The article analyzes current challenges faced by schools of administration in view of value changes at societal as well as organizational levels. Despite far-reaching structural and procedural changes, the set of values, attitudes, and role understandings held by administrators may be relatively impervious to short- and medium-term changes. As a result, this likely gap between required “cultural dispositions” and dominant value patterns presents a challenge to public sector training programs. It flows from this that public sector training programs have to take values seriously. So, the design and management of training institutions and the content and teaching philosophy of their programs need to reflect those changes. Though written from a European perspective and drawing particularly on the German experience, the paper offers primarily a theoretical and conceptual discussion of the role of values, work-related attitudes, and role understandings in governance reform.
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