By Jack Kruf.
From the many meetings with public leaders and city managers in the last five years emerged a personal (growing) conviction that the interpretations and definitions of the terms ‘public value’ and hereto related ‘public risk’ have become highly diversified.
This diversification makes a sharp and focused dialogue between institutions (business, media, non-profit, government and science) in the public domain – society and the natural environment as a whole – more difficult than necessary.
The reasons for this phenomenon are – generally spoken – fragmentation of science, segmentation of craftsmanship and growing power of stakeholder columns. Hereby, I write my plea for the use of a standard, based on the ISO 31000 and the scientific work of Mark Moore (Harvard).
Consider this article as a small contribution from my perspective to make the definition of risk less diversified and more co-branded with results.
Public Value
The term public value is not so often used in public governance discussions. In my view the definition of Moore is so adequate and precise that it deserves a more central place. After all, public governance is “the way to steer to” public values. The direction, where to govern to, is pretty important after all. A process without a goal or objective can be considered as a river without borders, is it not? Public objectives and values are in the center of the essence of public governance.
Read more in Public Risk: About Values in our Society