Differences in perceptions of organizational values of public managers in Portugal

Abstract Empirical research in public administration have devoted little attention to the issue of values that guide management in the public sector, although much research on values has been developed both in the philosophical perspective and in the perspective of organizations and work studies. This article encircles the public values and reports the statistical analysis of perceptions about organizational values of Portuguese public managers. Contrary to the current notion about the effects of public administration reform, the results allow us to verify the existence of significant differences in perceptions about organizational values associated with the public sector compared to other organizational values, in particular, given the organizational values associated with the private sector. These results carry as implication the need to review the debate on the extent to which the Continental Europe paradigm is seen as subjugated to the common law paradigm.