Public value has gained increasing importance in the evaluation of the performances of public organizations. Public organizations are called ‘successful’ if they are deemed to create public value. Although the concept of public value is gaining more and more importance it is hard to find clarity in the literature about how public value should be defined and assessed in practice. Moreover, the existing literature has focused on exploring public value creation amongst agencies or networks, ignoring public value creation by comprehensive layers of governments, such as municipalities.
This paper presents the first results of a research project focusing on the conditions for success in and of Dutch municipalities. The Public Value Theory (Moore, 1995) has a central role in this project. This project is connected to the larger research programme on successful public governance of professor Paul ‘t Hart[1].
In the paper first a framework for assessing public value creation by local governments and the implications for studying the success of local governments is discussed. This framework is grounded in the existing literature and the experiences of practitioners (e.g. mayors, aldermen, local councilors, managing directors, policy makers and street level bureaucrats).
Secondly, the paper presents the first empirical results of the research project. This contains the results of nine case studies. The main research methods are a content analysis of policy documents, expert interviews (e.g. academics and the Association of Dutch Municipalities) and interviews with relevant stakeholders (e.g. mayors, aldermen, local councilors, managing directors, policy makers, street level bureaucrats and societal organizations). The main research goal is to obtain insights in the factors that contribute to public value creation in municipalities and to provide practitioners tools to increase their performances in terms of local value creation. In order to provide clear illustrations of how the concept of public value can be used when looking at the success of municipalities three specific tasks of Dutch municipalities are studied: employment of persons with disabilities, housing, and optimizing local democracy. This in addition to the current literature on public value that lacks of clear and empirically grounded operationalization of public value.
[1] For more information: http://www.uu.nl/en/news/erc-advanced-grant-awarded-to-professor-paul-t-hart-for-research-into-successful-public-governance
