Research On Public Managers' Public Values Preferences Structure And Influencing Factors

According to the public value management theory,public administrators are explorers who discover,judge and create public value together with other actors.The roles of public administrators include not only providing more and better services,but also managing citizens' expectations,identifying and accurately responding to citizens' values preferences.The research on public administrators' public values preferences becomes the mainstream of quantitative research on public values.This paper reviewed current literatures on public value theory,public values preferences,etc.A sample of 346 public administrators from east and west of China was used to test the reliability and validity of a public value preference of five dimensions oblique structure and scale developed.Then,how the geographical environment,the private sector exposure,the citizens exposure,and wicked problems influence public values preference of public administrators was analyzed and the results are explained theoretically and practically.The study results show that compared with the western public managers,the east public managers have a higher virtue public values preferences,institutional public values preferences,transformational public values preferences and authoritarian public values preferences.The years of working in private sector have a positive correlation with authoritarian public values preferences and the frequency of citizen exposure have a significant positive correlation with transformational public values preferences.There are different degree of positive correlations between wicked problems and virtue public values preferences,institutional public values preferences,civil public values preferences and transformational public values preferences.The study further explores the qualitative explanation of the influence mechanism of regional situation,private sector contact,citizen contact and wicked problem situation on public value preference from the interviews of 10 public managers in the eastern and western regions.The research conclusion has theoretical and practical contributions to the understanding of the forming process of public managers' public values preferences and values management and construction in the practice of public administration.