Making societal impact matter: Reconciling project and public value

Although public projects carry significant societal stakes, systematic assessments of their success—and the value they generate—remain limited. Project research has expanded beyond efficiency-based criteria, yet it often emphasizes organizational and stakeholder perspectives, while public administration scholarship focuses on collective societal value, with limited attention to projects. To reconcile project and public value, this essay draws on four schools of public value theory: Public value management, Public value failure, Public sphere domain , and Public service logic . It shows how public projects create, destroy, contest, distribute, and realize value over time, highlighting that success depends not only on project value but also on legitimacy, political authorization, and stakeholder co-creation. The essay contributes by integrating public value into project value theory, reframing performance in societal terms, and articulating an agenda bridging project studies and public administration. It offers researchers and practitioners a lens for evaluating public projects amid growing societal expectations.