How compatible are the reform of New Public Management (NPM) reforms and the creation of public values in practice? This issue is addressed in the light of the reforms of two public water utilities. Building on Moore’s (1995) strategic triangle, we have analysed the process of value creation associated with measures inspired by NPM. These reforms were first intended to secure financial resources. Certain public values were subsequently created, either under the influence of a leader, or through formalized NPM management tools. Under certain conditions, the implementation of an NPM reform thus proves compatible with the introduction of processes that sustain public values. However, an undemocratic context necessarily limits these processes. Points for practitioners This article encourages public managers to think about the values they uphold when implementing a public policy and the terms and conditions of this implementation. The water sector in developing countries, reformed in line with the principles of NPM, offers two distinct illustrations. The cases of the NWSC in Uganda and of the PPWSA in Cambodia allow the question to be studied in contexts where the public service mission entails strong societal challenges that cannot be reduced to efficiency alone.

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This paper explores the effects of technical factors, competition and strategies of firms on the water price in France. From data on the procedures of delegation of water utilities, we estimate a price equation, taking into account the unobserved strategies of private operators and geographical effects. We show that the local strategy of the operator has a significant impact on the water price level and that neglecting it would lead to bias the effects of other factors.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), although widely disseminated in the industrial sector, remains underutilized in the public sector. The literature has addressed the relationship between scientific knowledge and decision-making from positivist and relativist epistemological perspectives. Both provide explanations for this weak dissemination and suggest solutions. Several of these solutions were explored through the implementation of a simplified LCA calculator in the public wastewater sector in France. This experiment highlighted the importance of two simplification principles: the first is to provide a calculator that already includes a catalogue of LCA readyfor use; the second is to guide the interpretation of LCA results by reducing, step by step, the number of impacts considered. A special effort has been made on the graphic format used to presents results. These principles can be generalized to other contexts. This work calls for the involvement of management sciences in LCA research and for co-building solutions with potential users. Highlights: • Obstacles to LCA use for public decision are identified and classified • Solutions are proposed and discussed to overcome these obstacles • One of the main obstacles concerns result interpretation • Tests conducted show how much results presentation can affect decisions based on LCA • Principles of simplification are implemented via a decision procedure and new graphs.