What is Public Value
The Strategic Triangle (Moore)
Moore’s (1995, 2013) strategic triangle is an analytical framework that focuses on value creation opportunities and empowers public servants as agents of society. The framework consists of three elements-the triangle in which public managers must navigate-each pointing to a particular set of observations, calculations, and judgments that managers must make to formulate a strategy for public value creation. Moore later went on to call an extended version of this scorecard the public value triangle.
The Public Value Scorecard (Meynhardt)
With the scorecard, Meynhardt provides managers with a simple-to-use tool that enables the simultaneous integration of different perspectives of value creation. The scorecard visually integrates different dimensions, following Meynhardt’s psychological approach: (1) moral-ethical, (2) hedonistic-aesthetic, (3) utilitarian-instrumental, and (4) political-social. Meynhardt introduced a fifth non-theoretical dimension, (5) economic-financial, to account for managerial needs.
- “Is it useful?” – utilitarian-instrumental values
- “Is it decent?” – ethical-moral values
- “Is it politically acceptable?” – politico-social values
- “Does it allow for positive experiences?” – hedonistic-aesthetic values
- “Is it profitable?” – economic-financial values
The fundamental questions the scorecard is asking are ‘ What makes X valuable to society? ‘. X can be a wide variety, such as a product that a company is about to launch, a soccer club, investments, or anything else. It is open to current or future initiatives and can also be viewed from different perspectives (risk assessment, opportunity assessment). In addition, the scorecard can increase the dialogue in decision-making processes between more complex and quite obstinate thinkers, forcing the former to narrow their thinking and the latter to broaden their view to five dimensions.
