In search of public values in performance budgeting studies

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Alfred Tat‐Kei Ho,Chen Shen,Yan Xu
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13755

RESEARCH ARTICLE

In search of public values in performance budgeting studies

Alfred Tat-Kei Ho | Chen Shen | Yan Xu

Department of Public and International Affairs,

City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Correspondence

Alfred Tat-Kei Ho, Department of Public and

International Affairs, City University of Hong

Kong, Hong Kong, China.

Email: alfredho@cityu.edu.hk

Abstract

Performance budgeting is inevitably linked to policy priorities, and priorities are

fundamentally the expression of public values. Through a bibliometric analysis of

past studies, this study shows that over time, the performance budgeting literature

is linked to more diverse values beyond efficiency and effectiveness concerns.

Transparency, democracy, participation, inclusiveness, and other political, legal,

social, and sustainability values have been getting more attention in public admin-

istration, accounting, and budgeting journals, as well as in various field journals.

This study concludes by suggesting a need for more interdisciplinary and compar-

ative research about the normative foundation of performance budgeting and its

connection with public value theory in the future.

Evidence for practice

•Performance budgeting needs to reconnect with public values research.

•There is a growing diversity of public values in performance budgeting studies.

•Performance analysts need diverse training besides financial analysis.

INTRODUCTION

Public budgeting is about how a government should

extract resources from the economy and private sources

and use the resources to produce outputs and outcomes

that are desired by policymakers and the public

(Rubin, 2019). Because resources are scarce but

public demands are unlimited, it is important to examine

the utility of public spending and constantly seek to

enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, appropriateness,

and necessity of public spending. This is why perfor-

mance budgeting has been an important topic in public

administration over the past few decades in many

countries.

However, the decades-long literature on performance

budgeting is relatively silent regarding its normative foun-

dation and has not yet been linked closely to the rapid

development of public value assessment and creation as

well as public values research in the recent public admin-

istration literature (Bozeman & Johnson, 2015; Bracci

et al., 2019; Bryson et al., 2014; Bryson et al., 2017;

Hartley et al., 2017; Kalambokidis, 2014; Mazzucato &

Ryan-Collins, 2022; Moore, 1995,2014; Van de Wal

et al., 2013; Welch et al., 2015). The disconnect is unfortu-

nate and puzzling because after all, performance budget-

ing is a natural platform to deliberate values and priorities

(Moynihan, 2006) and a key institutionalized process for

assessing the benefits of what government produces

and deciding what and how individual desires and

social outcomes should be fulfilled through the use of

public resources (De Jong & Ho, 2019; Kalambokidis,

2014; Moore, 2014). Since public value research is con-

cerned about the value assessment of government pro-

duction, the benefits and costs of public services and

policies, the collective determination of the welfare of

others, and the conceptions of a good and just society

(Bryson et al., 2014), all these can be naturally linked to

the exercise of performance budgeting.

Given this gap in the literature, the purpose of this

study is to explore theoretically and empirically the possi-

ble connection between performance budgeting, public

value creation and assessment, and public values. Specifi-

cally, the following question is addressed: What are the

core public values mentioned in studies related to perfor-

mance budgeting over the past few decades and how

has this pattern evolved over time? Using journal titles,

keywords, and abstracts from Scopus and a public values

framework developed from the past literature, this study

applies text-mining techniques to track how frequently

different public values and policy outcomes are men-

tioned in English-based journal articles related to perfor-

mance budgeting. The results confirm that even though

“efficiency,”“accountability,”and “effectiveness”under

the economic and technical efficiency logic of budgeting

Received: 23 February 2023 Revised: 1 October 2023 Accepted: 1 October 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13755

1528 © 2023 American Society for Public Administration. Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1528–1541.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar