Recognizing Public Value

by Mark H. Moore

Overview

Mark H. Moore’s now classic Creating Public Value offered advice to public managers about how to create public value. But that book left a key question unresolved: how could one recognize (in an accounting sense) when public value had been created? Here, Moore closes the gap by setting forth a philosophy of performance measurement that will help public managers name, observe, and sometimes count the value they produce, whether in education, public health, safety, crime prevention, housing, or other areas. Blending case studies with theory, he argues that private sector models built on customer satisfaction and the bottom line cannot be transferred to government agencies. The Public Value Account (PVA), which Moore develops as an alternative, outlines the values that citizens want to see produced by, and reflected in, agency operations. These include the achievement of collectively defined missions, the fairness with which agencies operate, and the satisfaction of clients and other stake-holders.

But strategic public managers also have to imagine and execute strategies that sustain or increase the value they create into the future. To help public managers with that task, Moore offers a Public Value Scorecard that focuses on the actions necessary to build legitimacy and support for the envisioned value, and on the innovations that have to be made in existing operational capacity.

Using his scorecard, Moore evaluates the real-world management strategies of such former public managers as D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, and Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Revenue John James.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674066953
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	02/15/2013
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.40(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Mark H. Moore is Hauser Professor of Nonprofit Organizations at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Herbert A. Simon Professor of Education, Management, and Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has also been a Visiting Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables xi

Introduction 1

1 William Bratton and the New York City Police Department: The Challenge of Defining and Recognizing Public Value 19

William Bratton and the Origin of Compstat 19

Developing a Public Value Account: A "Bottom Line" for Public Agencies? 31

A Compelling Private-Sector Metaphor 31

A "Public Value Account" for Public Agency Managers 43

Summary 69

2 Mayor Anthony Williams and the D.C. Government: Strategic Uses of a Public Value Scorecard 72

Mayor Anthony Williams and the Politics of Performance 72

Strategic Uses of Performance Measurement: From Public Value Accounts to Public Value Scorecards 82

Why Effective Performance Measurement and Management Are Rare in the Public Sector 84

Strategic Management in Government and the Public Value Account 101

The Public Value Scorecard: A "Balanced Scorecard" for Strategic Management in the Public Sector 106

How a Public Value Scorecard Can Support Strategic Public Management 111

Summary 125

3 John James and the Minnesota Department of Revenue: Embracing Accountability to Enhance Legitimacy and Improve Performance 132

John James and the Legislative Oversight Committee 132

Facing the Problem of Democratic Accountability 144

James's Accountability to His Authorizers 145

An Analytic Framework for Diagnosing and Evaluating Accountability Relationships 154

Groping toward Improvement 161

Using Public Value Propositions to Engage and Manage the Authorizing Environment 174

Summary 178

4 Jeannette Tamayo, Toby Herr, and Project Chance: Measuring Performance along the Value Chain 184

Jeannette Tamayo, Toby Herr, and Performance Contracting in Illinois 184

Deciding What to Measure and Where along the Value Chain 195

Measuring along the Value Chain 197

Creating a Public Value Account for Welfare-to-Work Programs 210

An Operational Capacity Perspective on Project Chance 222

Summary 238

5 Diana Gale and the Seattle Solid Waste Utility: Using Transparency to Legitimize Innovation and Mobilize Citizen and Client Coproduction 244

Diana Gale and the Garbage Overhaul 244

Public-Sector Marketing and the Mobilization of Legitimacy, Support, and Coproduction 256

Understanding Gale's Strategic Calculation: The Arrows of the Strategic Triangle 260

A Comparison to the Private Sector: Marketing and Public Relations 272

Marketing and Public Relations in the Public Sector 276

Using Measures of Public Relations Performance to Produce Public Value 281

Summary 287

6 Duncan Wyse, Jeff Tryens, and the Progress Board: Helping Polities Envision and Produce Public Value 292

Duncan Wyse, Jeff Tryens, and the Oregon Benchmarks 292

From Organizational Accountability to Political Leadership 305

Beyond Agency Accountability: Using Performance Measurement to Mobilize a Polity 309

Securing an Institutional Base and Building a Political Constituency for the Use of Performance Measurement in Politics and Management 316

Partisan Politics and Political Ideology in Defining and Recognizing Public Value 322

The Public Value Account as a Flexible, Politically Responsive Hierarchy of Goals and Objectives 330

Practical Use of the Oregon Benchmarks 337

Summary 341

7 Harry Spence and the Massachusetts Department of Social Services: Learning to Create Right Relationships 344

Harry Spence and the Professional Learning Organization 344

Navigating the "Expert Slope" in Public Management 361

An Impossible Job? 363

Looking to Private-Sector Learning Organizations 385

Summary 395

Conclusion 400

Appendix: A Public Value Scorecard for Public Managers 419

Notes 423

Acknowledgments 467

Index 469

Editorial Reviews

The idea that public managers should operate more like business managers gained momentum in the 1980s, and it continues today. Many reformers and politicians insist that managers should identify the 'customers' for public services and measure agency performance. Moore's new book examines the difficulties in applying this approach to public services, particularly with respect to performance measurement. He argues that private sector methods do not measure the 'public value' created by a wide range of state and local agencies...His case studies demonstrate that it is possible for public managers to incorporate helpful elements of private sector performance measurement, but that it is essential to recognize the special nature of the public value created by public service agencies.

Choice - M. E. Ethridge

The idea that public managers should operate more like business managers gained momentum in the 1980s, and it continues today. Many reformers and politicians insist that managers should identify the 'customers' for public services and measure agency performance. Moore's new book examines the difficulties in applying this approach to public services, particularly with respect to performance measurement. He argues that private sector methods do not measure the 'public value' created by a wide range of state and local agencies...His case studies demonstrate that it is possible for public managers to incorporate helpful elements of private sector performance measurement, but that it is essential to recognize the special nature of the public value created by public service agencies.

-- M. E. Ethridge Choice

From the Publisher