Femocrats Online: Navigating Digital Feminism and GBA+ in the Canadian Public Service

This paper seeks to draw the attention to a peculiar, complex and interesting issue: the search for value in the public organizations' management.Thus, after a brief reference to the classical theme of creation and measurement of the general economic-financial value for (Business / Private) firms, it focuses on the more insidious and much less quantitative argument of the generation and management of Public value.Public value is the equivalent (though modified) of shareholder value (SHV) in public management with special features.A first model internationally diffused in public sector studies is representable by means of the Strategic Triangle; whose angles are: 1) Vision (value); 2) Legitimacy & support; 3) Operational capability of the public organization.A second model concerns more directly the first, highest, angle (that is now zoomed and founded upon resources and competencies): the value created for citizens through public services above all as mission.The building blocks and the outcomes & metrics developments are the elements that constitute a PSV (Public Service Value) scheme.A comparative analysis per stages is essential for our purpose: starting firstly from Public Administration (1: traditional model), secondly to New Public Management (2: NPM, denoting policies aimed to modernize and render more effective the public sector), we may arrive finally to the New Public Service stage (3: NPS, which is coherent with a networked public governance vision).Such an evolution implies a transition from a technical government to a wider and flexible governance philosophy in the ambit of a renewed value&performance-oriented public sector, which is willing to adopt qualitative principles and where individual employees are free and stimulated to pursue and propose new ideas about how to improve the working of the organization, in terms of efficiency or services.In sum, the quest for public value is the next and urgent challenge for public sector at its various levels: consequently, it will deserve more attention by both policy-makers (central and local public administrators) and researchers.For this purpose, it would be appropriate to come to a kind of public value scorecard aimed at the rational estimate of the expected, or realized, public value created time after time.At a more analytical-quantitative level, interesting would appear the inter-institutional search for a correlation between the public management value (ie, the value of public administrations) and the value of private institutions that ultimately benefit, with the individuals, from public goods and services.

A wealth of prior research has examined the link between public service values and job satisfaction. This study, however, seeks to investigate this relationship through the lens of person-organization fit theory, specifically focusing on occupational satisfaction within the public sector. Moreover, it aims to reveal the mechanisms underlying the relationship between public service values and public-sector occupational satisfaction, employing the concept of public service motivation—a motivational framework unique to public administration. This study thus poses two central research questions: (1) Do public service values positively influence public-sector occupational satisfaction? and (2) Does public service motivation mediate the relationship between public service values and the satisfaction in the public sector? To address these questions, data from the 2023 Public Employee Survey by the Korea Institute of Public Administration were analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings confirmed that public service values have a statistically significant positive effect on public-sector occupational satisfaction. Furthermore, public service motivation was found to fully mediate the relationship between public service values and public-sector occupational satisfaction.

Solace in Social Media: Women Unite Under COVID-19

In recent public administration literature, much attention is paid to changes in public service values, including ethical values, that guide public service. This paper reports on the results of an empirical survey conducted among a group of Turkish governors and district governors (including those in service and retired) who are from different generations. By focusing on the transformation of value preferences of Turkish governors and district governors, this study tries to identify variations in values, particularly about public service ethics, in accordance with the age and the length of tenure in public service. The findings of the research show a traditional and more or less consistent value pattern for Turkish governors and district governors. The most important public service values expressed by the respondents are consistent with often-mentioned crucial public service values in the literature. New or emerging values have not been present enough among the most important public service values. In brief, the results do not lend support to the often-assumed hypothesis that traditional public service values are devaluated or degraded by the emergence of businesslike values. In other words, new emerging values could not sneak into the public service culture in any convincing manner in spite of many years of NPM rhetoric and recipes.

Public service motivation (PSM), public service values (PSV), and public service ethos (PSE), we argue, constitute theoretically complementary dimensions of public service psychology. Using multi‐dimensional scaling (MDS), we also empirically map the three constructs to identify their interrelationships as constituent parts of a public service topology. Using a survey of public and private employees, we determined which of the PSM, PSV, and PSE instruments most strongly correlate with (1) sector of employment, (2) preferences in public service decision vignettes, and (3) prosocial citizenship behavior. We find PSM, PSV, and PSE to be distinctly complementary, rather than competing psychological phenomena. Incorporating—theoretically and empirically—the three approaches into one topology suggests dimensions of an integrated public service psychology comprising two axes that vary on an advocacy–neutrality scale and a self‐focused–other‐focused scale. With this topographical orientation, public administration scholars can better select the appropriate instrument(s), whether PSM, PSV, or PSE, for the public service situation/question.

This study investigates the relationships among strategic human resource management (SHRM), public service values, and innovative behavior, with a focus on MZ generation public employees, who comprise a growing majority in the public sector. Grounded in the motivation-attitude-behavior framework, the research integrates the theory of planned behavior and self-determination theory to examine how SHRM influences innovation. Using an integrated theoretical approach—drawing from social exchange theory, person-organization fit, and self-determination theory—this study analyzes data from 6,170 respondents from the Korea Institute of Public Administration’s 2022 Survey on Public Service Life. Findings indicate that SHRM sub-factors—competency enhancement, motivation, and opportunity enhancement—are positively associated with public service values and innovative behavior, with public service values showing the strongest association. Public service values mediate the effects of competency and opportunity enhancement on innovative behavior, and this mediation is moderated by MZ generation status. These results suggest that NPM-oriented SHRM strategies can align with Post-NPM public service values, underscoring the central role of public service values in fostering innovation in the public sector.

This article details an approach for empirically eliciting and examining public service values and their impact on decisions made by public servants. The approach involves adaptation of the Schwartz Portrait Values Questionnaire such that it: (1) elicits values relevant to an individual's public service role rather than broad personal values; and (2) incorporates values omitted by the Schwartz framework, including those identified by Jørgensen and Bozeman and others. To examine the impact of public service values on specific public management decisions, we use structured decision context statements similar to those proposed by Tetlock. We find that: (1) the adapted instrument maps favourably to the Schwartz personal value space; (2) the public service values space includes value sets that expand and refine the personal value space defined by Schwartz; and (3) the public service values elicited can be used to predict decisions made by respondents in specific public service decision contexts.

Debates about trade-offs among values are central to the field of public administration and to graduate education in public affairs. Accreditation guidelines from the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) direct graduate programs to articulate the public service values that guide their curricula. Moreover, student ability to articulate a public service perspective is one of the universal competencies for NASPAA accredited programs. Scholars have defined and cataloged myriad values that guide work in professional public service. Still, many programs lack insight into how new students perceive and prioritize public service values. This essay advocates measuring student public service value priorities to aid programs in their discussions of public service values in curriculum design. An example using Q-methodology and data from a new MPA student cohort is reported to illustrate the value of investigating public service value priorities. This essay concludes by describing how an understanding of student public service values priorities can help faculty maintain a curriculum responsive to students.

Outsourcing, bureaucracy and public value: Reappraising the notion of the “contract state”

Benefits from introducing electronic public services have been widely discussed in the academic literature. However, in recent years, research advocates a more broad approach integrating multiple indicators of social benefits. One of these approaches is associated with the concept of public value, which describes the overall value that the government creates for the society. In this research we theoretically illustrate and empirically evaluate the possibility to enhance public value of public services through the electronic interaction of citizens and authorities on a local (municipal) level. We use an example of online claim submission system on landscaping and public amenities issues. The paper is based on a survey among 150 elderly citizens of a district of St. Petersburg (Russia). Despite the fact that elderly citizens are actually willing to adopt the electronic way of communication with local authorities and even associate it with a higher level of comfort and transparency, the online interaction itself do not make them trust the authorities more or submit their claims more often. To increase the level of trust and enhance the actual public value, the authorities need to demonstrate some practical results of their activity. This paper elaborates the linkage between public value creation and public e-services implementation on a local level. We provide a theoretical framework for a more comprehensive understanding of public value enhancement through local public services.

This article reviews the evidence for the existence of a ‘public sector service value chain’, offering a new way of thinking about what Bouckaert and his colleagues have called the micro-performance approach to improving trust and confidence in public institutions (Bouckaert et al., 2002). In particular, the article focuses on the role of service delivery in enhancing citizen trust and confidence. But it does so in the context of a broader model, one that links service delivery to other important aspects of management performance, especially people management. The article refers to this model as the ‘public sector service value chain’, drawing on work by Heskett and others in the private sector (Heskett et al., 1994, 1997). The article reviews evidence for links between employee engagement (satisfaction and commitment) and client satisfaction in the public sector, and between public sector client satisfaction and citizen trust and confidence. The article identifies the five main ‘drivers’ of service satisfaction in the public sector, and reviews both purported ‘drivers’ of employee engagement as well as data documenting the influence service delivery appears to have on citizens’ trust and confidence in Canada. The article outlines a forward research agenda, to identify the drivers of staff satisfaction and commitment, as well as drivers of trust and confidence in public institutions, and to determine whether the proposed links in the ‘public sector service value chain’ can be empirically validated.

Chatbots — computer programs designed to interactively engage with users, replicating humanlike conversational capabilities during service encounters — have been increasingly deployed across a wide range of Internet-based public services. While chatbots provide several advantages (e.g., improved user experience with reduced waiting times to service access), the surge of chatbot use in public service delivery has frequently been plagued with controversy, poor publicity, and legal challenges. One important reason for this is that users of the services, and the wider public, do not always feel that chatbot-mediated services demonstrate the appropriate public service values. We investigate the public service value dimensions required in chatbots designed for use in the public sector. Specifically, we (a) review chatbots and their use in the delivery of public services; and, (b) develop a framework of how public service values can be exemplified by chatbots. Our study provides implications and evaluation criteria for stakeholders in chatbot assisted public services, including researchers, public managers, and citizens.

This study examined performance audit and public sector budgetary efficiency in southwest Nigeria. Specifically, the study examined the effect of total quality management (TQM) on budgetary efficiency in Southwest Nigeria, Public service value (PSV) on budgetary efficiency in Southwest Nigeria and Government accountability system (GAS) on budgetary efficiency in Southwest Nigeria. Primary method of data collection was employed, through structured questionnaire and it was sourced from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry Rural Development, Ministry Health, Ministry Work and Infrastructure in selected Southwest States in Nigeria, which are, Lagos, Oyo and Ogun. Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive analyses conducted in the study include frequency table, and pie chart while inferential analyses conducted in the study include linear regression and ANOVA analysis. F.test used to test the overall significance of the regression model while the coefficient of determinant r2, was used to determine how much variation the dependent variable was explained by the independent variable. Result revealed that coefficient of determination (r2) of total quality management, public sector value and government accountability system were 0.730, 0.654 and 0.433 which implies that about 73%, 65.4% and 43.3% variation in budgetary efficiency of the selected states can be explained by total quality management, public sector value, government accountability system in individual States. The study found out that total quality management (TQM), public service value (PSV) and government accountability system (GAS) indicated positive and significant effect on budgetary efficiency in southwest Nigeria, (.854, p .000 < 0.05), (809, p 0.003 < 0.05) and (.658, p .002 < 0.05) respectively. The overall regression model of (Total quality management, Public sector value and Government accountability system in the selected States) are significant in terms as F calculated (256.641, 83.084 and 61.846) are greater than F critical (3.89) respectively. The study concluded that total quality management, public service value and government accountability system have significant effects on public sector budgetary efficiency in Southwest Nigeria, and positively related.

PurposeThis study aims to meticulously evaluate the public service value-generation process facilitated by collaborative e-governance services within the framework of the National e-governance Plan (NeGP).Design/methodology/approachThe study formulates a comprehensive research model through a combination of literature review, insights from domain experts and hands-on experience gained from the e-governance project. A conceptual research model was meticulously structured, validated, and interpreted by using a reflective measurement theory. The analytical tool SmartPLS3 was used to assess the proposed model rigorously.FindingsThe analysis of collected data reveals a statistically significant positive correlation between the implementation of collaborative e-governance strategies and the creation of public service value. This relationship is further reinforced by a strong alignment between the perceived aspects of collaborative e-governance, such as responsiveness, transparency and service delivery and their substantial contribution to the enhancement of public service value.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the scholarly discourse by introducing an innovative methodology for assessing public service value through analyzing empirical data from citizen-centric collaborative e-governance projects. It is noteworthy that no prior studies have examined the nuanced concept of public service value in the context of collaborative e-governance.

Public service media (PSM) are undergoing essential digital transformations to compete in an audiovisual ecosystem dominated by new technological players that have reshaped traditional media consumption habits. This article examines how the digital developments of Spanish public media, within platformization processes, particularly in the field of digital audio and podcasts, integrate public service values based on a framework which identifies twelve key dimensions: universality, quality, independence, diversity, responsibility, innovation, social commitment, civic participation, media literacy, territorial cohesion, social justice, and cooperation. Using a qualitative multiple-case study methodology, these values are compared with the strategies of Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE), the media organizations grouped in the Federation of Regional Radio and Television Entities (FORTA), and Canal Extremadura. The results indicate that PSM, to varying degrees, incorporate public service values in their platformization processes. However, the findings also reveal significant challenges that, if addressed, could maximize the impact of their digital strategies.