Reforms in French Public Universities. How does commitment to performance match with commitment to public values?
NPM reforms that have been led recently in the public sector in many countries strongly emphasize the notion of performance. If the effects of these reforms on the core micro-processes of organizations retained a great deal of attention, few studies examined how these changes transformed the identities of civil servants. By contrast a growing body of "Public Service Motivation" research demonstrates that individuals may have predispositions to work in public institutions or organizations. In other words, civil servants share specific " public values ". As a consequence the incorporation of a culture of performance raises questions about its effects on the identities of public servants within public organizations. It is therefore relevant to ask whether the dissemination of a culture of performance results in less commitment to public values or if they are compatible with one another. In the remainder of the paper, we will address this theoretical issue by exploring the following question: how far can civil servants committed to public values be simultaneously be committed to performance impact in public institutions?