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Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rapa20
A crowding-out of public values? Managerial vs.
Weberian values in public sector reform in Latin
America
Pablo Sanabria-Pulido & Cristian Pliscoff
To cite this article: Pablo Sanabria-Pulido & Cristian Pliscoff (2022): A crowding-out of public
values? Managerial vs. Weberian values in public sector reform in Latin America, Asia Pacific
Journal of Public Administration, DOI: 10.1080/23276665.2022.2076135
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23276665.2022.2076135
Published online: 24 May 2022.
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A crowding-out of public values? Managerial vs. Weberian
values in public sector reform in Latin America
Pablo Sanabria-Pulido
a,b
and Cristian Plisco
c
a
School of Government, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia;
b
Public Administration Division, CIDE, Mexico;
c
School of Government, Universidad Católica de Chile
ABSTRACT
This article analyzes whether and how managerial and Weberian value
systems can coexist or collide in dierent organisational settings. We
compare six public organisations in two Latin American countries to
study whether public sector reforms imply a clash or a crowding-out
between these values systems. The article uses data from 60 semi-
structured interviews with public ocials of dierent hierarchical
levels, in public central government agencies with dierent ages,
modernisation stages, and organisational structures. Our analysis
reveals that even in dierent settings and types of organisations,
Weberian values coexist with managerial ones and with other sets of
values related to governance or political patronage. We conclude that
managerial values do not necessarily crowd out other value systems as
previous studies have found and appear to be adapted to the organi-
sational and national contexts in which they operate.
KEYWORDS
public values; new public
management; latin america;
Colombia; Chile; state reform
Introduction
Public administration in Latin American countries has traditionally been described as
highly politicised and inexible, reecting inadequate institutional capacity and
elevated levels of corruption (Langbein & Sanabria-Pulido, 2017). Although they
might be characterised as reluctant to change, Latin American countries have fre-
quently pursued reforms, without achieving merit and professionalisation in the civil
service (Polidano, 1999, 2001; Sanabria-Pulido et al., 2015). As of today, most Latin
American countries represent a hybrid model that combines dierent public admin-
istration approaches, practices, models, and values (Dussauge et al., Forthcoming;
Sanabria-Pulido & Leyva, 2022). Although some Latin American authors, Florentino
Gonzalez in 1840 (González, 1840) and Cerbeleon Pinzón in 1847 (Pinzón, 1847),
opened the discussion about the public administration requirements of the nascent
American nations, even before the 1887 piece by Woodrow Wilson in the US, it
would take several decades for most countries in Latin America to consolidate their
public administration apparatuses (Kurtz, 2013). Thus, after two centuries, most Latin
American public administrations have arrived at a diverse mixture of models and
practices in their public sectors.
CONTACT Pablo Sanabria-Pulido psanabri@uniandes.edu.co
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/23276665.2022.2076135
© 2022 The University of Hong Kong
Public sector reforms are both grounded in a set of public values and usually aim to
promote a particular set of public and private values through reforms (Boruvka & Perry,
2020). David Rosenbloom (1983), for instance, establishes a typology of managerial,
judicial, and political values linked with dierent emphases in public administration.
Similarly, Kaufman (1956) argued that shifts in values were essentially the consequence
of previous diculties in public administration and the change intended to face them.
Hence, public sector reform operates as a fertile ground to study how each project of
public sector reform can be inspired and deliberatively orientated to bestow a particular
set of values. Such a process implies potential collisions and clashes among values when
implementing those reforms in the public sector.
The actions undertaken as part of public sector reform processes do not necessarily create
a consistent group of values instilled among public employees. As a matter of fact, the Latin
American experience shows a sui-generis setting where a clash of values across public
administrations has unfolded (Donadelli et al., 2020; Plisco, 2019; Sanabria-Pulido, 2018b).
Longo (2003) argued that the eects of initial reforms had forced the region’s governments
to combine eciency goals with those of the second generation to improve institutional
capacities while responding to international creditors. As Ramió (2001) points out, the
notions championed by New Public Management (NPM) supporters, designed mainly in
developed countries, tend to collide with ingrained practices (political patronage, clientelism,
and cronyism) and some established bureaucratic values. According to Oszlak (2003), most
Latin American countries have aimed to reshape their public administrations by following a
new set of values closer to the new public management/post-bureaucratic approach (CLAD,
2003). Even though, he mentions, most NPM strategies have been partially adopted and, to
nobody’s surprise, are still waiting to be implemented. Plisco (2017) addresses this issue in
terms of Chilean cases where NPM practices have yielded wicked administrative problems,
particularly in ethical terms. Most Latin American countries have struggled to keep their civil
services small while at the same time adopting measures to improve the capacity of the
government to develop more professional, merit-based civil services. Such a situation has
brought a stark contrast between sets of values. Thus, political patronage and clientelism,
which are understood as anti-values, which appeared more ingrained through the years,
have collided with the uctuating waves of reforms and values from Weberian, NPM, and
new public governance approaches to reform (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017; Sanabria-Pulido &
Leyva, 2022). The mixture of models implies a necessary clash of values that probably does
not take place in the same manner in other regions, particularly in the global North.
Along with the frequent reforms of the state in the region, the ourishing empirical
public administration research from Latin America has opened questions about the
eects of the implementation of management and NPM-like practices on dierent orga-
nisational outcomes such as government coordination (Cejudo & Michel, 2017; Culebro et
al., 2019), public sector eectiveness (Brusca et al., 2016; Sanabria-Pulido et al., 2014),
legitimacy (Rodas-Gaiter & Sanabria-Pulido, 2020; Telch & Sanabria-Pulido, 2018), citizens’
perceptions (Sanabria-Pulido & Velasquez, 2021) and other ethical and organisational
issues (Figueroa-Huencho et al., 2014; Méndez, 2021; Plisco, 2017). After decades of
managerial reforms in the region, most States might have experienced a stark clash of
values, yet, the extant empirical scholarship on Latin America regarding the eects of such
2P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
reforms on public service ethos and public values is still scarce (Mussagulova & Van der
Wal, 2021; Langbein and Sanabria, 2017; Van der Wal, 2015). We aim to explore such a
phenomenon in this work.
Thus, our research question is: Is there a clash of public values by adopting eciency
and business-like oriented reforms on the (still in development) Latin American civil
services? For answering it, we conducted a series of interviews with a group of public
agencies with dierent types of public employees in two Latin American countries:
Colombia and Chile. We analyse how new sets of values have arrived in public sector
organisations in these countries through dierent attempts of public sector reform.
Namely, we aim to identify which values appear to be more ingrained today, after years
of State reform, comparing similar organisations at the national level. Addressing this
topic in countries in the global South is worthwhile since these are public administrations
still building their models of public values and ethics of public service into government
practice. The analysis of that process can provide insights into how the clash of values
takes place when administrative systems are in construction.
The context
Although they share historical roots, the Chilean and Colombian cases oer variance in
their development paths. The Chilean process in the 90s was characterised by a steady
ow of reforms, mainly due to the stability of the government coalition. Those reforms
were oriented to change the old Weberian model of public administration to a more NPM-
style bureaucracy (Plisco, 2009). The country’s economic success in terms of reaching
important levels of economic growth and a steady decrease in the number of people
living below the poverty line demanded a more ecient state. To reach that goal, public
management reforms were implemented to make public agencies more ecient, and
more results-oriented. The political and administrative elite did not use the traditional
tendency in Latin America to increase public spending, on the contrary, the strategy was
to use resources more eciently and save money for times of scarcity. This strategy
reached its peak when the structural surplus rule was adopted (Arellano, 2006). This
tendency of reforms changed substantially on the outset of a new century. Contrary to
what happened in Colombia, where a new progressive constitution was adopted in 1991,
the Chilean government had to abide by the constitution enacted during the military
dictatorship. The role of the state in that Constitution was subsidiary. Therefore, the
intention of the centre-left coalition in oce, which ruled from 1990 to 2010, to change
that role was problematic. Along with that, several corruption scandals erupted, and the
public management policy domain changed utterly. New ideas, such as implementing a
senior civil service system (Plisco, 2016) and a Transparency Council in 2009, switched
the orientation towards a more neo-Weberian direction. The stability reached in the ‘90s
no longer exists, and competing values are at stake when proposing modications in this
domain.
In turn, Colombia, a frequent follower of Chilean policy practices (e.g., in health,
pensions, and other policy domains, appears to have followed lately a more hybrid
model in terms of public sector reform emphases and approaches (Sanabria-Pulido,
2010), by combining practices that resemble the neo-Weberian, NPM, and New Public
Governance models (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017. However, a recent work by Sanabria-Pulido
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 3
and Leyva (2022) shows that Colombia has been a clear pursuant of NPM practices during
the last four decades. Amidst a bloody process of bipartisan violence around the public
sector jobs and budget (Sanabria-Pulido & Velasquez, 2021), Colombia aimed to develop a
Weberian approach at the beginning of the XXth century without much success. Such
violent evolution escalated and somehow aected the evolution of administrative capa-
cities in the country. Since the 1960s, Colombia started developing a model that has been
characterised by solid orthodoxy in the economy, and sporadic eorts to undermine the
overwhelming scal pressures that appear from time to time. This has led to an approach
to public sector reforms that is usually instrumental to economic goals and values
(Sanabria-Pulido & Leyva, 2022). Yet, in some moments, the reforms have aimed to
achieve other values related to institutional capacity, rule of law, due process, and
democracy (Sanabria-Pulido, 2018a), particularly since the enactment of the 1991 con-
stitution. Thus, although the country can be very similar to Chile in terms of the decisive
role that economic goals and managerial values play, the adoption of a more compre-
hensive set of values through the current constitution has forced a more hybrid model
that combines those managerial with other democratic values.
Thus, although Colombia and Chile share a long tradition of policy transfer and
emulation, particularly in terms of the orthodoxy of their economic policy, they dier
in key aspects of public sector reform, the structure of the politico-administrative
system, and in the quality of dierent policy outcomes. Despite having a state of
siege in dierent moments of its history, Colombia has been a long-standing democ-
racy, at least in terms of having permanent popular elections. Its economy has devel-
oped a very steady trend and is consistently identied as one of the most stables in the
region but certainly has grown at a much slower pace than the Chilean one. On the
other hand, Chile appears to be a stable, peaceful, thriving country, particularly since
the end of the dictatorship in 1990. The country has ever since developed an interesting
process of development whereby it rapidly achieves the highest levels of human
development in the region and provides high levels of welfare to its citizens. Thus, we
will analyse a pair of countries that share key traits in their models of reforms and policy
practices but vary in the quality of the results and the type of challenges that their
public administrations have historically faced.
Value systems and public sector reforms
We aim to address a potential collision of values in public agencies in a region that
has been subject to continuous structural changes in the State in the last decades.
Public administration literature has shown that dierent administrative philosophies
and approaches to reform (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017) rely on dierent values (or
clusters of values) to justify a set of practices (Rosenbloom, 2017) or a particular
role of the state (Ott & Dicke, 2001). The literature has shown how public servants and
organisations operate in settings where dierent values with divergent origins coexist
(Van der Wal et al., 2011). Namely, they perform in environments where some
traditional public sector values and practices are still present but coexist with man-
agerial practices, coming along with new private-sector values that have permeated
dierent public sector activities. Bozeman (2007) claims that the new wave of reforms
in the public sector, along with social processes such as globalisation and greater
4P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
interconnectivity, among others, have brought to the public sphere values that were
previously perceived as alien to the public service, supposedly dominant in the
private sector.
Public values research has ourished in the public administration literature (Fukumoto
& Bozeman, 2019) during the last two decades, mainly because of the interest by many
scholars to address the potential impact of these new values in public agencies’ activities
and, particularly, among civil servants’ notions of service and publicness (Nabatchi, 2018;
Van der Wal et al., 2015; Adams & Balfour, 2010; Maesschalck, 2004; Newman & Clarke,
2009). However, most literature has acknowledged that public structures have not com-
pletely dismantled traditional values. Although predominantly from countries in the
global North (Samaratunge & Wijewardena, 2009), the evidence indicates that agencies
tend to preserve vital public values within their organisational culture, accepting new
values amid changes.
Public values: characterising the phenomenon
One key challenge of empirical research on public values is identifying them in the actual
practice of public aairs. It was not until Jørgensen & Bozeman’s (2007) ‘s work that this
conversation moved to a dierent level. They recognised a list of 72 public values based
on a review of 230 studies, mainly from the US and Europe. Other recent works have
explored the actual existence of public values in dierent public sector organisations
(Bozeman, 2019; Jørgensen & Rutgers, 2015) and in dierent countries and policy domains
(Fukumoto & Bozeman, 2019). These initial eorts to specify the public values have helped
dierentiate those public values essential to the public service ethos from those that are
not. Van der Wal & Huberts (2008) compared values among public and private employees,
reaching eight values specically relevant to the public sector. This list overlaps with the
one proposed by Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007). Yet, the question of whether public
organisations purport a dierent set of values remains open for countries with less-
developed public administrations.
Old and new values: paradigm changes and value clash
It is well known that the traditional bureaucratic model had a set of values that were
needed to fulll the duties imposed on the administrative apparatus when leaving
practices such as political patronage. “In the old public administration, it was implicit,
. . ., that focusing on neutrality, eciency, and a strict separation between politics and
administration was the best way for public servants to serve the interest of the public”
(Denhardt & Denhardt, 2007, p. 74). Consistent with that bureaucratic perspective, the set
of values is part of a long tradition that can be traced back to the Cameralist Movement of
the XVII and XVIII centuries or the late XIX’s Progressive Movement. Eciency, political
neutrality, and due process were some of the values used to justify public ocials’ actions
in the middle of the industrial revolution, the emergence of professions, and rapid
urbanisation processes.
Yet, some decades later, those values were set aside when the set of practices known as
the NPM came to the fore and provided essential changes to how public service was
understood. Following Hood (1991), a new view of the State’s role was grounded in new
values used to support new administrative practices. Particularly those coined as “sigma-
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 5
type” values. “Since the ‘sigma’ group of values stresses the matching of resources to
dened objectives, the setting of xed and ‘checkable’ goals must be central to any
design for realizing such values” (Hood, 1991, p. 12). In this line of reasoning, we begin to
“think about citizens as being analogous to customers, and government as analogous to a
market, the need to talk about or act upon the “public interest” largely disappears”
(Denhardt & Denhardt, 2007, p. 76).
Adoption or collision of values?
Still, the debate regarding the impact of NPM values in the public domain has a particular
feature that deserves attention. A signicant number of values that have been adopted in
the public sector, in the context of NPM-style reforms, are generated or predominantly
present in the private sector (Box, 1999). Heintzman (2007) claims NPM style reforms were
supposed to replace the rule-abiding values put forward by the “old” public administra-
tion with new and more appropriate ones, which had been successful in the private
domain. Other works have somehow recognised the clash and have identied how public
servants become, in fact, protectors and guarantors of public values (Furneaux et al., 2008;
Reynaers & Paanakker, 2016)
Moreover, this set of privately originating values enters in stark contradiction with
a notion of public service that is germane to the public sector. For instance, one key
question is to consider how the concept of public service motivation (Perry, 1996;
Perry & Wise, 1990) enters in direct contradiction with private sector values such as
eciency and protability. Since private sector values tend to rely on an idea of
interests over the public good, following a set of public values without considering
public organisations’ particularities might imply a crowding-out eect, as some
authors have argued (Georgellis et al., 2011). Understanding the organisational
eects of such contradiction can make even more sense in the context of public
organisations in developing countries with weak, and sometimes failing, states
enduring to survive and responding to wicked problems with civil services still in
construction (Samaratunge & Wijewardena, 2009).
Another related stream of literature that started with the seminal book by Moore
(1995) points out creating public value as the actual orientation of public employees’
actions. As Benington and Moore (2011) claim, the initial conceptions of Moore’s concept
were developed in a neo-liberal context, in which “public value” was seen, by several
authors, as a way public activity might be depoliticised. Using the strategic triangle, public
managers should make their decisions according to the “desires” of citizens rather than
those ill-dened political intentions. After more than twenty-ve years of Moore’s book,
public value is re-conceptualised to move its orientation from an NPM-oriented philoso-
phy to a more collaborative governance framework. In so doing, the public value becomes
a methodology to listen to the dierent actors involved in public actions, particularly
citizens, who are no longer seen as mere clients and as partners and co-producers of
public value. Thus, this development in understanding public value can help understand
the actual tensions that economic value brings to the public sector through private
sector-oriented practices, particularly in developing countries with complex governance
arrangements (Plisco & Araya, 2012).
6P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
Thus, the public administration literature has been aware of the tensions and
contradictions that paradigm shifts bring to the practice of government (Jaspers &
Steen, 2019). Notwithstanding, most of those analyses respond to countries where
most state reform stages have followed a chronological order (patronage, orthodoxy/
bureaucracy, politics of bureaucracy, and new public management). However, that is
not the situation in developing countries such as those in Latin America, where
reform processes have not necessarily happened in the same timely manner. In fact,
as Sanabria-Pulido and Avellaneda (2014) and Polidano (1999, 2001) argued, they
tend to generate paradoxical situations whereby the State has to deal with aiming to
achieve bureaucratic values such as merit and due process while adopting manage-
rial ones such as results orientation, innovation, and exibility. In this way, this work
expands public values research by focusing on countries that do not resemble the
orderly development patterns of bureaucracies in North America and Europe. Instead,
they have witnessed a profound clash of cultures and values as a result of State
reform processes that have made them coexist.
Methodology
To address our research question, we identify the dominant values that exist in a
sample of comparable public organisations in two countries in Latin America. We
follow a deductive exploratory approach employing qualitative methods, namely case
studies from six public organisations in Colombia and Chile. Following the case-study
approach allows us to “investigate a contemporary phenomenon (the ‘case’) in depth
and within its real-world context, especially when the boundaries between phenom-
enon and context may not be evident” (Yin, 2018). Our cases focus on organisations
of dierent ages and sizes, looking for variance in the analysis. The questions we
study explain why we use a qualitative approach (Corbin & Strauss, 2014). This
approach is also appropriate because most empirical research has used quantitative
data from countries in the global North, with public administration structures and
processes that do not necessarily resemble the rest of the world. Hence, theory
development benets from exploratory approaches that include cases far from the
most frequent research settings in public administration (Stebbins, 2001).
The article uses data from 60 semi-structured interviews conducted to gather data in
public central government agencies with dierent modernisation levels and structures in
Chile and Colombia. We chose the organisations using the notions of diversity and
similarity. On the one hand, we identify diversity in selecting agencies as those that
have been part of managerial reforms. In turn, we recognise other agencies classied as
traditional bureaucracies. We designed an interview instrument that allowed us to ask
individuals in Colombian and Chilean public agencies about the predominant values that
characterise their organisations and their work within them.
To design the instrument, we followed approaches from a set of academic articles (see
Annexe B) that have inquired about public values in the context of public organisations
and proposed instruments that help identify them. In doing so, we included three main
groups of works. First, we chose a group of academic works focusing on ethical values
(Rayner et al., 2010; Van der Wal et al., 2011). Then, a second group specically inquiries
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 7
about public values (Persson & Goldkuhl, 2010; Rutgers, 2008; Van der Wal et al., 2011).
Finally, we explored a group that attempts to disentangle the role of private sector values
in public sector organisations (Walker et al., 2011).
From their instruments, we aimed to identify potential questions and wording that
could be included in our study, also considering their suitability for the context of Latin
American countries. To do so, we utilised the following criteria: 1) identied questions
that explore values that motivate public service and dene the ethics of the public
sector; 2) identied questions that inquire about the presence of mechanisms to protect
public values; 3) nd questions regarding actors and contexts that determine public
service’s values and give them a specic meaning; and 4) most importantly, identify
questions that might help observe the crowding-out eect of bureaucratic public values
by managerial ones.
Accordingly, we developed an instrument (see Annexe A) composed of three main
sections. The rst section focuses on personal views on the public sector in each country.
The second section aimed to identify the subject’s perspective about his or her particular
organisation. Finally, the third section attempted to explore whether the individual
perceives a shift in the predominant values in these countries’ public sectors amid the
increasing presence of managerial practices.
Then, in choosing our cases for analysis, we explored a sample of three organisa-
tions in each country, aiming to identify, in each country, one organisation tting
within the following categories: a) Traditional Bureaucratic Organization (Weberian-
like), b) Transitional Organization, c) Recently Created (NPM- Managerial
Organization). We identied a set of organisations in each country that could con-
form to these parameters and still allow us to compare the two countries. After
reviewing the feasibility of accessing the information, we selected the following
organisations (Table 1).
According to that selection of organisations, we conducted a set of ten inter-
views in each organisation (i.e., 30 interviews by country, 60 total), attempting to
identify individuals representing dierent demographics in terms of job levels, age,
seniority, and gender. We interviewed individuals in similar positions to identify
trends, patterns, and sets of values. Additionally, ocials in dierent roles and
hierarchy levels (i.e., internal auditors, managers and ocials in client service-
related positions, liaisons with private contractors or third-party deliverers, etc.).
Also, we targeted public ocials in dierent hierarchical levels (ve levels:
Direction, Advisory, Professional, Technical, Assistant) and two seniority categories
(less than ve years and more than ve years). Thus, we aimed to interview two
individuals by hierarchical level, one of them with more than ve years in the
organisation and the other with less than ve years.
Table 1. Sample of organizations.
Traditional Bureaucratic
Organization (Weberian) Organization in Transition
Recently Created Organization
(NPM – Managerial)
Chile Contraloría General de la
República
Registro Civil e Identificación Dirección Nacional del
Servicio Civil
Colombia Ministerio de Minas
y Energía
Registraduría Nacional
del Estado Civil
Comisión Nacional del
Servicio Civil
8P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
Although we recognise the limitations in terms of external validity that come from our
case study approach, this research design may allow us to identify patterns and dier-
ences across diverse organisations, hierarchical levels, and between “old” and “new”
employees. In each country, the organisations granted direct access to the authors to
interview employees in 2013 and 2015. Interviews were digitally recorded after the
subjects signed informed consent forms. Interviews lasted between 20 and 45 minutes
and were semi-structured according to the instrument in Annexe A.
The Chilean case
For this study, three organisations were selected. The rst agency chosen was the
Dirección Nacional del Servicio Civil (National Civil Service Agency), which was created
seventeen years ago. This oce shows one crucial trait: more than 70% of professionals in
its workforce, making it perhaps more prone to new ideas and new concepts. Next, there
is an organisation with more than 137 years, Registro Civil e Identicación (National
Registry and Identication Oce). It is seen as old-fashioned, not because it can be chiey
portrayed as resistant to change, but because it must maintain specic stability to
maintain order and continuity in registration and ID processes. Finally, the third selected
agency, Contraloría General de la República (CGR) (General Comptroller of the Republic),
is 96 years old and is one of the three autonomous bodies dened in the current
Constitution. It has two key characteristics: an essential share of its workers are adminis-
trative sta, and it has received several quality awards in the past. Accordingly, it has a
robust organisational culture with explicit expressions that changes are in place.
Two caveats need to be made in the Chilean case. Firstly, the government in oce
nished 20 years of the same coalition in oce when we conducted the interviews. This
change brought signicant modications in several agencies because newly elected
ocials hired senior positions in the public sector, mostly with people from the private
sector. Although their initial intention was openly make the State more ecient, their
ideas and changes were not well received by a group of agencies and ministries because
they saw this as more than an intervention rather than an improvement. The agencies
selected in this research project were aected by these changes, but not signicantly.
Despite that, several conversations move to things known among public employees so
that this historical context might inuence the conversation. Secondly, the “Transparency
and Freedom Access to Public Information Law” was enacted in 2008, establishing a set of
practices that might have aected how public agencies understand issues such as
transparency and integrity, giving more relevance to those topics.
Public values in a set of Chilean public organizations
In this section, we identify the general values portrayed by the interviewees. Public
ocials, when asked, put particular emphasis on values such as transparency and respon-
sibility, the latter understood as a commitment to fairness and the common good. These
values are explicit when asked directly and evident in the motivations that guide public
ocials’ conduct and shape the meaning of “public service”.
First, transparency corresponds perhaps an essential value, as all interviewees men-
tioned. As was already mentioned, in Chile in 2008 a transparency law was enacted (Law N
° 20.285), and the Chilean government undertook a signicant change in the way citizens
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 9
could access public data. It implied a change in the relationship between public employ-
ees and citizens. After the initial resistance to change, public ocials had to abide by the
law, and thus an everyday discourse regarding transparency in the public sector emerged.
It has permeated all the institutions involved in this research. Every single interview had a
reference to transparency, showing the arrival of new public governance values. We
observed that the ocials conceive transparency as a positive value, which is an end in
itself and a means to empower citizens vis-à-vis the State. A more transparent state’s
disadvantages were higher workload, uploading information to web pages on time,
creating devices to ease access, and being more careful with procedures and decisions.
All information to support decisions and all the procedures pursued are subject to public
scrutiny. It is a burden for ocials that used to make decisions according to their expertise
or technical justications, without disclosing information to citizens.
The second value is responsibility. The interviewed ocials conceived it as a commit-
ment with their co-workers or with their superiors and citizens. It is an internal motivation
to work harder and better and is related to the purpose of the public service, and in some
cases, it is understood as “social responsibility”. In this sense, this value forms the notion of
“public service” as the driving force behind working for the state. Helping others, improv-
ing citizens’ well-being, and achieving social justice, among others, are all concepts that
the interviewees used to clarify their notion of public service. Most of the interviews talked
about working for something bigger than myself, something transcendent that could
change people’s lives. Only one interviewee mentioned that she did not believe or think
in the notion of public service. For her, that notion is not only vague but also empty. She
mentioned she has been working in the same agency for more than seven years, but she
did a similar job in a private company. For her, moving from the private to the public
sector was not signicant, and the reason to do it was only a matter of stability and salary.
To sum up, only two interviewees mentioned two types of public employees despite
their motivations: those with a public service spirit and those working for individualistic
interests. The problem, for those acknowledging these categories, is that public agencies
have both types, and it is tricky to make interventions while having these dierences in
perceptions:
-” . . . In my point of view, there are two types of individuals working for the state: the public
employee who has the public service spirit and knows that her work could impact the quality
of life of others and the second type who sees this as a regular job without other inspirations.
In this organisation, in particular, we deal with these two types of public employees. “(Top
Ocial)
Regarding the adoption of managerial values and the crowding-out eect of bureau-
cratic public values, it should be noted that in the Chilean case, NPM-style policies were
implemented during the 90s and part of the year 2000. It is easily recognisable because
most of our interviewees mentioned concepts such as eciency, eectiveness, quality,
and the like, as part of the NPM mindset. However, referring to these indicate that it is not
a matter of being ecient. It is a matter of measuring it and how much time s(he) spends
(wastes) in testing her/his eciency. According to the responses, sometimes one spends
more time measuring and qualifying services rather than delivering them. Overall, they do
not consider that bureaucratic values are incompatible with NPM values.
10 P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
Comparing across organisations
Among the three institutions analysed, rather than nding signicant dierences in terms
of public values, we found dierences in emphasis in each institution. Both the
Comptroller General and the Registration Oce especially emphasised the signicance
of the “Responsibility”, while in National Civil Service Agency, there were more robust
references to transparency. In the Registration Oce’s particular case, values like “friendli-
ness, quality, and collaboration” were also reported. For them, being an institution with
constant interaction with citizens denes their set of values.
Comparing new and older employees’ views
Our results show that there is a generational gap between old and new employees. The
main dierences are organisational commitment and motivation. Those with more
seniority tend to report being more committed to public service, while new generations
appear less. One person mentioned that it is not a lack of interest in public service
among younger generations, it is an outcome of living in a society with more opportu-
nities to nd a job.
A second element to highlight between old and new employees is the relevance they
gave to public personnel rules. Both groups consider the State a good employer.
However, older employees think that younger generations tend to abuse of the situation
and take advantage of the positive elements of being a public employee. One old
employee claims that:
“ . . . in my personal view, I justify my decision to work for the state because of the working
hours, coworkers and top ocials have good relationships, you have several positive things
that are not considered in the private sector. Of course, some take advantage of the system.
They lack personal values and good manners, which usually are developed in your home. For
instance, if you are sick for three days in this entity, you can have a sick leave and the ministry
pays. In a private company that is not the case . . . So, coworkers use and abuse of that norm,
particularly, those newly hired or young workers” (Professional Employee)
Comparing along the hierarchy
Regarding the values identied, it is interesting that the notion of responsibility is
dierently understood according to the place in the organisation. There are two groups
in this matter. The rst one claims that public employees should be accountable to their
superiors, while the second, primarily professionals and decision-makers, highlight that
public employees should be responsible to citizens.
A second idea is that there are dierences regarding what is considered to be an
“excellent” public servant. While the lowest levels consider that, to be a good public
employee, they must comply with the rules and have a correct job performance,
higher levels professionals and top ocials consider it more important to be proac-
tive and give an extra eort than what is expected. This notion is presented in the
following quote:
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 11
“Some oces have deplorable conditions where they provide services, and some collea-
gues do not even have a computer to work. However, they work hard, even in poor
conditions, remain in the institution, cling to the institution and work for something,
maybe that is a good public servant. “(Professional Employee)
Regarding the eect of adopting NPM practices, those in higher positions complain
about the workload these new practices have had on them. It is not a matter of being
ecient. It is a matter of measuring it and how much time you spend (waste) to make sure
you are ecient. Sometimes you spend more time trying to measure and qualifying your
services rather than delivering them. Lower levels of the organizations do not see these
contradictions, maybe because they are not responsible for that task. A top ocial
presents this tension:
“I do not think that ‘good inspiration’ moves public employees to improve their
performance, nor a whole set of performance indicators. I think the State can combine
both approaches, but it is necessary to look, from the Budget Oce, and all the rationality
of the indicators . . . If I could tell you at what point we are today, as a balance, I think
that we are less inspired and more obsessed with measurement, in terms of tools or
purpose, we are immersed in this, and carrying out scarce actions in this dimension”. (Top
Ocial)
To sum up, the Chilean case portrays an interesting process in which certain manage-
rial practices have not necessarily crowded out public values. It is an unexpected result
considering it is usually classied as a very orthodox country in policy, traditionally
leaning towards markets. Interestingly, public values and public service notions are similar
to public ocials in three dierent organisations with dierent cultures. It also seems that
the 20.285 law has had an important eect among interviewees, making transparency a
broadly accepted public value.
Regarding dierences in hierarchy, individuals in the higher echelons were more likely
to be identied with public service notions and to be accountable to the general citizenry.
Yet, people in lower levels tend to portray responsibility more intensely as a critical public
value. There is also an interesting generational divide. Older individuals appear more
connected to public service values than younger ones, who seem more pragmatic and see
the public service as a regular job.
The Colombian case
We interviewed 30 public ocials in three dierent organisations: one traditional bureau-
cratic organisation: the Ministry of Mines and Energy, with roughly 77 years after its
creation. Another organisation transitioned to the managerial model around 69 years:
Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (National Registry Oce), and, nally, one recently
created organisation, the National Commission of Civil Service, with less than two dec-
ades. The three organisations dier in size and age and have dierent purposes. First, the
Ministry of Mines and Energy resembles a traditional bureaucratic organisation. Created in
1939, it oversees the design and implementation of policies related to the exploration and
exploitation of minerals, oil, and biofuels in the country, the denition of frameworks for
12 P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
energy generation and commercialisation, and the design of programmes for the rational
use of energy. According to the age, size, and organisational structure, we classify it as a
bureaucratic organisation. Secondly, we have the National Registry Oce, created in 1934.
It currently has two primary duties: the organisation and due process of elections, the
identication process, and the national ID documents for Colombian citizens. It has been
subject to several reforms during the last decade, purporting it today as an institution that
has adopted a more managerial perspective. Finally, we analysed the National
Commission of the Civil Service, in charge of the country’s merit-based recruitment of
career ocials. After the Colombian Political Constitution of 1991, it was created as an
autonomous entity and dened a new institutional setting for civil service.
Public values in a set of Colombian public organizations
Aiming to identify a clash of Weberian vs. managerial values, we asked individuals to list a
set of values of the Colombian public sector in the interviews. We did not provide any
detailed list but asked them to freely indicate the ones they identied as characteristic of
the Colombian public sector. Regarding this, across the three organisations, we did not
nd stark dierences or evidence of a clash of values or crowding out of Weberian values
by managerial ones. Instead, most interviewees listed a combination of both Weberian
values (eciency, merit, tenure) with managerial (NPM) ones (high performance, team-
work, transparency, leadership) without implying tensions.
Furthermore, the Weberian values tend to be very similar across the board and
generally relate to public service (Sense of duty, commitment, service, and common
good). There were fewer mentions of managerial values in the rst place (economy,
eectiveness) or governance-related (service and transparency). More statements about
NPM-related values were second and later mentioned (Leadership, simplicity, teamwork,
and proactivity). Likewise, Weberian-like values came as part of the last mentions but
frequently appeared in combination with managerial and service ones.
There were mentions of negative values (corruption, clientelism, cronyism), but some
dierences appear. For instance, newer employees and individuals in the organisation’s
lower levels were more likely to mention such anti-values. This situation might illustrate
the recent corruption scandals that have prevailed during recent years and greater
exposure of newer individuals to education and training regarding ethical behaviours.
On the other hand, individuals at lower hierarchical levels appeared more prone to list
such anti-values. Perhaps because they are closer to the public and may be envisioning
the tensions of top managers, whom they can see as more likely to be involved in notable
corruption scandals. Nonetheless, it is evident that most interviewees primarily listed
values traditionally related to public service but later mentioned, in no particular order,
other managerial and Weberian values.
Comparing across organisations
Individuals across the three organisations show remarkable similarities regarding their
views about adopting managerial values and the role of more bureaucratic values such as
rules and tenure. In general, younger employees are more easily linked to ideas of
eectiveness, performance measurement, and governance/service orientation, closer to
managerial-like values and new public governance ones. Also, individuals in leadership
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 13
positions often report a more managerial approach and see themselves as defenders of
their organisations’ managerial practices. This situation was evident in both Ministry of
Mines and the Registry Oce.
However, individuals at the National Commission of Civil Service, perhaps due to its
role as implementer of merit practices in the Colombian public sector, show a remarkably
stronger focus on traditional values such as merit and due process, less evident in the
other two organisations. It operates as an autonomous organisation, explaining the
relative isolation and apparent dierences to the other analysed organisations. It is
interesting that although we included this organisation as one that might be closer to
NPM-like values due to its recent creation, the interviews with individuals from this
organisation reveal a strong anity with Weberian values. This organisation’s role in the
Colombian State, which comes from a clear constitutional mandate to adopt Weberian
precepts regarding merit-based selections, might explain this situation.
The other two organisations reveal a more reformist outlook. In both the National
Registry and the Ministry of Mines, the interview responses imply a rapid adoption of
NPM-related values. All interviewees in these two entities mentioned, to some degree,
“the importance” of adopting a “client” orientation and pursuing performance measure-
ment to ensure eectiveness. It seems that this is a strong trend in the Colombian public
sector since most interviewed employees appear to be condent with the managerial
jargon. Most interviewees in these two organisations emphasised the importance of
adopting such values and practices as a needed strategy to overcome the ineective-
ness and the bad imagery that Colombian public organisations often purport, to reect
governance-related values. Several of them mentioned how their actions generate
public value.
However, that trend is not so clear when it comes to practice. There seems to be a
gap between how public ocials talk about those values and how they see managerial
procedures. In all three organisations, the subjects claimed poor performance measure-
ment practices (worker assessments, strategic planning, and monitoring). According to
the interviews, managerial trends have just reached public organisations at the de jure
level. However, organisations still lack the resources to adequately implement related
practices and overcome classic pathologies of public organisations. This excerpt from
the interview of one old employee at the direction level in one organisation reects that
clash:
“ . . . here what I see is that the changes take place by a legal requirement if the rule
comes out and we do not implement it we are faced with legal action . . . A good
example is the monitoring processes, performance management processes, and perfor-
mance evaluation processes (. . .) Since it is an external body that demands the audit
processes, they only respond to that external body, but not because we really want to
improve our performance. On the other hand, with such a huge workload, people live
saturated and do not have the time to undertake self-assessment processes. Also, the
performance evaluation process is aected by legal actions. I have an example, here if
you give a bad evaluation to public servants, people turn to legal action, they sue the
evaluator, so if you want to avoid legal problems, you have to give good evaluations to
all people even the low-performers”. (Top Ocial)
14 P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
Comparing new and older employees’ views
Newer employees seem highly familiar with managerial values. Whereas most of the
older employees claimed tenure and stability as the main reason they chose and kept
their public sector jobs, newer employees, particularly at the top level, were less likely
to purport those as their reasons to work for the public sector. Moreover, newer
employees frequently mentioned the importance of adopting a deeper managerial
perspective in public sector organisations. Furthermore, negative comments regarding
this new wave were almost absent among younger interviewees. Some of them claimed
openly widespread adoption of such practices to improve the functioning of their
organisations.
On the other hand, older employees, perhaps surprisingly, did not appear highly
nostalgic of the classical bureaucratic values. However, they tended to purport more
critical positions regarding the implementation of NPM-like practices. More interestingly,
several of the interviewees in this category also mentioned it as the strategy to follow in
Colombian public organisations:
“Yes, now organizations try to make their operation conform to all these new managerial
parameters, guidelines, and practices of audits and monitoring, strategic planning, self-
control. In fact, they must adapt what they do to those new regulations . . . [But] Even though
such new tools are useful and necessary, my concern is that they are becoming the end in
itself . . . ll the form, calculate the indicator, write the report . . . it is very exhausting . . .
Although it certainly helps to organize things and make the actions more orderly, it perhaps
would be even worse without them” (Middle-level manager)
To add up, in this category, we nd three patterns from the interviews. First, it is
evident that young employees are more attuned to managerial values and practices. Still,
surprisingly, although highly critical, older employees are highly conscious of adopting
such values in the Colombian public sector. Second, both groups see the adoption of such
values as something that can improve public organisations’ management and the imple-
mentation of public policies. Third, less evident, older employees tend still to privilege
values related to the characteristics of the employment itself (tenure, seniority, knowl-
edge). In comparison, newer employees are more likely to mention values related to
service (service, responsibility, society) but appear more critical by frequently mentioning
negative values such as corruption and unethical behaviours.
Comparing along the hierarchy
Given the complexity and dierences in structure in each of the reviewed organisations, in
this section, we compare across two levels: Top Management (which includes both
direction and advisor positions) and one professional/assistant level. First, there appears
to be greater socialisation at the top level regarding managerial values and governance-
oriented values such as service orientation. That might be coherent with the leadership
role that individuals in those positions have to play. But also, might be explained by the
greater managerial and nancial awareness that they get from the top. In other words,
managers tend to have more information by hand regarding organisational performance
and sustainability and strategy, and connection to the citizenry. Similarly, according to the
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 15
Santos administration’s strong managerial line at that moment, it makes sense that they
become highly socialised regarding the adoption of modern management practices and
governance-like values.
Individuals at lower-level jobs appear less concerned about the long-term impact of
managerial values and practices and more oriented towards operational issues. Similarly,
this awareness makes those individuals more conscious of the impact of NPM (manage-
rial) values on organisational functioning and self-performance.
Finally, following previous scholarship about dierences in public values along public
sector hierarchies (Van der Wal, 2014), individuals at lower positions appeared more likely
to mention more Weberian values when asked about a set of specic values in the
Colombian public sector. They mentioned more frequently terms such as tenure and
the rule of law. One key reason is that they are career servants who either obtained their
positions through a merit-based recruitment process or are waiting for them (provisional
employees), as opposed to top-level ocials who are almost uniquely employed and
subject to free appointment and dismissal.
In conclusion, we recognise two trends in this category. First, top managers seem to be
prone to managerial NPM-like values and public service notions related to the new public
governance approach. It seems that when one travels down the hierarchy lines, most of
the individuals at the top seem to be highly socialised by that set of values. Still, as soon as
one advances to the lower levels, individuals appear less aware of managerial values.
Second, top ocials tend to be more conscious of the impact of managerial values on
performance and appear to be further socialised by client orientation and performance
management and measurement ideas. Third, individuals in lower hierarchy jobs appear to
be more motivated by traditional values (tenure, merit) than individuals in leadership
positions.
Comparative discussion
Our analysis shows that even in dierent settings and dierent types of organisations,
Weberian values can coexist with managerial ones, and even with other sets of values
related to political patronage or governance. The analysis of six dierent organisations in
two countries in the global South (see, Table 2), shows that NPM-revalues do not
necessarily crowd-out other value systems as other studies have found (Lapuente & Van
de Walle, 2020), nor are unable to coexist with Weberian-like values (Barzelay, 1992;
Boruvka & Perry, 2020).
The Colombian case shows that that people tend to adapt to the coexistence of
dierent value systems. The interviews that public ocials have systematically
adopted the managerial set of values, although they still appear critical of some
managerial practices and values. Individuals in top positions are more prone to
defend managerial values but are also more precise about public service and govern-
ance notions. Yet, people at the lower and middle-level echelons seem more likely to
report traditional values, perhaps because the career system has been more exten-
sively implemented at those levels in the Colombian account. Younger and newer
public employees are more likely to recognise and defend managerial NPM-like
values. Whereas seniors and older employees appear more concerned about the
long-term impact of adopting such a values system
16 P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
As per the Chilean case, more than a clash, it is evident that dierent value systems have
“learned” to coexist in organisations with dierent ages and models of reforms. Regarding
dierences in hierarchy, individuals in the higher echelons were more likely to be identied
with public service notions and to be accountable to the general citizenry, while people in
lower levels tend to portray responsibility more intensely as a critical public value. There is also
an interesting generational divide. Older individuals appear more connected to public service
values than younger ones, who seem more pragmatic and see public service as a regular job
that they can leave quickly if new opportunities arrive.
This mixture of values illustrates that public employees combine managerial and
Weberian value systems with other government and public service principles. In this
way, there does not seem to be a clash of values but rather an adaptation of three
dierent perspectives: neo-Weberian, new public management, and new public gov-
ernance (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017). Our results indicate that, in the Colombian case, it
is possible to observe hybridity, as has been argued by prior research (Van der Wal &
van Hout, 2009). Such hybridity is consistent with several developing civil services like
the Colombian which have a particular mix of managerial practices coexisting with
other methods resembling the Weberian and political patronage models.
Concluding remarks
Our results indicate that the cases from Colombian and Chilean organisations and public
ocials reect signicant similarities at several levels (see, Table 2). First, there is no evident
clash of values in the perceptions of public ocials. In fact, what we observe is the result of
how organisations, and especially public servants, appear to be adaptable to the introduction
Table 2. Summary of main findings by country.
Country
Most
mentioned
public values
Differences Across
Organizations
Differences between older
and younger public servants Differences across hierarchy
Chile Efficiency
Transparency
Responsibility
Effectiveness
Quality
Greater emphasis on
responsibility and
responsiveness in the
Comptroller General and
Registry Office. Civil
Service is more focused on
transparency.
Older employees frequently
mentioned values related
to public service (like
merit or stability) but
recognised the existence
of “buropathologies”.
Younger officials were less
inclined towards
commitment and
exhibited more
“managerial” values.
Transparency appears as a
value identified by all
hierarchical levels. In
contrast, responsibility
seems more ingrained in
the lower echelons- Top
officials expressed more
connection with public
service values and were
more critical of NPM
practices and tenets.
Colombia Efficiency
Merit
Performance
Teamwork
Transparency
Leadership
Managerial values are more
frequently mentioned in
the Ministry of Mines and
Registry Office, whereas
more traditional Weberian
values for the National
Commission of Civil
Service, perhaps due to
the organisations’ role.
Younger employees are
more linked to managerial
and governance values
and aware of anti-values
(corruption, political
patronage). Older officials
were more connected to
traditional values (merit,
tenure, stability, and more
critical of managerial
values.
Top officials were more
“managerial” but also
more aware of
governance and service-
oriented values.
Individuals in lower
echelons were less
connected to NPM-like
values and more
motivated towards
traditional Weberian
values.
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 17
of new value systems (for instance, NPM-like values) without giving up previous sets of values
or even professional values. Our analysis shows that public ocials interviewed tend to adopt
dierent value systems, identify them and their crucial dierences, and do not claim one of
them as predominant over the other. This is consistent with what Boruvka and Perry (2020)
claim as a process of “adaptability though learning” (579) in the adoption of dierent
administrative practices in the public administration domain. We found that this process of
adaptation does not imply discarding “old” values, on the contrary, it implies their adaptation
and the adoption of new ones, more attuned with the current state of aairs in the matter.
One possible avenue for future research is that the results would be dierent if we had
analysed public services operated by private providers, where the clash is more evident
(Reynaers & Paanakker, 2016). In the cases studied, we observed adaptation and assimilation
of dierent sets of values rather than a clash between values.
In terms of managerial values, our evidence indicates that they have come to stay. Even
older employees appear to identify and abide by them, yet younger and newer employees
appear better connected to the logic of managerial tenets – furthermore, hierarchy matters.
Our results indicate that those at the top levels appear more connected to managerial
mindsets and practices and can better identify impact in terms of public service. Yet, people
at the lower echelons are more related to traditional and new governance values such as
responsibility and service in both cases.
Although we do not explore how adopting those values aects other key values as
transparency, due process and public value creation, which appear to be critical for public
service, the question remains open (Reynaers & De Graaf, 2014). If there is a clash of values
in response to greater private sector participation, the literature shows that frequently
public ocials become protectors and guarantors of public values themselves. Our
evidence conrms that ocials with longer careers appear to be defenders of values
that resemble the idea of a professional, independent bureaucracy, even though it is an
unnished goal for most Latin American countries.
Two countries in Latin America characterised as prone to undertake frequent public sector
reforms appear to adopt practices and procedures that have shaken paradigms and views
regarding the role of the state and its organisations. Considering the particularities of these
two cases, one might claim that public values must be part of an extended debate whenever
countries are interested in signicantly modifying organisational procedures and cultures.
There are nuances when comparing both cases. However, it is relevant to highlight that what
we found in this exploratory eort is that dierences within agencies are more relevant than
those found between two countries in the same region with slightly dierent reform paths.
“Traditional” and “modern” sets of public values appear to coexist in public sector organisa-
tions in Latin America, conrming the hybridity that characterises dierent systems of public
values across the world. Thus, governments have an opportunity to create a more consistent
discourse, in terms of public service values, with those who are listening to the call for a more
open and more eective state.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author(s).
18 P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
Notes on contributors
Pablo Sanabria-Pulido Associate Professor School of Government, Universidad de los Andes,
Colombia and Aliate Professor, CIDE México. His areas of interest are public management, policy
analysis, organisational behaviour, corruption/transparency, local government, and public aairs
education.
Cristian Pliscoff Associate Professor and Director of the undergraduate programme in Public
Administration, School of Government, Catholic University of Chile. His areas of interest are public
administration, State reform, ethics in public administration, public service motivation and public
administration education.
ORCID
Pablo Sanabria-Pulido http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0962-8489
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Appendix A
Protocol and Instrument for the Interview (original in Spanish)
Goal: Explore evidence regarding public values among public ocials in a set of organisations in
Chile and Colombia.
Subjects: Ten public ocials per organisation in dierent hierarchical levels and with dierent
lengths of seniority,
Protocol:
(1) Describe and explain the research project.
(2) Explain how we selected the organisations.
(3) Allow questions from subjects.
(4) Sign informed consent form.
Instrument for Semi-structured Interviews (original in Spanish)
Methodology:
The following questions have been designed from the review of a group of recent journal articles
that have proposed questionnaires to inquire
(1) about public values. Each question deals with dierent aspects of public values. Also, each
question is supported by prior scholarship that has qualitatively explored public values.
(2) Questionnaire:
(3) ¿What is your name?
(4) How long have you worked in this organisation?
(5) How long have you worked in the public sector?
(6) In your opinion, what are the reasons/motives of people to work in the public sector?
(7) Why do you mainly work in the public sector?
(8) Which values are intrinsic to public organisations?
(9) Are there any dierences between working in the public sector and working in the private
sector?
(10) When you started to work as a public ocial, were you informed of the organisation’s
purposes?
(11) To whom must public ocials be accountable?
(12) How would you dene a good public ocial?
(13) How do you think Colombian society appreciates the service that public ocials provide?
How?
(14) Does the social impact of your work inuence your and other people’s performance?
(15) What are the characteristics that dene the organisational culture of your service?
(16) How an increasing tendency to measure results through indicators and measure performance
has aected your organisation?
(17) How has it aected your performance?
(18) Do you think that eciency, results, and other similar indicators have replaced traditional
principles of public service?
(19) (If the answer is yes) Could you say those values that have been replaced?
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 23
Appendix B – Instrument Review
Reference Questions Objective Theory Methodology
(Rayner et al.,
2010)
Why do you work in the public
sector?
What practices are intrinsic to the
public sector?
What is more important to you?
Getting better social welfare or
achieve personal interests
Do
Do the values of your organisation match with the
social services it provides?
To develop an instrument to measure the public
sector’s ethics.
The ethics of the public sector involves a set of
values and organisational aiming achieve public
interests.
Some public values are Honesty, altruism,
accountability, and impartiality.
Short survey with principal characteristics of public
sector ethics, like responsibility, honesty,
integrity, equity, loyalty, and public interest.
(Van der Wal et
al., 2011)
How could efficiency and
effectiveness affect public
officials’ integrity and ethics?
Do you think there are values
intrinsic to public
organisations?
¿How to avoid unethical
behaviours as a result of
conflicting values?
Alternatives to solve conflicting
values in different contexts
Highlight the importance of identifying
mechanisms and laws to protect public
values.
Stakeholder approach: Public values as a
political process between different actors.
Institutional perspective: Public values are
determined by context
Literature review
(Rutgers, 2008) ¿Which are the values of your
organisation?
¿Are the values of your
organisation aligned with your
personal values?
Literature review about
classification and
organisation of public
management values
Cardinal values (Plato)
Wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice.
Civil Service System: responsibility,
accountability, effectiveness, efficiency,
flexibility, loyalty, neutrality, and
representativeness.
Bifurcation approach: Soft values and hard
values
Literature review
(Persson &
Goldkuhl,
2010)
How to strengthen bureaucratic
values?
How technologies change
political institutions?
Could technology solve
bureaucratic inefficiencies?
Analysis of strategies
of public management
Bureaucratic and New Public Management
values are complementary.
Technological innovations, efficiency values
, and performance indicators improve and
strengthen traditional bureaucratic values.
Case study: Getting a Driving licence.
The process includes technological innovations,
street bureaucrats, and service provider
organisations.
(Walker et al.,
2011)
Do private sector practices
improve public sector
performance?
Effect of market-oriented
theory on public sector
performance
market-oriented theory don’t explain public
sector performance
Case study
24 P. SANABRIA-PULIDO AND C. PLISCOFF
