Leading and recognizing public value
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12563 |
| Author | Steven Parker,Jim Beashel,Jean Hartley |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE
Leading and recognizing public value
Jean Hartley
1
| Steven Parker
2
| Jim Beashel
3
1
The Open University Business School, Milton
Keynes, UK
2
Department of Politics and Public Policy, De
Montfort University, Leicester, UK
3
Dorset Police, Dorset, UK
Correspondence
Jean Hartley, The Open University Business
School, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA,
UK.
Email: jean.hartley@open.ac.uk
Funding information
This research was supported by the Police
Knowledge Fund, a joint funding initiative
between HEFCE, the Home Office and the
College of Policing.
This article examines the relationship between leadership and pub-
lic value, which is particularly challenging in a context of explicit
contest and conflict. The theoretical framework is illustrated
through a case study of policing rural crime. The study reveals that
the police worked with multiple and competing publics rather than
a single homogeneous public, and that part of their leadership role
was to create and convene a public space in which different voices
and divergent views could be expressed. The study notes that
research needs to pay attention to the loss and displacement of
public value, not solely its creation and recognition. The need to
convene multiple publics required the police to lead, as part of a
leadership constellation, and with political astuteness. The findings
have wider relevance for other public services, and for studies of
leadership and public value at the intersection between the state
and civil society.
1|INTRODUCTION
The concept of public value is increasingly debated in academic literature on public policy, administration and man-
agement (Benington and Moore 2011; Williams and Shearer 2011; Bryson et al. 2014, 2017) and applied in public
service organizations (Benington and Turbitt 2007). However, the role of leadership in creating—or destroying—
public value is less well explored. There is also a surprising lack of empirical research about public value (Hartley
et al. 2017) and even less about leadership (as distinct from management) to create public value.
The article makes several theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding public value and how it is
shaped through leadership. The article deploys Benington’s (2011) approach to public value as a contested demo-
cratic practice, which Sørensen (2016) calls a ‘game-changer’. The empirical research is based on a case study of the
policing of rural crime.
First, it advances knowledge and understanding of the publics for whom and with whom public value is created
or lost. The analysis shows that there is not a homogeneous public but rather a set of publics, who contend and con-
test with each other about how particular problems should be addressed, and discuss what public value is being cre-
ated. Public value has often been spoken of in the literature as a singular concept but the idea of publics implies (and
this case shows) different views and priorities about public value. Importantly, the case study illustrates processes of
convening publics by a public service. The recent emphasis in the public administration literature on service ‘delivery’
Received: 1 October 2017 Revised: 22 September 2018 Accepted: 27 September 2018
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12563
264 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm Public Administration. 2019;97:264–278.
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