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Avoiding Theoretical Stagnation: A Systematic Review and Framework for Measuring Public Value
Author(s) -
Faulkner Nicholas,
Kaufman Stefan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8500.12251
Subject(s) - value (mathematics) , public value , economics , mathematics , political science , statistics , public administration
Public value theory has become a hot topic in public administration research, but its proponents have long recognised difficulties in empirically testing the theory's central propositions. There has been a lack of clarity about how to measure the extent to which organisations are generating public value, which has rendered researchers unable to quantitatively study the causes, consequences and correlates of public value. The current study systematically reviews the growing literature on public value measurement to identify, evaluate, and synthesise available measures. Through a qualitative synthesis of the themes present in published measures, we identify four key components for measuring public value that appear to be important across a range of policy and national contexts. Our review identifies a promising framework that could be used to structure a comprehensive measure of public value and, in doing so, provides a means to progress theoretical development and testing of the public value approach.