The Limits to Traditional Public Administration, or Rescuing Public Value from Misrepresentation
Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: Value: Strategic Management in Government (1995). 2 The immediate source of puzzlement is that they appear to have read a different book than the one Moore wrote.They accuse Moore of a number of positions that are simply not advanced by him, in the book or anywhere else.Not only are these positions not held by Moore, but in many cases they are diametrically opposite to his actual position.I seem not to be alone in my concern.In my work I meet many senior public managers at Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) and Institute for Public Administration Australia (IPAA) events, and a number of them have raised this article with me, in a similar tone of bewilderment.Those who have actually heard Moore present his ideas in person at ANZSOG programs express chagrin that the concepts could be so misrepresented, and that a framework they have found so useful could be denigrated in this way.At the same time, I've come across others, especially some in academe, for whom Rhodes and Wanna's critique is their first glimpse of Moore's work, and who consequently adopt a predisposition towards it which blinkers them from appraising it realistically, even if they do get around to reading it.It is time, therefore, to set the record straight.Rhodes and Wanna (henceforth R&W) advance a series of criticisms of Moore's framework.I will deal first in detail with their two most important ones, concerning: (1) the political role of managers; and (2) defining public value.Then I will briefly address their sub-sidiary arguments.Finally, their 'ladder of public value' is discussed.
Author: John Alford
Language: English
Subfield: Public Administration
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2066536290