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Public Sector Added Value: Can Bureaucracy Deliver?
Author(s) -
Jackson Peter.M
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9299.00243
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , public sector , performativity , value (mathematics) , hierarchy , public value , architecture , context (archaeology) , economics , industrial organization , business , law and economics , public relations , market economy , sociology , politics , political science , computer science , economy , law , gender studies , art , paleontology , machine learning , visual arts , biology
This paper takes stock of our understanding of the ‘architecture’ of public sector resource allocation mechanisms. It is a speculative venture and provides a framework for thinking about issues rather than a completed theoretical model. The concept of architecture is borrowed from the design sciences and is used to explore the conditions of performativity within networks of relational contracts. The age‐old question of markets versus hierarchy is too simplistic. Instead, the search is for optimal complex network relationships that are based upon co‐operation and participation rather than competition and control. Within these networks the public sector, it is argued, has a new role of acting as a broker in the creation of value. Judging the public sector’s relative effectiveness in the creation of value also requires closer attention to be given to the context within which public sector managers take decisions. In particular it is necessary to acknowledge that they confront the ‘wicked’ problems of society that the electorate demand to be solved. This gives renewed interest in the notion of market failure.