Value practices and public management

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