Public Value: Recovering the Ethical for Public Sector Managers

First put forward by Mark Moore in Creating Public Value (1995), public value continues to be the subject of conjecture and refutation across a range of academic disciplines. After presenting an account of the original theory, this article explores the contested meanings attributed to public value. We argue that while Moore's theory can be viewed, inter alia, as a post-New Public Management (NPM) paradigm, or as self-serving rhetoric for public managers, these perspectives neglect the strong ethical component of the theory. Further, we argue that an understanding of the relevance of Moore's ethical prescriptions for public managers is central to grasping his account of the relationship between politics and administration and for his project for a reinvigorated public sector.