Fostering Equity, Engagement, Ethics, and Empathy in Public Service: A Narrative Vignette Study of City Managers

Public administration scholarship increasingly recognizes the need to evolve beyond the discipline’s core values, yet a significant gap exists between proposed normative frameworks and practical implementation. While the discipline has traditionally centered on the “4Es” of economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and equity, newer scholarship such as Meyer and colleagues’ work (2022a), “Meet the new Es: Empathy, engagement, equity, and ethics in public administration” in Public Integrity, advocates for updating these values, preserving equity while introducing engagement, empathy, and ethics. However, limited empirical research examines how public administrators implement these prosocial values. In-depth, open-ended elite interviews were conducted with 22 city managers (CMs), 55% of whom discussed their internal prosocial values and how these values impact their work. From this subset, four exemplary CMs were selected to profile through narrative vignettes. The vignettes demonstrate how these leaders actively incorporate each of the “new 4Es”—equity, engagement, ethics, and empathy—in their daily work, providing concrete examples which bridge theory and practice. The findings of this study offer valuable insights into how municipal managers may effectively employ prosocial administrative values, as exemplified in the new 4Es, to co-construct—with stakeholders—a sense of resident-focused community.