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

• Author: Barbara C. Crosby,Laura Bloomberg,John M. Bryson
• Date: 01 July 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12238
• Published date: 01 July 2014

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).  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.  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.  e new approach highlights four

important stances that together represent a response

to current challenges and old shortcomings.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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  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