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Currently, we have a limited understanding of public value (PV) in general - how it is created, delivered, and reported on - and more specifically about the usefulness of output indicators in relation to PV. Public value accounting (PVA) can be positioned as an emergent research area that takes a special interest in strategic matters of PV creation and its relationship to output indicators in terms of performance measurements. Our purpose in this chapter is to contribute to the discussion of PVA by addressing previous research on the use of performance measurement as a management tool and its relation to long-term PV by addressing the research question: What characterises the discussion of performance measurement within PVA and what are the challenges? To answer this question, we reviewed the literature on PVA and public value management (PVM). The review suggests that there is a challenge in balancing short-term output with long-term PV, and in order to manage this challenge, PVA in relation to the tools used for performance measurements requires either completely new management accounting tools or at least a substantial revision of the existing ones. We also address the importance of including different stakeholders at different levels - individual, organisational, and societal - as well as including the study of power in terms of different stakes and interests of stakeholders in relation to PVA.

Strategic management in the public sector has become quite popular in practice and several studies have shown that it has an impact on organizational performance. However, we still know little of how strategic management unfolds in practice. Overall, our message is that there are specific challenges that appear when applying strategic management in a public sector context that need to be handled to enhance the possibility of succeeding with strategy work. We present these challenges in terms of four tensions emerging in strategy work: planned versus emergent strategies, legitimacy versus practicality, administrative management versus innovative approach, and accessibility versus security. Based on these identified tensions, we suggest four propositions that not only have implications for further research, but also practical implications.

Through a case study, this article illustrates the value creation process of how value propositions are created and developed at the Swedish Public Employment Service from the theoretical stance of public service logic and ecosystem thinking. Previous research has devoted scant attention to value propositions as promises of value, i.e., before the user creates value-in-use. This case study contributes to the literature on public administration and management, and more precisely on the growing research of PSL, by analyzing how public service organizations interact with their service users to facilitate value creation based on promises of value throughout the value process. In this paper, the value process is understood as three interlocking spheres: the provider sphere, user sphere, and joint sphere.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise our understanding of public value accounting (PVA) by studying the use and usefulness of performance measurements (PM) as a management tool. The authors do this from a perspective in which they address the complexity of various (sometimes conflicting) assessments of performance measurement and management (PMM) by different stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach: An interpretative case study using qualitative methods. The paper is based on 30 interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019 with respondents working with PMM at different levels, such as politicians, officials and health-care professionals. The study context was Region Stockholm (RS) in Sweden and its health-care division. Findings: PMs become an instrumental tool for PMM, which led to output being promoted above outcome. The authors show that there is a conceptual shortcoming in the discussion of PVA, as the effort needed to achieve outcome-based information might exceed the ability of an organisation to deliver it. The authors address the importance of studying the interaction among different stakeholders, including politicians, the public and media, in research on PVA, as well as possible power relationships among stakeholders. Originality/value: The authors contribute to the growing research on PVA and its call for more empirical research by offering a more nuanced interpretation of PVA activities. The authors do this by studying PMM and the nature of these activities in a public sector organisation from a multiple-stakeholder perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance our understanding of intra-organizationaltrust in public organizations by studying interpersonal trust in both vertical andhorizontal relationships from a bidirectional perspective. Previous research hasfocused on trust at a single level of analysis, ignoring influences from other organizationallevels, which has led to gaps in our understanding of trust. In addition, fewstudies take a bidirectional perspective where a trustor is simultaneously a trustee andvice versa. Through a case study, we contributed to filling this gap by studying theantecedents of trust – ability, benevolence and integrity.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to bridge the knowledge gap regarding our understanding of the relationship between political governance, performance measurements and performance management.

Design/methodology/approach: An interpretative longitudinal case study including qualitative methods of document studies and interviews collected between 2017 and 2019. The interviews have involved both politicians, officials, and professionals.

Findings: Our results show e.g. politicians' intention with performance management, how goal management and measurements are used as a tool and interpreted by public managers. A conclusion drawn in relation to our findings is that different political agendas and views of performance management tend to contribute to many and detailed performance measurements, the measurements are separated from operative performance management, it also contributes to a short-term perspective and a lack of a holistic view.

Originality/value: Few have with qualitative methods empirically studied the relationship between political governance, performance measurements and performance management.

PurposeThe objective of this paper is to generate further knowledge about strategic management accounting (SMA) in the public sector context. The authors attempt to do this through a study of SMA work in a public sector agency (PSA), the Swedish Transport Administration (STA). The paper elaborates on the formation of the agency's strategies and the challenges the agency's SMA work had to deal with, and focuses its analysis on the interplay between SMA and the characteristics of the public sector as well as how it is constitutive of strategy.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical material was gathered between 2013 and 2015 and consists of documents that include the STA's appropriation, mandate, strategic and operational plans, and balanced scorecard, as well as interviews with 35 civil servants at various levels of the STA.FindingsThe study finds that, depending on the performances of PSAs in their specific environment and the influences from the environment's constituents, SMA may function as an instrument that makes or breaks strategies. The characteristics of the public sector context may therefore affect SMA, and by extension, strategy, in several ways. First, the present case shows that the inherent reduction that the focus of SMA techniques entails, and their inability to deal with the complexity of a PSA's context, places them at constant risk of becoming strategically irrelevant in the eyes of knowledgeable local managers in a PSA. Second, interventions from the government may override a PSA's SMA and in effect make a PSA's strategic focus ambiguous. Third, outside monitoring performed by such actors as the National Audit Office and the mass media may influence a PSA's SMA work both directly and indirectly when the agency and the government are responsive to the agenda set by such scrutiny.Originality/valueThe paper broadens the scope of earlier SMA research in the public sector by including the specific characteristics of the public sector in the analysis and how accounting techniques may come to compete for strategic placement as they are propelled from within and from without the organization.