Public value

Public value is the equivalent of shareholder value in public management. Public value can be instituted as an organising principle in a public sector organisation, providing a focus in the context of which individual employees are free to pursue and propose new ideas about how to improve the working of the organisation, in terms of efficiency or services. Public organisations seeking to use public value as a principle need to create a corporate culture in which the pursuit of public value by employees is rewarded just as pursuing shareholder value is rewarded in private corporations.

Origin

The term and concept were invented by Harvard professor Mark H. Moore, who published a book on the subject, "Creating Public Value Strategic Management in Government", in 1995.

Usage

The concept has been taken up initially by academics, think tanks and NGOs, and later by a number of public sector organisations in the United Kingdom.

In 2004 it was used by the BBC as the cornerstone of its manifesto for the renewal of its charter.

In 2006 Accenture launched the Institute for Public Service Value, to explore how public value is created in government organizations.

In 2006, the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) in partnership with SAP AG, conducted research on the topic of public value in the context of governments’ investments in Information Technology (IT). The results of this research found that governments’ ability to realize the full value of IT investments is not completely measurable in terms of financial results. More specifically, the five U.S. and international governments studied, looked for the full value of government IT investments in both the internal value to government operations and the broader political and social returns to the public at large.

From this point of view, there are two sources of public value: 1. Value that results from improving the government itself as an asset to society and 2. value that results from the delivery of specific benefits directly to persons or groups.

In October 2008 UK-based The Work Foundation [http://www.indsoc.co.uk/] published [http://www.indsoc.co.uk/assets/docs/publications/201_PV_public_service_reform_final.pdf "Public Value: The Next Steps in Public Service Reform" ] .

References

Mark H. Moore (1995), "Creating Public Value Strategic Management in Government", Harvard University Press [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MOOCRE.html]

Martin Cole and Greg Parston (2006), "Unlocking Public Value", John Wiley & Sons. Inc. [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0471959456/]

Cresswell, A.M., Burke, G.B., Pardo, T.A. (2006), "Advancing Return on Investment Analysis for Government: A Public Value Framework", The Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New York [http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/advancing_roi]

External links

* Accenture Institute for Public Service Value http://www.accenture.com/publicservicevalue
* Kate Oakley, Richard Naylor and David Lee (2006) [http://www.bop.co.uk/pdfs/060921_BOP_Public_Value_and_Broadcasting_Paper.pdf "Giving them what they want: the construction of the public in 'public value'"] , paper presented at "Media and Social Change" conference organised by the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, September 2006.
* The Work Foundation, November (2006), Horner, L. Lekhi, R and Blaug, R. (2006) Deliberative Democracy and the role of public managers [ [http://www.theworkfoundation.com/products/publications/azpublications/publicvaluefinalreport.aspx]
* James Crabtree, "New Statesman", 27 September 2004, [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4707_133/ai_n6247410 "The revolution that started in a library"]
* BBC, June 2004, [http://www.bbc.co.uk/thefuture/pdfs/bbc_bpv.pdf Building Public Value] - BBC report on renewal of its charter
* Barry Bozeman (2002), [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/0033-3352.00165 "Public-Value Failure: When Efficient Markets May Not Do"] , "Public Administration Review" 62(2), March/April 2002
* [http://ksgfaculty.harvard.edu/Mark_Moore Mark Moore's Harvard profile ] DEMOS - The Public Value of Science (2005) [http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/publicvalueofscience] DEMOS - Capturing Cultural Value (2005) [http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/culturalvalue] Prime Minister's Strategy Unit (2002) - Creating Public Value [http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/downloads/files/public_value2.pdf]
* The Center for Technology in Government http://www.ctg.albany.edu
* SAP http://www.sap.com/industries/publicsector/roi.epx