Introduction
In every professional field, one finds a specific set of moral values that are there to provide guidance for specialists and practitioners. Public administration is not an exception, as a robust ethical framework ensures authorities’ accountability for the community that they govern. First and foremost, ethical principles compel professionals in public administration to have the community’s interests at heart and heed their needs in making important decisions.
Thus, only by fostering such qualities as responsibility and respect is it possible to start and maintain two-way communication and receive timely feedback. As for ethics and their implementation within a public administration organization, the managing board should set an example by following ethical guidelines and not only impose such policies onto their employees. The question arises as to what issues current trends in ethics management pose and how they should be tackled. The present paper reviews three recent articles on the topic and discusses their main arguments.
Integrity at Stake
Since the 1980s, researchers have been observing an undeniable shift towards a business-like approach in public administration. The managing style has become very similar to that of a private sector: prioritizing profitability and commercialization. Some people deem such methods unacceptable for organizations that are created by the people for the people. Others, on the other hand, claim that times change and the business-like approach is not only compatible with the practice in public administration but also presents particular benefits. I am convinced that such polarization is unnecessary, and it is more than possible to find the middle ground.
One of the articles that supports my vision is a paper by Kolthoff, Huberts, and Heuvel (2007) in which seamless integration is discussed. The most convincing argument that proves that the new public management model (NPM) does not pose a direct threat to the integrity of organizations deals with corruption. However, it is apparent that even before more frequent liaisons with the private sector, corruption had been plaguing public administration. Thus, the problem of corruption will not be solved by rejecting NPM. The most important step is deciding how exactly NPM is introduced and how ethical values are fostered.
Ethics Management
To better understand how ethical issues might be addressed, one needs to overview the current tendencies of the public sector. First and foremost, it has become evident that throughout the past few decades, public administration management has turned from rules-oriented to result-oriented (Snellman, 2015). Admittedly, public institutions pursue efficiency; however, there is a risk that such an approach will mean that the result justifies the means.
At the same time, by not concentrating on the process, the authorities might overlook violations of integrity at each stage leading up to finalizing a project. Snellman (2015) examined five solutions to the ethical issues in the public sector and established their correlation to the upholding of moral values. For instance, the planning and control cycle had a positive impact on the integrity of an organization. The implementation of decentralization and performance evaluation enhanced the ethics management efficiency to a varying degree.
On the contrary, the entrepreneurial approach was found to be a negative influence on public administration. As for me, the latter finding raises some doubts about its validity. For instance, Snellman (2015) claims that hiring temporary workers compromises an organization’s integrity. However, one may also say that it may provide an organization with a positive turnover in which the management is no longer lenient towards the employees only because of their years-long commitment.
Pluralism Contingency Approach
Despite the presence of numerous ethical theories and proposed approaches, organizations are yet to be equipped with an effective tool to enhance the integrity and tackle corruption. Tremblay, Martineau, and Pauchant (2017) argue that ideally, such a tool would help balance compliance and ethics, or external and internal control. The researchers claim that the new instruments should correspond to the growing complexity of the tasks and responsibilities of the private sector and become more diversified. Thus, they argue that the duality control model that only deals with extrinsic and intrinsic assessment is obsolete and should be replaced.
What they offer in their paper fits within the concept of decentralization which was found moderately useful (Snellman, 2015). Tremblay et al. (2017) suggest that organizations do not merely make top-down decisions about ethics management practices but draw the data from the employees’ preferences. Thus, the employees are likely to be more involved and follow the guidelines since their interests were heeded.
Conclusion
One cannot and should not underestimate the importance of sound public administration for communities. In recent years, the public sector has undergone radical changes that were in line with those in the private sector. The leaning towards commercialization gave rise to concerns since for many, prioritizing profit over safeguarding communities’ interests was unacceptable. The researchers have yet to come to a consensus: some studies showed that the entrepreneurial approach harms public organizations while others oppose such claims and call for a more effective integration of business-like methods.
Lastly, if one puts the debate about rules- and goal-oriented processes in the public sector aside, another issue is to be examined which is the lack of an appropriate tool for maintaining ethical integrity. As of now, the pluralistic approach has been gaining much traction. Decentralization might be a practical solution since each employee would be able to contribute to the ethics management strategy and thus, become more engaged.
References
Kolthoff, E., Hubert, L. W. J. C., & Heuvel, H. (2007). The ethics of new public management: Is integrity at stake? Public Administration Quarterly, 30(4), 399-439.
Snellman, C. L. (2015). Ethics management: How to achieve ethical organizations and management? Business, Management and Education, 13(2), 336-357
Tremblay, M., Martineau, J. T., & Pauchant, T. C. (2017). Managing organizational ethics in the public sector: A pluralist contingency approach as an alternative to the integrity management framework. Public Integrity, 19, 219-233.