Conclusions: Looking Ahead

The chapters in this book have boldly taken up the challenge of developing the concepts surrounding public value and applying them to different substantive domains, in different institutional contexts, and different political cultures. In doing so, they have tested the generality and robustness of the ideas, but also transformed them, and rendered them more practically useful. In The Savage Mind, Lévi-Strauss noted that all practical tools become enriched with use. As a tool, originally constructed for some particular use in some particular context, is used to solve a different problem in a different context, the tool itself changes. So it is with the tools associated with creating public value.