The public value concept is highly popular among practitioners and researchers, yet, to further test and develop the construct it needs more diversity in empirical research. We aim to contribute to future empirical public value research by providing a new public value scale based on Meynhardt's conceptualization of public value. Conducting two empirical surveys with highly representative samples, we have developed and validated a twelve-item public value scale. Additionally, we applied the scale to empirically test what distinguishes public value from adjacent constructs, such as CSR or reputation, and to examine its explanatory power regarding important client/customer outcomes. The scale will allow future research to test extant public value hypotheses more thoroughly than before by using survey or experimental research designs. Practitioners can use the scale to gain a deeper understanding of public evaluation.

Organizational purpose has recently gained great popularity in research and practice. However, the development of this nascent research field has struggled with definitional ambiguity, the lack of a measurement instrument and little empirical testing of potential outcomes. In our paper, we first introduce and define the multidimensional construct of perceived organizational purpose, which sheds light on the individual and subjective experiences of organizational purpose. Second, building on our construct definition, we develop and validate a four‐dimensional Perceived Organizational Purpose Scale. Third, we disentangle the related yet differentiated concepts of perceived organizational purpose and meaningful work and theorize how substantial knowledge in the field of meaningful work can be transferred to the relatively new and untested field of perceived organizational purpose. Fourth, we critically elaborate and empirically test the relationship of perceived organizational purpose with employee job satisfaction, subjective wellbeing and work‐life conflict.

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