Values and Decision-Making: Introducing the Public Servant Values Questionnaire to Recreation Administrators

Public service values and decision-making have been major sources of discourse and scholarship in the public administration discipline broadly, but have received little attention in the field of public recreation administration specifically. This paper investigates current literature on public service values and recommends the public service values approach as a tool to help recreation professionals make sense of and justify administrative decisions. The paper also demonstrates the utility of the public service values questionnaire by investigating the role public service values play in predicting choices made in a simulated recreation decision-making scenario. A sample of 1,608 individuals were asked to decide whether or not they would close a recreation center in a value-laden context. The findings suggested that the majority of individuals would not close the recreation center, given the specified criteria, and that values such as loyalty, advocacy, and rule of law influenced their decision. The authors recommend further study of the public service values approach as well as continued discussion of the role of values in public recreation administration settings