Public and private values: a continuing story

Gene A. Brewer

Chapter 10 in Research Handbook on Privatisation, 2025, pp 193-212 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Chris Pollitt's (1993) Managerialism and the Public Services argued that public values differ markedly from private values. On one hand, private values encompass individual choices that are made in market environments, which are closed, competitive spaces for private action. Consumers express their satisfaction by purchasing a product or exiting the transaction as the stimulus. On the other hand, public values encompass making collective choices in an open polity that allocates goods and services based upon need, equity, and social justice. In this case, the instrument adopted is the political process and one's voice is the stimulus. Because of these fundamental differences, research on public and private values has proliferated over the years as researchers have sought greater detail and explored the possibility of value convergence. But what are relevant public values and private values today? What do they mean for hybrid entities designed to respond to both consumer choice and public need? Does Pollitt's earlier thinking still ring true? And with values in both sectors being inevitably tied to culture and history, while also changing over time, public and private values are very much a continuing story.

Keywords: Public values; Private values; Value conflict; Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs); Hybridisation; Accountability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035309979
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