Abstract
Evidence for Practice
The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse Analysis
Public Value as Exemplary Case
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusions
References
Abstract
ublic administration is a relatively young field with a growing academic community. Against the background of enduring discussions about theory and increasing research output and diversification within the field, the authors apply the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse that combines discourse theories and a social constructionist tradition to the exemplary case of “public value” research. The authors scrutinize 50 articles from 12 journals over 18 years to trace the development of public value as a concept in public administration research. Drawing from this exemplary case, they develop propositions and propose a framework for knowledge construction that is uniquely characterized as public administration. From the anchor points of manageability, economization, and democratic accountability, the authors develop a framework for analyzing and investigating knowledge development in other concepts such as network governance, representative bureaucracy, and coproduction.
Public Value as Exemplary Case
The terms public value and public values have been increasingly used among practitioners and scholars. Both concepts are integral to the New Public Administration movement (Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomberg 2014), and scholars have debated the distinctions and overlap between these concepts (Jørgensen and Rutgers 2015; Rutgers 2015; Shaw 2013; Van der Wal, Nabatchi, and de Graaf 2015). Public values refer broadly to discussions of a value base or values that characterize the public sector (Jørgensen and Bozeman 2007; Jørgensen and Rutgers 2015). Public value, in comparison, is defined as “producing what is either valued by the public, is good for the public, or both” (Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomberg 2014, 448). Public values and public value are often viewed as “two more or less independent schools or discourses” (Rutgers 2015, 30) and, in some cases, as distinct but related concepts (Van der Wal, Nabatchi, and de Graaf 2015). Although academic debate of these terms helps foster conceptual clarity, the question remains how and why the concept of public value emerged and developed as such in the research community and how that development might be exemplary for PA knowledge construction. Thus, we focus on the development of knowledge around the concept of public value (we exclude the public values concept and literature from the present analysis).