a public into being”
(Moore 2014), for example, when designing and managing a public
participation process (Cooper, Bryer, and Meek 2006; Fung 2006;
Nabatchi 2012).

fact that political appointees and civil servants often have consider-
able leeway to infl uence policy and decisions.

Dahl and Soss (2014) also level sharp criticism at Moore’s concep-
tion of creating public value. In their view, by posing public value
as an analogue to shareholder value, seeing democratic engage-
ment in primarily instrumental terms, and viewing public value as
something that is produced, Moore and his followers actually mimic
the very neoliberal rationality they seek to resist and run the risk of
furthering neoliberalism’s de-democratizing and market-enhancing
consequences. Public managers might unwittingly be agents of
“downsizing democracy” (Crenson and Ginsberg 2002). Th e cau-
tions that Dahl and Soss raise are serious and should be addressed
by those seeking to advance the public value literature.

In addition, Jacobs (2014) believes that Moore’s hopeful view of
public management can be Pollyannaish, at least in the United
States, given sharply divided public opinion on many issues,
intensely partisan politics, the power of organized interests, and
the many veto points built into governance arrangements. Clearly,
public managers are constrained in a democratic society—and
rightly so—but there are also many examples of enterprising, public
value–producing activities that demonstrate that public managers
can, in fact, be active agents in creating public value. Th e public
value literature thus will need to explore much further the concep-
tual, political, organizational, managerial, and other limits on public
managers seeking to create public value in particular circumstances.

Timo Meynhardt on Public Value
Timo Meynhardt, in an important but far less well-known
approach, believes that public value is constructed out of “values
characterizing the relationship between an individual and ‘society,’
defi ning the quality of the relationship” (2009, 206). Th e relation-
ship’s quality is assessed subjectively by individuals, but when there
is intersubjective weight attached to these assessments, they become
objective and might reach Bozeman’s requirement of a reasonable
normative consensus. Meynhardt believes that public value is for
the public when it concerns “evaluations about how basic needs of
the individuals, groups, and the society as a whole are infl uenced in
relationships involving the public” (212). Public value is also about
value from the public, when it is “drawn from the experience of the
public.” Public value for Meynhardt, too, can refer to input, process,
output, and outcome measures.

Meynhardt posits four basic dimensions (or content categories) of
public value closely connected to a widely cited psychological theory
of basic needs (Epstein 1989, 1993, 2003) and related to categories
in traditional welfare economics. Th e categories are moral-ethical,
political-social, utilitarian-instrumental, and hedonistic-aesthetical.
Th e “value” that an individual attaches to an experience is based on
how well the experience satisfi es his or her basic needs as assessed
against these dimensions. Note that the assessment is a subjec-
tive, emotional-motivational, and valenced reaction to an experi-
ence of some sort involving the “public,” such as an encounter
with a government program, an election, or visit to a public space.
Intersubjectively equivalent assessments are a broad measure of the
extent to which public value has been created or diminished. To
summarize, Meynhardt (2009, 212) sees public value creation as
situated in relationships between the individual and society, founded

Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management 451

identifi cation with a republican or democratic government narrows
the defi nition, while the common foundations of public life are
more closely related to the idea of the public sphere.

How the Ideas of Creating Public Value and Policy-Level
and Societal Public Values Are Used in Practice and
Research
Th e diff erent strands in the public value literature clearly can be
linked. Specifi cally, Moore’s managerially focused idea of creating
public value involves producing what the public values or is good
for the public, the merits of which can be assessed against a set of
more specifi c public values. Th ese can include Bozeman’s and others’
societal or policy-focused public value criteria, Meynhardt’s psycho-
logically focused criteria, Benington’s idea of enhancing the public
sphere, and other important values in the public administration
fi eld and literature. All may or should be considered when assessing
value creation in specifi c instances.

Uses of the Creating Public Value Idea in Practice and Research
Th e idea of creating public value has been used as a paradigm, rhet-
oric, narrative, and kind of performance (Alford and O’Flynn 2009,
178–85). Stoker (2006) proposes “public value management” as a
new paradigm that is better suited to networked governance than
traditional public administration or the New Public Management.
He is thus moving beyond Moore’s primary focus on public manag-
ers at the top of a public bureaucracy delivering services or obliga-
tions to a focus on networked interorganizational and cross-sector
relations and governance.

Stoker makes the case that traditional public administration and
New Public Management are not up to the job of managing in a
networked public environment, but he only vaguely considers how
leaders and managers in specifi c instances would achieve effi ciency,
accountability, and equity, along with broader democratic values
(O’Flynn 2007; Williams and Shearer 2011). Nor does he explain
how leaders and managers should cope with a democracy having
problems with low voter turnout, divided government, competing
organized interests, and competing conceptions of what public value
might be in any situation (Davis and West 2009; Jacobs 2014).

Critics of public value argue that it has been used as a rhetorical
strategy to protect and advance the interests of bureaucrats and
their organizations (Roberts 1995). Th e criticism unquestion-
ably has merit in particular cases. As noted earlier, Dahl and Soss
(2014) highlight the potential of public value rhetoric to under-
mine democratic processes. Smith, however, believes that a “focus
on public value enables one to bring together debates about values,
institutions, systems, processes and people. It also enables one to
link insights from diff erent analytical perspectives, including public
policy, policy analysis, management, economics, and political
science” (2004, 68–69). Similarly, Fisher (2014) off ers a narrative
that contrasts an oppositional approach to public decision making
( public/private, black/white, right/wrong, mine/yours) with an
“opposable” or integrative approach wherein public managers can
link seemingly unrelated, or contradictory, and sometimes paradoxi-
cal constructs to achieve a higher level of public value across sectors.
Th e stories that managers create thus can be self-serving rhetoric
but also a public-regarding story about what should be, or has been,
created.

Public values scholars look to a variety of sources for evidence
of what the “public” is, wants, or is good for it. Sources include,
for example, literature reviews, legislation, rules and regulations,
and opinion polls (Bozeman 2007; Jacobs 2014; Jørgensen and
Bozeman 2007). Meynhardt (2009, forthcoming), as noted, relies
on psychological theory to derive the dimensions against which
public values can be assessed; he has developed and published
results from the use of psychological questionnaires based on this
work. Moulton (2009) looks to “public values institutions,” which
can be of three types, with the three types presumed to diff eren-
tially aff ect how public values are realized in practice. Regulatory
institutions are legally sanctioned and can establish rules, surveil-
lance mechanisms, and incentives to infl uence behavior. Normative-
associative institutions help create expectations or norms that
infl uence social life through prescriptive, evaluative, or obligatory
guidance. Finally, cultural cognitive institutions help create shared
conceptions of the nature of social reality and the frames used to
create meaning. Th e three kinds of institutions are analytic con-
structs and can and do overlap in practice. Andersen et al. (2012)
look to archetypal forms of governance to derive the content of
public values; the forms are hierarchy, clans or professions, net-
works, and markets.

How Public Value Relates to Other Concepts
Part of public value’s importance is that it encompasses and goes
beyond several other venerable concepts that highlight the proper
ends and means of government and broader public action. Among
these are the public interest, the common good, public goods, and
commonwealth. Public interest originally was associated with the
state, not with the public sphere more generally (Gunn 1969), and
thus it typically refers to the reasons for, or consequences of, govern-
ment action (Alexander 2002, 226–27). Beyond that, attempts to
operationalize the public interest have proved diffi cult (Mitnick
1976; Sorauf 1957), although not necessarily in the case of apply-
ing relatively clear public laws and regulations to specifi c decisions
(Alexander 2002). Vagueness and diffi culties of operationalization
also plague related terms such as the common good.

Public goods refers to production of nonrival, nonexcludable goods
and services. Public value diff ers in three ways: First, it includes
remedies to market failures beyond inadequate provision of public
goods, along with the institutional arrangements that make the rem-
edies possible. Th is fi ts clearly with Bozeman’s (2007) view. Public
goods are outputs and public value includes the outcomes made
possible by public goods. Th is fi ts well with Moore’s (1995) view.
Finally, public value has value for the valuer, which accords well
with Meynhardt’s (2009) approach.

Probably commonwealth comes closest to capturing the meaning of
public value, as the term originally meant “common well-being.” In
the United States from the colonial era through the World War II
era, as Boyte (1989) points out, commonwealth meant two things.
First, it meant a republican or democratic government of equals
concerned with the general welfare and an active citizenry through-
out the year. Second, the term “brought to mind the touchstone,
or common foundations, of public life—the basic resources and
public goods of a community over which citizens assumed respon-
sibility and authority” (Boyte 1989, 4–5). Th us, while similar to
public value in meaning, commonwealth is not the same. Th e

452 Public Administration Review • July | August 2014

and market failures (Welch, Rimes, and Bozeman, forthcoming).
Th e approach has been used primarily in the science and technol-
ogy fi eld (e.g., Bozeman and Sarewitz 2011) but also increasingly in
other fi elds (Bozeman and Moulton 2011, i367).

Meynhardt (forthcoming) has developed a public value assessment
instrument called the public value scorecard (not to be confused
with Moore’s [2013, forthcoming] public value scorecard). Th e
scorecard is an aggregated summary based on individuals’ rankings
of the value of something related to the public along the dimensions
mentioned earlier—moral-ethical, hedonistic-aesthetical, utilitarian-
instrumental, and political-social—as well as a fi fth dimension
related to fi nancial performance (Meynhardt, forthcoming). Th e
scorecard has been used in a variety of situations for both formative
and summative purposes.

Andersen et al. (2012) have developed a third instrument for assess-
ing public values that relies not on public value criteria or psycho-
logical assessments but instead on what they call “organizational
design principles” derived from four archetypal modes of governance
(hierarchy, clan, network, and market) (717). For each of the four
they articulated the role of public organizations, role of citizens,
organizational context, control forms, and central values. From these
values, they developed an instrument that they tested on Danish
public managers by asking them to what extent the values applied
to their organizations. After a variety of analyses, seven dimensions
of public value emerged: the public at large, rule abidance, budget
keeping, professionalism, balancing interests, effi cient supply, and
user focus. Th eir work highlights tensions among the values and the
complexity of public managers’ values environments (723–24).

Conclusions
Scholars and public professionals are making important theoretical,
practical, and operational strides in developing a new approach to
public administration as an alternative to approaches that preceded
it. Th ey need to do more, however, before the new approach is
widely understood, appreciated, and used to advance important
public values underplayed by traditional public administration
and New Public Management. In this fi nal section, we off er some
tentative conclusions about where things stand and then outline an
agenda for research and practice.

Where Things Stand
While there clearly is an emerging new approach to public admin-
istration, it does not have a consensually agreed name. Among the
various possibilities, however, the Denhardts’ (2011) label “New
Public Service” certainly appears to be the leading contender based
on citations. Whatever the name, attention to issues of public value,
public values, and the public sphere are central to the new approach.

Th e concept of creating public value is popular within both aca-
demic and practice settings (Williams and Shearer 2011). Even crit-
ics note the broad interest in the idea among practitioners (Rhodes
and Wanna 2007). Similarly, Van der Wal, Nabatchi, and de Graaf
(2013) assert that the study of public values is gaining in impor-
tance in public administration and may well be one of the fi eld’s
most important current themes. Finally, for several decades, scholars
and political commentators have devoted increased attention to
the public sphere, including debates about the limits and role of

Finally, as performance, public value can serve as a performance
measurement and management framework. A key advantage of the
public value idea is that there is no single bottom line (Kalambokidis
2014). Moore (2013, 2014, forthcoming), for example, proposes
that managers look at costs and benefi ts as well as at less tangible
aspects when they assess public value creation. Bozeman (2002,
2007) and Talbot (2010) argue for using a variety of public value
criteria to discern how much public value has been created or dimin-
ished. A focus on public value also stimulates attention to the long-
term viability and reliability of public investments (Fisher 2014).

A number of governments have made explicit or implicit use of the
public value framework. Kernaghan (2003), for example, exam-
ines the values statements of four Westminster-style governments;
each contains a range of values beyond effi ciency. Th e “joined-up
government,” “whole-of-government,” and collaborative governance
initiatives that developed in many countries in response to the frag-
mentation caused by New Public Management were about coordi-
nation and also about recovery and pursuit of public values beyond
narrowly defi ned results and effi ciency (Christensen and Lægreid
2007). Unfortunately, some of these eff orts have used excessively
narrow interpretations of public value. For example, the British
government under Tony Blair made explicit use of public value as a
way of thinking about performance, but it operationalized Moore’s
strategic triangle by focusing on services (for operational capabil-
ity), outcomes (for public value), and trust and legitimacy (for
the authorizing environment) (Kelly, Mulgan, and Muers 2002).
Accenture consultants Cole and Parston (2006) further dimin-
ish the meaning of public value. Th eir approach just repackages
existing approaches to performance measurement and management
under a diff erent label (Alford and O’Flynn 2009, 185). Dahl and
Soss’s (2014) cautions about the ease with which the public value
approach can be hijacked for purposes not intended by its principal
authors are on clear display.

Th e various approaches to creating public value can be used posi-
tively or normatively—and have been. Williams and Shearer observe
that “the most striking feature is the relative absence of empirical
investigation of either the normative propositions of public value or
its effi cacy as a framework for understanding public management”
(2011, 1374). Th ey do note, however, some exemplary studies. For
example, O’Toole, Meier, and Nicholson-Crotty (2005) found in a
large-N study of Texas school superintendents that the superintend-
ents saw the points of Moore’s triangle as constitutive of their roles.
And Meynhardt and Metelmann (2009), in a study of the German
Federal Labor Agency, also found evidence that middle managers
think in much the same way that Moore’s public value entrepre-
neurs would.

Uses of Policy-Level and Societal Public Values in Practice
and Research
Policy-level and broader public values have also been used in a
variety of ways. For example, public values feature prominently in
the approach that Bozeman and his coauthors have developed called
“public value mapping.” Th e approach incorporates a broad range
of value considerations into policy decision-making processes by
helping (1) identify public values, (2) assess whether public value
failures have occurred, (3) map relationships among values, and
(4) graphically represent relationships between public value failures

Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management 453

Th e public value literature does provide a broader sense of public
values than typically found in traditional public administration
and New Public Management. As the emerging approach to public
administration unfolds, the public value literature should be explic-
itly incorporated, as the issues it addresses are so fundamental. For
example, too many performance measurement and management
regimes and models focus principally on effi ciency and eff ectiveness
directly related to the mission (Moynihan et al. 2011; Radin 2006,
2012; Talbot 2010) and disregard what Rosenbloom (2007) terms
“non-mission-based values,” such as equity, due process, freedom
of information, and citizenship development. As a result, too many
performance measurement and management schemes may actually
weaken public value creation (Kroll and Moynihan, forthcoming).
Practitioners thus should work to ensure that performance measure-
ment and management approaches do include non-mission-based
values and, at the very least, do not diminish democratic engage-
ment and citizenship behavior. Rosenbloom’s (2007) contribution
has been noted. Moore (2013, forthcoming) has also made a start
on some of these concerns with his proposed public value account,
as does Meynhardt (forthcoming) with his very diff erent public
value account. Bozeman and his colleagues’ public value mapping
model also makes a contribution. Similarly, public participation
processes can be designed to enhance democratic behavior and
citizenship (Bryson et al. 2013; Nabatchi 2012). Finally, policy
analysis as well should include a broad array of values beyond its
traditional focus on effi ciency, eff ectiveness, and sometimes equity
(Radin 2012).

Practitioners and scholars also should follow Australia’s lead, for
example, and draw attention to the expected and actual public value
created by policies, programs, projects, and other eff orts (Kernaghan
2003). As Jacobs (2014) demonstrates in the U.S. context, the
public is “pragmatically liberal”—that is, the public is quite willing
to support particular public undertakings when the value is clear
and the cost is reasonable. Moore’s public value account off ers a way
of making the case in specifi c circumstances. Kalambokidis (2014)
provides practical advice on some of the ways in which this public
value–clarifying work can be done in relation to fi scal and spending
policy.

Given the complex networked and collaborative arrangements prac-
titioners now often fi nd themselves in, they have a heightened need
to cultivate what Moore calls a “restless, value-seeking imagination”
in a democratic context. Public aff airs scholars and educators should
help them in this eff ort. Th at imagination should also incorpo-
rate attention to government’s special role in assuring concern for
important values and standing fi rm against eff orts to diminish them
(Dahl and Soss 2014). Again, the need for imagination is not new
to public administration, where creativity, innovation, and strate-
gic thinking and acting have always found a place (Bryson 2011;
Hartley, forthcoming; Osborne and Brown 2013). Such imagination
often involves bridging the politics–administration divide (Appleby
1945; Gulick 1933), but also knowing when to defer to elected
offi cials (Alford, Hartley, and Hughes, forthcoming). In all of these
cases, public administrators have a special obligation to turn their
imaginations to enhancing democratic governance and citizenship.
As noted, policy analysis also can help foster imaginative responses
and attention to the array of public values (Radin 2012). Clearly,
however, the public value literature should explore much further the

government, the why and how of public engagement and active
citizenship, and the need for a strengthened democracy.

Th is growing interest is partly attributable to the importance,
urgency, scope, and scale of public problems facing the world; the
pragmatic recognition that governments alone cannot eff ectively
address many of these problems; and a concern that public values
have been and will be lost as a result of a powerful antigovernment
rhetoric and a host of market-based and performance-based reforms.
Following Dewey, the public value literature and the emerging
approach to public administration represent the products of a prac-
titioner and scholarly “public called into being” over these concerns.

In the emerging approach, government clearly has a special role to
play as a creator of public value and a guarantor of public values
and the public sphere, but in a market-based democracy, govern-
ment is not the owner of all the processes and institutions having
public value potential or obligations (Peters and Pierre 1998). Th e
literatures on cross-sector collaboration, integrative leadership,
and networked governance are all responses to the new context, in
which public managers frequently must collaborate with nonprofi ts,
businesses, the media, and citizens to accomplish public purposes. A
major contribution of the public value literature is the way it draws
attention to questions about (1) the public purposes that are or
should be served by organizations in all sectors, by intra- and cross-
sector collaborations, by more general governance arrangements,
and by public leadership broadly defi ned, and (2) how public man-
agers and leaders do and should accomplish these purposes. Th ese
are important normative and research-related questions needing to
be pursued in the new context.

Of course, the concern with purposes and values is hardly new to
public administration; what is diff erent are two diff erent parts of the
context. Th e fi rst is that traditional public administration and New
Public Management—while they both have strengths—are not up
to the tasks of networked governance, leadership, and management
when a variety of public values should be served, including, but
hardly limited to, effi ciency, eff ectiveness, and equity. Th e second
is the view that terms such as the public interest and commonwealth
are too narrow, other related terms such as the common good are
too vague, and the language of public value provides a helpful way
forward, as Jacobs (2014) suggests.

A Research and Practice Agenda
Right now, the new approach is enmeshed in often vague defi ni-
tions, conceptualizations, and measurements of public value and the
public sphere. While public administration scholars and practition-
ers may ultimately agree on these public value-related matters, they
are unlikely to reach full consensus (Davis and West 2009). Th at
is not necessarily a bad thing. In order to make progress, however,
scholars should address the challenges to current formulations, in
part through further conceptual refi nement, the development of
suitable typologies and measures, and rigorous empirical testing.
Research should attend to both subjectively held public values and
more objective states of the world; whether a specifi c public value
is intrinsic, extrinsic, or relational; whether something is a prime or
instrumental public value; whether there are hierarchies of public
values; who does the valuing; how the valuing is done; and against
what criteria the object of value is measured.

454 Public Administration Review • July | August 2014

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conceptual, political, organizational, managerial, and other limits
on public managers seeking to create public value in particular
circumstances.

Institutions and processes matter for the creation of public value,
the realization of public values, and the preservation and enhance-
ment of the public sphere (Benington and Moore 2011; Budd
2014; Dahl and Soss 2014; Jacobs 2014; Kalambokidis 2014;
Moore 2014; Radin 2012; Talbot 2010; West and Davis 2011).
Th e research on performance management regimes makes this clear.
Such regimes and the institutions and processes that produce and
sustain them, as well as the consequences for public value, should be
the focus of much additional work. Th e same is true of collabora-
tive, networked governance processes. Work thus should continue
on linking managerial behavior attempting to create public value
with institutions and processes and policy-level and other important
public values related to democratic and collaborative governance
(Jørgensen and Bozeman 2007).

Another part of that work is to bring in scholarship from other
fi elds to help enrich the conversation at a time when public
administration can be viewed as too insular (Wright 2011). We look
forward to continued research and learning that will determine
whether the public value literature will override the challenges and
take a permanent place in the ongoing development of the fi eld of
public administration scholarship and practice.

Note
1. Th is introduction and the symposium articles in this issue stem from an inter-

national conference on “Creating Public Value in a Multi-Sector, Shared-Power
World,” held at the University of Minnesota on September 20–22, 2012. Th e
conference was co-sponsored by three units of the University of Minnesota:
the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Aff airs, the Carlson School of
Management, and the Center for Integrative Leadership. Th e Minnesota
Humanities Center was a co-sponsor.

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1

MEMORANDUM

TO: PADM 620 Students

FROM: PADM 620 Faculty,

Helms School of Government

SUBJECT: The Administrative Memorandum

DATE: November 1, 2017

Good writing skills are essential to a successful career in public administration, law, or

public policy. Learning to write well is a life-long process, and while no single exercise, class or

project can transform you into a good writer, it is important to understand that writing is a skill

that one can master. Understanding the purpose of a given document, the audience’s needs, and

the generally acceptable format and best practices in a particular field are all necessary to

effective communications. Writing for public administration often involves drafting documents

such as budget narratives, public policy proposals, annual reports, press releases and a variety of

memoranda. The administrative memorandum is a ubiquitous and important part of public

administration practice. Dennis L. Dresang, author of The Public Administration Workbook

commented on the importance of the administrative memorandum and provided a good

introduction to the drafting of administrative memoranda by identifying what he called the

“ABCs of good administrative writing: accuracy, brevity, and clarity.”1

1 Dennis Dresang, The Public Administration Workbook. 7th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2016), 70.

2

Administrative Memoranda Must Be Accurate

In practice, Public Administration is a detail-oriented, fact-specific field. When drafting

an administrative memorandum it is very important to exhibit accuracy in both content and form.

According to Dennis Dresang:

Good writing is accurate writing. This is true in two senses. First, the statements that you

make in your writing – the facts on which you rely – should be true. If you are writing a

report for the county office of social services and you note that last year its social workers

had an average caseload of 75 clients each, make sure this is a correct figure. Everyone

makes mistakes occasionally; good writers minimize them. Nothing causes the credibility

of an administrator to plummet as quickly as a reputation for error.

Accuracy is important in a second sense as well: Your spelling, punctuation, and

grammar all should be correct. There is an old saying: “You can’t expect anyone to take

your writing more seriously than you appear to take yourself.” If you draft a memo or

prepare a report that is sloppy, filled with run-on sentences or misspelled words, you

clearly have not taken your writing seriously. Others will treat it accordingly.

This rule is not hard to follow. One clearly does not need to have “natural writing talent”

to be careful in the use of facts or to use a dictionary.2

Administrative Memoranda Should be Brief

The modern practice of public administration often involves heavy schedules, tight time

constraints, and long lists of complex problems. As such, concise writing is extremely valuable

in all forms of public administration communications and particularly in the crafting of

administrative memoranda. While these documents should be detailed, complete, and

substantive, they should also be as efficient as possible. According to Dennis Dresang:

The best administrative writing is short and to the point. Administrators are busy people.

So are all the legislators, contractors, customers, and others with whom they interact.

Almost no one has the time or patience to wade through a memo that runs on like a Norse

saga. In many offices, the rule is that if a document is longer than three or four pages, it

2 Dresang, 70-71.

3

must have an “executive summary” attached to the front for interested parties to scan

quickly. You need to exercise judgment in following this rule of brevity, of course. If

your assignment is to write an evaluation of the major agency program, you likely will

need to say more than “this program has failed to meet its objectives.”3

Learning to exercise good judgment and balance the necessity of specific, accurate, detailed

information and the competing need to package that information in the briefest, most efficient

way that is reasonable for the circumstances is key to crafting useful, high-quality administrative

memoranda.

Administrative Memoranda Must be Clear

Finally, clarity is vitally important to the crafting of high-quality administrative

memoranda. Clarity includes proficient use of language, the effective structuring of sentences

and paragraphs, and logical organization of ideas. In the words of Dennis Dresang:

Good writing is clear writing. It is writing that takes the work – and the guesswork – out

of reading. When you write clearly, your audience knows exactly what you mean, and

that should be your primary goal.

To keep it clear, keep it simple. Too many people knit their words together as if they

were weaving an oriental carpet, producing awesomely intricate and ornamented patterns

of prose. Even if you think your readers enjoyed diagramming sentences in tenth-grade

English (a doubtful proposition, by the way), don’t construct your sentences as if they

were puzzles to be solved. For those who aspire to clear writing, there is no better friend

than the simple declarative sentence, arranged in subject–verb–object form (e.g., “The

Department of Transportation [subject] awarded [verb] 300 contracts [object]”).

Avoid unnecessary jargon and fancy words. Although you may be justly proud that you

have mastered the foreign language of your profession (Pentagon-speak, legalese,

accountingish, or whatever), don’t assume that all your readers are equally adept. The

great essayist E.B. White wrote more than 40 years ago, “do not be tempted by a $20

word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able.”

3 Dresang, 71.

4

Clarity does not come cheap. In fact, there is an inverse relationship between the ease of

reading and the ease of writing. As Hemingway put it, “Easy writing makes hard

reading.” Thus, it is a good guess that the crisper and cleaner the sentence, the longer it

took to write. The key is to rewrite, and then rewrite some more.4

4 Dresang, 71.

5

Bibliography

Dresang, Dennis. The Public Administration Workbook. 7th ed. New York: Routledge, 2016.