The Handbook of Public Sector Communication

6Public Sector Communication and Publicly Valuable Intangible Assets

María‐José Canel, Vilma Luoma‐aho, and Xabier Barandiarán

We are losing the battle at the perceptions level (informal statement from a public manager at the Inter‐American Development Bank)

Public management is embedded in the world of perceptions, and there is evidence to support the position that a gap usually exists between what public organizations are and what they do (i.e., their achievements, strengths, shortcomings, and flaws) on the one hand and what people perceive them to do on the other (Sanders & Canel, 2015). For instance, citizens' reported perceptions of their safety do not necessarily correspond to what crime rates might indicate about public security, and citizens' assessments of the success or failure of health policies do not always equate with actual mortality rates at hospitals. In the most acute cases of such gaps, public leaders become frustrated that their efforts are not acknowledged by the people whom they serve, while citizens feel that they are not being understood and well served by their leaders. Moreover, recent economic and financial crises have contributed to a decrease in trust in public institutions. Resources are scarce and citizens appear to be less satisfied than they were in the past, even if (as is often the case) the public sector that serves them has continually made efforts to improve in areas such as its service provision (Canel & Luoma‐aho, 2015; Luoma‐aho ...