Abstract
For Durkheim (1893) and for Weber (1905), values are key to understanding organisation and change, within society and individuals. This idea can be extended to management: no management without values (Barnard, 1938)! This is particularly true in the public environment, and the question of the importance of values for public management is more relevant and central than ever, between the traditional public service values and the idea of efficiency extolled by New Public Management (NPM).
Over the past 30 years or so, NPM has become a dominant concept within the framework of the reform of public organisations (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004). In a global context, where government deficits are coming under the political and media spotlight more than ever, NPM is propagating values related to the quest for performance, especially efficiency, within public organisations. While there are many variations on the theme of NPM and many attempts to this current, the authors agree that its dimensions are built around the concept of performance (Pollitt, 2003). Yet an increasing amount of criticism is being levelled against this model and its philosophy. These criticisms relate particularly to the loss of purpose of the action of public organisations in favour of purely economic and financial dimensions, with negative consequences for the quality of public service (Diefenbach, 2009) and working conditions in the public sector (Abord de Chatillon and Desmarais, 2012). The use of purely managerial approaches to solve essentially political problems is at the heart of the criticisms addressed at this movement and the managerial practices it has promoted (Bao et al., 2013). The resurgence of the concepts of general interest (Chevallier, 2008), bureaucratic ethos (Du Gay, 2000), or of public service motivation (Perry and Wise, 1990) are, conversely, a throwback to goals and values that cannot be reduced to the search for efficiency as the main criterion of define legitimacy of public action.
The importance of public sector values, traditional or otherwise, is thus making strong headway: this concern is at the heart of new public governance (Osborne, 2006) that claims that the mission of public action is to promote the public good and not only to target efficiency and accountability. For example, for Jorgensen and Bozeman (2007: 355), there can be no more important issue within an administration than public values. Practices related to new public management thus encourage forums for confrontation between traditional public service values and market values. The theme of values is broadly used to understand the limits of the propagation of new management practices and models in the public sector. Independent British think-tanks such as DEMOS and the Work Foundation or the German ‘Theorie Büro’, for example, are showing increasing interest in the issue of public values. The same applies to public management literature. Kernaghan (2003: 712) believes for example that we are witnessing an unprecedented prominence of public service values.
In this context, public action (which, by its very essence, is characterised by a range of different values and purposes) is increasingly assigned to two categories of values: values of effectiveness and efficiency that remain fundamental and that are even reinforced by the financial constraints weighing down on government budgets but, at the same time, the quest for the common good, which is central to public policy goals. Between public values, qualitative and prescriptive in nature, and values of efficiency, contemporary public management therefore seems torn within an area of tension with which public officials must contend on a daily basis.
The central issue is therefore to understand how tensions between values are expressed and regulated within public organisations and the role played by management in the emergence and balancing of these tensions. In an attempt to understand the complex links between values and public management, it is first necessary to better outline these two concepts.
The concept of public management is not subject to a single definition. Its multidisciplinary origin (public administration, public law, public management and economics, public finance, etc.) does not facilitate its definition. Is it a management with universal contours, applied to a particular context, the public sector, or a truly specific form of management? In this respect, two main approaches come head to head. The first makes up the specifics of public management in the nature of the goods produced and managed, and the ends pursued. Thus, the external and varied aims of public management make its management specific, given that the objectives of public action are fundamentally ambiguous and complex (Allison, 1983). The second considers that there is no difference in the nature of the public and the private. Indeed, it appears that many private players, commercial and non-commercial, develop activities that support public service (or universal) missions or that take into account their social and environmental responsibilities. Thus, the boundaries between public and private, commercial and non-commercial, individual and collective responsibilities are increasingly porous and interwoven, contributing to a growing hybridisation of their underlying values. In this context, Laufer and Burlaud (1980) proposed to make a distinction between private management and public management by considering their purpose: private management refers to actions designed to generate profits while public management is a management of legitimacy. As such, public management applies to both public and private organisations, but organisations with political stakes are particularly concerned. This conception of public management is based on the idea of normative publicness (Bozeman, 2007): the public (and hence political) dimension of the organisation and its management is not a given, but desired, which means asserting the values that underpin it.
The concept of value is defined by Bozeman as (2007: 117): a complex and broad-based assessment of an object or set of objects (where the objects may be concrete, psychological, socially constructed, or a combination of all three) characterized by both cognitive and emotive elements, arrived at after some deliberation, and, because a value is part of the individual’s definition of self, it is not easily changed and it has the potential to elicit action.
This notion does not have the same meaning depending on whether it is used in the singular or plural, depending on whether it is envisaged at an individual or collective level and depending on whether it is used or not in conjunction with the word public. Thus, the concept of ‘public value’ (Moore, 1995) comes from an assessment of the ‘value’ created by the public action to benefit the public (Nabatchi, 2012). The point of public management is then to create value for the public and not only to reduce the costs of public action (Lorino, 1999). This concept is different from that of ‘values’ that is at the heart of the matter here. Values refer to a set of much broader approaches in relation to values in and around organisations. Indeed, we find not only an extended acceptation of values defined as the expression of the far-reaching orientations and beliefs of a society (Galland and Lemel, 2006) but also as conceptions centred on the individual. Schwartz and Bilsky (1987) thus defined the individual values as concepts or beliefs that relate to desirable goals or behaviours, that transcend specific situations and that reflect motivations designed to achieve specific objectives. They guide the choices and allow the assessment of behaviours towards people and events and are ranked according to their relative importance. Values can then be understood at different levels of analysis, more or less macro or micro. The concept of values, however, requires an interaction between the levels of analysis, individual values being connected to the values of different social groups to which the individuals belong. Conversely, social groups are not homogeneous in relation to the values that underlie them: there are conflicting values in a given society. Many authors in this perspective associate the value with the notion of ‘relation to … ’. While the studies on the subject of values are thus very heterogeneous, it is possible, according to Gehman, Treviño and Garud (2013), to hinge them around two main approaches: the cognitive approach and the cultural approach.
The cognitive approach to values considers them as abstract conceptions of what is desirable, whether in individual, organisational or collective terms. In this context we can situate the typologies of values: the approach of the values of individuals by Schwartz (1992) fits in well here. While the idea that there are also collective values is largely developed, Schwartz (1999) has shown that these values are fundamentally different from individual values in their structure. This cognitive conception of values, considered mainly through their content, is thus at the heart of the typology of public values performed by Jorgensen and Bozeman (2007). In fact, this typology has the property of identifying and categorising the fuzziness surrounding the notion of public values. More generally, the concept of public values is connected with this cognitive approach to values.
The cultural approach, rather than looking at their content, focuses on the distribution of values in organisations, through artefacts, rituals and symbols (Schein, 2010). The role of the leaders in the emergence and propagation of values is widely highlighted, echoing the arguments put forward by Selznick (1957) for whom values were one of the first duties of leadership. This approach emphasises the fact that values can emerge from a variety of sources (leader, managers, employees, stakeholders, etc.) and are expressed through discourses and various artefacts. Thus, the concept of public values, a broad concept with blurred boundaries, is also part of this tradition: public values, far from being derived exclusively from public institutions, are deeply rooted in societies and their cultures (Jorgensen and Bozeman, 2007).
Thus, the concept of ‘public values’ is not free of ambiguity. What exactly is the public dimension of this expression? Are we talking about the values of the public officials, of the principles underlying actions and decisions in organisations (organisational values), or do they refer to the prerogatives of citizens, to political action and principles proclaimed by a society or nation as a whole? These different levels are interrelated, but the issues they raise are very different.
That is why this special issue does not deal with public values but restricts its focus to the values at the individual and organisational level in connection with public management. This approach thus prompts us to consider values as an alternative approach theorised by Gehman, Treviño and Garud (2013). Indeed, according to these authors, cognitive and cultural approaches to values, although dominant, come up against limitations in that they address the values as given phenomena that are stable, permanent and identifiable. They focus primarily on the top-down propagation of the values and linear and shared processes. Thus these authors propose to study the value practices, focusing on the process dimension of the emergence and use of values and focusing on the controversies and nonlinear developments to which they are subject. The idea of value practices highlights the fact that the values are not stable or permanent but are continually changing through the interactions of the actors whose concerns they express.
Having defined values, the next step is to highlight the central role of values in public management practices in the light of the ongoing work on the legitimation of public action, among users, citizens and employees of public organisations. This study into values implies a mobilisation and confrontation of values belonging to different registers and related to the conflicting issues facing the players. There is an inherent aspect of the hybridisation process of managerial practices currently being experienced by public organisations (Emery and Giauque, 2014).
The articles selected for this special issue highlight the complexities and ambiguities of this research into values. They shed light on the nonlinear and sometimes conflicting processes of emergence and construction of the legitimation of management practices.
The paper by Laetitia Roux analyses the structuring character of the values in the equivocal and potentially conflicting processes of development of e-government within the family allowance funds (CAF) in France. This development can trigger the creation of forums of exchange on the conflicting values among the directors of the CAF, offering an opportunity to bring about a shift in their performances and behaviour. However, the results of these deliberations at the upper echelons of public organisations do not guarantee that the emerging common values are shared by the other managerial levels and the officials, which nevertheless play a major role in the use of e-government.
The paper by Aubépine Dahan deals precisely with the articulation between values, practices and changes in public professional organisations in the context of the reform of postgraduate training in France. Commonly used as managerial levers during public reforms, the ‘discursive values’ of directors come face to face with the professional values that structure the practices and determine their rejection or adoption. Rather than plan changes that impinge on professional values at the risk of being offset by practices, policy-makers would do well to favour more incremental and endogenous changes.
The paper by Marine Colon and Laetitia Guerin-Schneider addresses the compatibility between NPM and the creation of public values by analysing, over 20 years, the workings of two public water services, one in Uganda and one in Cambodia, that seem to have achieved a balance between financial stability and securing the access of as many people as possible to a public water service. These two case studies show that there is not necessarily an incompatibility between the search for efficiency and creation of public values, in this case, improved access to water and the creation of a favourable work environment for their employees. However, two conditions help ensure this compatibility in the long-term: a strategy and favourable conditions (for example, urban concentration) to ensure the efficiency of the operation and the willingness of management to take on board social objectives. Initially, when the implementation of NPM principles can improve the operational capacity of the organisation, it gains legitimacy and leeway to develop social actions that can counteract the negative effects. However, the creation of public values is in this case emerging and fragile due to a lack of formalisation and prioritisation.
Laurent Meriade and Li Yi Qiang offer a cultural analysis of Chinese public values as propagated in a particular management tool: the civil service recruitment examinations. To do so, they undertake a historical and cultural analysis of the recruitment examinations in order to draw the contours of that spiritual and moral values that are evaluated and that are the values that are sought after in future public officials. The result is a strong overlap of public and private values from traditional Chinese philosophy compliance with which, in theory at least, endows public action with a strong legitimacy. These collective and individual values are widely shared by citizens and officials, and focus more on the processes implemented in public action than on the results obtained. However, the professional practices of Chinese officials can strongly deviate from the public values prescribed due to a socio-political environment conducive to corruption and social control, which leads the authors to relativize its scope. The fact remains that the culturalist analysis of public management makes it possible to better understand the origin and construction of the prescribed values, and also their influence, though sometimes limited, on the professional practices of public officials.
Muriel Michel-Clupot and Serge Rouot’s article explores the use of the rating of local authorities as a communication and legitimising tool. It looks at the impact of such a hijacking of a private instrument on the public values that are conveyed in the financial communication of these communities. The authors thus analysed the activity reports, web communication on the budget (communication on the present) and the fiscal policy debate presenting the political intentions and future plans of the authorities. They also analysed the reports of the rating agencies. The analysis of these documents shows that authorities that cite their rating deploy a communication that puts more focus than the others on the constraints related to the market but that also develops references to a wide range of public values. Authorities that do not refer to their rating in turn develop a specific emphasis on values related to social cohesion, human dignity and democracy. As for the reports of the rating agencies, they paradoxically have a high degree of publicness, higher than the communications of authorities that evoke their rating. Thus, through their communication documents, the actors of the local authorities mobilise multifaceted values that justify their action.
The article by Corinne Rochette concerns the emergence of the brand in public organisations in a context where the question of their identity and the specificities of their values is raised by the development of NPM. The empirical study highlights the importance of the market orientation in the brands studied through the emphasis on the importance of the user while values traditionally associated with the public sector are rarely mobilised. Thus, the brand is used more to reinforce external legitimacy than to promote internal cohesion between members of public organisations. Contrary to what a real ‘brand orientation’ should elicit, the studied brands do not seek to rally staff around shared public values and therefore cannot be considered as tools to support the management of the organisations in question.
This special issue thus shows that values are mobilised as management back-up tools through makeshift arrangements that are constantly called into question. The articles reveal the controversies, negotiations, interpretations, processes of inclusion and exclusion of values that constantly legitimise public action and management and promote, always temporarily, acceptability of practices.