Values are considered informal information and are very important to public administrators. We need to have knowledge about people and their social values, especially those that are different from our own, in order to fully understand a situation or problem. People with different values than our own are likely to have different behaviors and practices that are unfamiliar to us. We need to understand values in order to use formal information in a realistic way that will be practical and helpful for various people needing services. Formal knowledge is used to contextualize the informal information.
To make decisions that come from a ‘gut feeling’, an administrator usually needs information about the values of the people his decision will affect.
To make decisions that come from a ‘gut feeling’, an administrator usually needs information about the values of the people his decision will affect.