Week 4 - Assignment: Analyze a Case Study of a Nonprofit Leader's Actions

Ethics_Management_for_Public_Administrators_Buildi..._----_Pg_13--701fff.pdf

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Management homework help > Week 4 - Assignment: Analyze a Case Study of a Nonprofit Leader's Actions

Ethics Management for Public Administrators

Menzel, D. C. (2006). Ethics management for public administrators : Building organizations of integrity. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from ncent-ebooks on 2021-10-07 20:14:31.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

1 Ethics Management

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” —James Madison, Federalist Papers No. 51

Men and women are not angels, nor are they devils. But it is human nature to be ambitious and self-serving. And, as Alexis de Tocqueville added in his clas- sic nineteenth-century account, Americans “enjoy explaining almost every act of their lives on the principle of self-interest properly understood.” The doc- trine of enlightened self-interest means that “every American has the sense to sacrifice some of his private interests to save the rest” (Mayer 1969, 527).

More than 200 years later, men and women of ambition continue to seek power and act out their lives, driven by self-interest properly understood. Of course, not all do so, and when self-interest consumes the public interest, much trouble is in store. Those who govern—elected, appointed, and career public officials—are constrained by a myriad of laws and regulations in- tended to ensure that the public interest is not sacrificed on the alter of self- interest. Still, it is impossible to construct enough laws and rules to check the behavior of human beings, both in and out of government. Thus, self-constraint is thought by many to be the answer to ethical governance. But what are the self-constraints? Where do they come from? How do you know they work? Answers to these questions about human behavior have occupied the atten- tion of philosophers for centuries.

Challenges to Ethical Governance

The vast majority of public servants are conscientious, dedicated, compe- tent, and ethical persons pursuing public service careers with integrity and pride. Yet, as we move into the first decade of a new millennium, the ethical challenges facing those who preside and administer over government orga- nizations are increasingly complex. Among other things, the boundary be- tween those things public and those things private has largely disappeared, leaving in its wake much uncertainty about how to do the right thing in the right way. The age of privatization is upon us and, with it, the increasing

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

4 CHAPTER 1

inability of citizens, elected officials, and organizational managers to distin- guish between public and private organizations, public and private manag- ers, and public and private ethics.

The ethical challenges of privatization are no less daunting than those ushered in by the fast-forward buttons of the Internet, the World Wide Web, electronic mail, satellite TV, and other breathtaking and powerful commu- nication technologies of the Information Age. The future is here; it is now. It is both a virtual “now” and a very real “now.” Not only must elected officials and public managers, like their private sector counterparts, understand and harness information technology (IT) within their organizations, they must be able to understand and manage the human-technical-organizational dy- namics that IT brings to the workplace. For example, organizational lead- ers cannot ignore the depersonalization of relationships in the workplace due to the arrival of e-mail. Nor can they ignore the desire of employees to carry out their duties in high-performing organizations with strong ethical cultures.

The knowledge explosion wrought by the electronic age of computers and high-speed space-age communication has truly transformed the world, giving meaning to the global village and citizen in ways unimaginable a mere decade ago. The globalization of economies, communication, educa- tion, commerce, and even warfare and peace are redefining the nation-state and presenting innumerable challenges to public officials in the United States and abroad. Public organizations, like private profit-making firms, must add value to their products and services in order to withstand the ever-increasing pressures of worldwide competition. Responsive, high-performing organi- zations are a necessity, not a luxury. Government agencies are not immune to these pressures, and political executives and career public managers know this. They also know that the forces of globalization can tempt governments to devalue the ethical overhead that is part and parcel of getting things done. Getting things done and staying competitive can be but are not necessarily compatible with high ethical standards.

Building Ethical Organizations

This chapter introduces the important but largely neglected subject of ethics management. The chapter also provides an overview of organizational per- spectives that can inform efforts to put into place effective ethics manage- ment strategies. There is no magic potion that can be applied to transform public organizations into organizations of integrity. Building an organization of integrity—workplaces where individuals treat each other with respect, take pride in their work, care about one another, promote accountability,

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 5

and place the public interest over individual and organizational self-interest— requires substantial time, resources, and commitment, which is no small chal- lenge. Yet it must be met. Most significant, public administrators are on the front line of this challenge.

Integrity is often used to describe a person who is of sound moral char- acter. When applied to an organization, integrity refers to an environ- ment characterized as wholesome and one in which respect for others transcends self-serving interests. Building an organization of integrity involves cultivating and balancing a range of competencies and virtues that improve judgment in making decisions.

Is Ethics Management Possible?

The possibility of ethics management has become a reality only in recent decades, although interest in ethics in Western culture can be traced to the Age of Antiquity. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) wrote about moral virtues such as courage, honesty, temperance, and responsibil- ity. Virtue ethics, as this approach became known, has inspired and moti- vated human beings in vastly different cultures for centuries.

Other philosophers such as the German Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) of- fer an alternative to virtue ethics. Kantian ethics focuses on duty as exempli- fied in the famous categorical imperative: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” An act is accorded moral worth if the motive is principled. Ethical humans are duty bound to do the right thing.

The Englishman John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) offers yet another view, asserting that one can know if an act is right or wrong only by its conse- quences. Thus utilitarian ethics as espoused by Mill calls for acts that result in desirable ends. The well-known maxim, “Do the greatest good for the greatest number,” continues to undergird the ethics philosophy of many. The view that moral ends justify immoral means is no more acceptable from a public ethos utilitarian perspective than is the view that moral means can be used to justify immoral ends.1

These philosophies—virtue ethics, duty-based ethics, or utilitarianism— rarely serve as pure operating philosophies in day-to-day living. As the well- known public administration ethicist Terry L. Cooper explains, “We identify, or assume, certain principles of duty that are important to us and relate those to the consequences we anticipate by following that duty. The result is that we almost never act purely on the basis of duty to principle, nor purely by calculating the consequences.”2

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

6 CHAPTER 1

Given these philosophies, a reasonable question is: “How would we characterize the prevailing ethos of American public administrators?” Do administrators subscribe to one of these views? More than one? None? While it is risky to generalize, the answer is that most public administrators draw on all but are closer to what might be called prag- matic utilitarianism. That is, they are constantly exploring decision alter- natives that generate satisfactory outcomes for their (a) elected bosses, (b) employees, and (c) citizens. A public service ethos presupposes that administrators promote the public interest over those of their em- ployees and elected bosses, but doing so is not always so straightfor- ward or clear.

These great philosophers beget an intellectual legacy and presence that remain significant in the twenty-first century. While differing, they share a common bond in identifying and holding the individual responsible for right and wrong behavior. Moral agency—the capacity to make a choice of right and wrong—then is key to understanding ethical choice and behavior. Tell- ing a lie when under physical duress, for example, is an illustration of the lack of moral agency.

Definitions of ethics and morality are provided in exhibit 1.1. While both ethics and morality are concerned with right and wrong, there is a difference. On the one hand, notice that the definition of ethics requires an act, a behav- ior. It is behavior that matters and, in the end, defines right or wrong. On the other hand, morals can exist independent of behavior. Former president Jimmy Carter’s statement during a Playboy magazine interview in the 1976 presi- dential campaign illustrates this point rather well. Candidate Carter said: “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. . . .”3 Jimmy Carter confessed to an immoral act in his mind.

Exhibit 1.1 Definitions of Ethics and Morality

Ethics are values and principles that guide right and wrong behavior. The Golden Rule is an example of an ethical principle that guides be- havior. Morals are core beliefs about life, humanity, and nature. Beliefs about going to war, executing criminals (capital punishment), abor- tion, adultery, and gay life styles are often viewed as moral issues.

Source: author.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 7

An Ethical Blind Spot

The intellectual legacy of the great philosophers has spawned a blind spot in our understanding of ethical behavior. What has been largely overlooked is the context in which ethical decisions are made. This blind spot became ever more evident in the twentieth century as the work and play of humans in all walks of life became wholly enmeshed in complex organizations. Social sci- entists began to study and write about life and morality in the shadow of organization, as Robert B. Denhardt (1981) puts it. Individual morality be- came dominated by the prevailing ethos of the organization. What is right for the organization is right for the individual. The organizational imperative— do whatever is in the best interests of the organization—requires employees to be obedient to the decisions of superiors, to be technically rational, to be good stewards of other people’s property, and to be pragmatic, contend Wil- liam G. Scott and D. K. Hart (1979, 1989). Above all, “managers must be amoral in order to obtain the most benefits for their organizations” (34).

Empirical studies also began to focus on the organizational context of (un)ethical decision making.4 For example, studies of whistle blowers have flourished.5 One study by Lovell (2003, 201) paints a picture of organiza- tional life in which “the fear of impairing one’s future career prospects was a significant factor shaping the muteness of many of the managers about their respective ethical dilemmas.” Lovell’s research points to the suppressing in- fluence that organizational imperatives can have on moral agency. Suppressed whistle blowing, Lovell contends, is an enduring and troubling phenomenon in modern organizations.

Rosemary O’Leary (2006) adds to this literature with a set of provocative cases about career administrators in state and federal agencies who found ways to engage in what she calls the “ethics of dissent.” These seasoned public officials found themselves at odds with their political superiors over significant public policy issues. Rather than resign, all worked behind the scenes to correct what they perceived as public programs that did not ad- vance the public interest. Most were successful at this form of guerrilla war- fare, as she describes it.

Case studies of ethics stress and decision distress also began to appear.6

Frederickson and Newman (2001), for example, explored the decision by a high-ranking manager in the U.S. Forest Service to resign her position. She “exited with voice” and, according to the investigators, is a moral exemplar. The episode had to do with Gloria Flora’s judgment that, as the supervisor of a national forest in Nevada, she could no longer carry out her stewardship duties in the face of powerful economic and political pressures to exploit protected federal lands from mining, timber production, and livestock graz-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

8 CHAPTER 1

ing. Gloria Flora’s more than twenty years of service with the U.S. Forest Service was terminated with less than three years from vestment in the Civil Service retirement system. She paid a high price, emotionally and finan- cially, for her moral courage. Frederickson and Newman then ask, why would she do this? The answer—because she could not compromise her strong be- lief to do the “right” thing. “She was motivated to act as she did out of a sense of responsibility” (360).

It is often contended that ethics cannot be taught or “managed” in the age of high-tech, performance-driven organizations. Many studies now exist, however, that cast considerable light on what we know and do not know about ethical behavior in complex organizations. There is, of course, still much to know. Nonetheless, a sufficient body of knowledge can be drawn on to build organizations of integrity.

Managers as Ethical Leaders

Before we explore this body of knowledge, however, a question needs to be asked—must managers of public organizations be ethical leaders to have good government? Perhaps, although it might be argued that if good govern- ment can be achieved with morally mute managers—managers who do not feel a responsibility to promote ethics or morality in government—then it may be possible to have government that gets the job done efficiently, effec- tively, and economically. A chilling possibility? Yes. But now consider the question rephrased: If public managers were unethical, would we have good government? Probably not—perhaps definitely not. Conventional wisdom suggests that good government—government that gets the right things done right—cannot be achieved by men and women who lack ethical or moral values or fail to govern or manage on the basis of those values.

Ethics in Government

Government is not in the business of producing ethics, as Dennis F. Thomp- son reminds us (1985). It is in the business of producing public goods and services such as justice, transportation, air and water quality, consumer and occupational safety, national security, and protection from the misfortunes of age, poverty, or race, to name a few. Thus managers and elected office- holders are charged with providing those collective goods and services deemed desirable but often not provided by private-sector firms.

But why then do so many people, managers included, believe that ethical government is so important? The answer is disarmingly straightforward: Without ethical government, the effective production of public goods and

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 9

services is not likely. Or, as is so commonly illustrated in the experiences of undemocratic and developing countries, the costs and consequences are so great that whatever goods and services are produced are often not affordable to a vast majority of the population. Moreover, ethical governance is vital to effective and democratic government. “Ethics may be only instrumental, it may be only a means to an end, but it is a necessary means to an end” [italics added by author] (Thompson 1992, 255). In other words, well-meaning pub- lic managers and policy makers cannot presume that public policies and or- ganizations are achievable in an ethical vacuum. Indeed, such a vacuum is likely to swallow up even the most well-conceived policies, plans, and day- to-day operations of government.

This apparently undeniable law linking ethics, public management, and government has not always been so noteworthy in the United States. Indeed, as Americans fast-forward into the twenty-first century, there is reason to wonder whether such an iron law really exists. Do public managers and elected officeholders understand the vital link between ethics and good government? Does anyone care if they do? Or, have we entered an era of “anything goes” governance so long as somebody else will pay for it?

U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker (2005) paints an ethically troublesome picture of the U.S. government’s “don’t pay as you go” mind- set that prevailed in Washington in 2005, and that has enormous implications for future generations. He asserts that the government’s liabilities and net obligations as of September 30, 2004, was $43 trillion and rising rapidly, a number that translates into a $150,000 burden for every American and twice this amount for every full-time worker. By 2040 “the federal government could be reduced to doing little more than paying interest on the national debt” if the nation’s fiscal policy remains on autopilot (347). This is not an ethical future that anyone wants. “We have a stewardship responsibility to future generations,” says Walker. “At the end of the day, we should be able to look our children and grandchildren in the eye and say we did everything we could to pass on an America that is better off and better positioned for the future than when we found it” (351).

Governing Ethically

But can we talk about governing ethically or managing ethics in the same breath or manner in which we do about managing budgets, policies, or people? The answer is a resounding yes! Indeed, the single act of developing and adopting a code of ethics, as James S. Bowman (1981) documented more than twenty years ago, is managing ethics in the workplace. Thus, ethics man- agement is not a new enterprise; it is an old enterprise. What is new is how we

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

10 CHAPTER 1

think about it. If we think about it as a systematic and consistent effort to promote ethical organizations, as Article IV of the American Society for Pub- lic Administration (ASPA) Code of Ethics declares, then there is such a thing as ethics management. Ethics management, however, does not mean “con- trol.” It is not the act of controlling co-workers’ behaviors or thinking about ethics in the workplace. Rather, it is the cumulative actions taken by manag- ers to engender an ethical sensitivity and consciousness that permeates all aspects of getting things done in a public-service agency. It is, in short, the promotion and maintenance of a strong ethics culture in the workplace.

Ethics Management Is Important

Why is ethics management important? This important question has rarely been asked in the past.7 Why? Because government reformers and scholars focused heavily, if not exclusively, on the core values of efficiency, economy, and effectiveness.8 Moreover, it was assumed that administrators would be men and women of strong moral character and integrity. Listen to nineteenth- century civil service reformers such as Woodrow Wilson. In his famous es- say of 1887, he said that we must clear “the moral atmosphere of official life by establishing the sanctity of public office as a public trust . . . [thereby] opening the way for making it businesslike” (20). “The ideal for us,” he argued, “is a civil service cultured and self-sufficient enough to act with sense and vigor . . .” (24). Thus there was little reason to be concerned about the need to add a fourth “e”—ethics—to the holy trilogy of efficiency, economy, and effectiveness. But times change and ethics has become aca- demic talk and office shoptalk. Indeed, it is increasingly common to find public administration graduate programs offering ethics courses and public organizations providing in-house ethics training.

The effort to curb wrongdoing in government is driven by several factors. First, incidents of wrongdoing in the United States and abroad have drawn increasing public and media attention. Corrupt acts at the highest levels of government in local, state, national, and international arenas have not van- ished from the earth. Indeed, a persuasive argument can be made that corrup- tion has held steady in developed countries and is rampant in many developing countries. No community or nation is immune. Thus the “why” of ethics management can be tied to stamping out wrongdoing.

Second, at the same time, there is a compelling argument that private- and public-sector managers have come to the recognition that productive, high- performing organizations are value driven. And, most important, they place ethical values high on their list. Insofar as such a link exists between ethics and organizational performance, prudent managers and scholars have fo-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 11

cused on understanding the dynamics of the ethical workplace. They have also explored how professional associations armed with ethics codes can help them cultivate an ethical culture.

The Ethics-Performance Linkage

Efforts to probe the ethics-performance linkage in public administration be- gan in the early 1990s. Burke and Black (1990), for example, conducted an exploratory study of organizational ethics and productivity by surveying sixty- nine executives and managers, approximately one-third of whom were from the public and nonprofit sectors. Their findings did not demonstrate a con- clusive empirical link between ethics and performance but did motivate Burke and Black to recommend that agencies create “a leadership group focused on identifying ethical concerns and productivity measures” (132). Bruce (1994) also used survey research to study the ethics of municipal clerks. Municipal clerks, she found, are a highly ethical group who feel that city employees are basically ethical and highly productive. She contended that managers and supervisors have a “substantial influence on employee ethics and, by extension, on organizational performance” (251).

Menzel (1992, 1993, 1995) has also probed the ethics-performance link. He surveyed different populations—city and county managers in Florida and Texas and city and county employees in two Florida local governments. One study (1993) included the question: “Do ethical climates of public organizations reinforce or detract from organizational values such as effi- ciency, effectiveness, excellence, quality, and teamwork?” He hypothesized that as the ethical climate of an organization becomes stronger, organiza- tional performance values such as efficiency, effectiveness, excellence, quality, and teamwork will be strongly supported. The findings led him to accept the hypothesis that an organization’s ethical climate has a positive influence on its performance.

Similar results are reported by Berman and West (1997) in their study of the adoption of ethics management strategies. City managers reported that “commitment to workforce effectiveness and the adoption of pay-for-perfor- mance policies are associated strongly with ethics management practices.” And, “efforts to decrease absenteeism and to adopt a customer-orientation also are significantly associated with ethics management” (26).

Ethics-induced Stress

Other research (Menzel 1996a) has focused on the organizational conse- quences of ethics-induced stress in the public workplace. Menzel defined

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

12 CHAPTER 1

ethics-induced stress as a form of cognitive dissonance between an employee’s personal ethics and the ethical climate found in the employee’s workplace. He asked: Does ethics-induced stress lower employee productivity? Does it result in less job satisfaction? Greater conflict? More employee turnover? Drawing on surveys of city and county managers in Florida and Texas, he found strong statistical associations between managers’ high levels of ethics- induced stress and impaired organizational performance. Specifically, as the level of ethics-induced stress increases, job satisfaction decreases, organiza- tional conflict increases, and employee turnover is greater.

Ethics Management in Practice

Public administration practitioners live with ethical and unethical realities day-in and day-out. This places them in the unique position of being able to practice ethics management and, on occasion, to experience the consequences of ethics management. But do they practice ethics management? And, if they do, how do they do it? Gary B. Brumback (1998) offers this advice. There are four key components of ethics management: hiring, performance, train- ing, and auditing. Hire the “right” people, he admonishes. But who knows how to hire the right people? Should some kind of ethics screening be con- ducted? Yes, Brumback asserts. Hiring authorities should

1. Review background investigation policies and procedures to deter- mine if they are ethical, can be improved, and are used for the right (seductive) jobs.

2. Build the agency’s reputation for integrity . . . and then stress that reputation to recruits.

3. Not use surreptitious screening and explain the policy to recruits. 4. Ask new hires to pledge a commitment to ethics in government in

the oath of office. (66)

Once hired, Brumback contends that “factoring ethics into the process of managing performance is the best way to ensure that work objectives are achieved in an ethical manner, and that other on-the-job behaviors are ethi- cal” (66). Performance evaluations can and should include an ethics dimen- sion. Assertions that “ethics is not performance” or “ethics is too subjective to be measured” are bogus arguments, he believes.

Ethics management should also emphasize training programs. Employees throughout a public organization are vulnerable to ethics lapses. Thus, a con- tinuous, ongoing ethics training program amplifies the message that ethics matters. “Above all,” Brumback (68) asserts, “tell people what the precondi-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 13

tions of unethical behavior are, what the bottom line of ethics is, and what the agency and each individual can do to make ethics a work habit.”

Another component in managing ethics in public organizations is an au- dit. An audit, whether based on a survey of employees or an assessment of occupational vulnerability, should be conducted periodically. Stephen Bonczek (1998), a city manager with hands-on experience in Michigan, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania, strongly supports the use of an audit to let employees know the positive as well as the negative effects of their efforts. He also believes that managers should “review with their employees all deci- sions on ethical issues, asking, What did we do right? What did we not do that we should have done? What should we do in future, similar situations?” (78). He encourages managers to use weekly staff meetings “to review all discussions and decisions for ethical implications” (78). Bonczek fully be- lieves that a strong ethical climate has a positive influence on organizational performance and productivity.

Proactive Ethical Risk Taking

The advice offered by these managers is directed at the “how” of ethics man- agement. Others suggest more. Donald G. Zauderer (1994) adds that integ- rity includes taking risks to oppose unjust acts (don’t just go along); communicate truthfully (do not intentionally deceive others); deal fairly (do not provide others with special advantages or disadvantages because of their affiliations or positions); honor agreements (keep your commitments); ac- cept personal responsibility when things go right or wrong; forgive individu- als for mistakes or wrongdoing (don’t hold grudges or strive to get even); exhibit humility (avoid unbridled ambition and emphasis of rank and status differences); respect the dignity of individuals by giving earned recognition (don’t treat employees as simply vehicles for getting the work done); and celebrate the ability and good fortune of others (suppress envy).

The Council for Excellence in Government (1992–1993) urges every in- dividual in government to recognize that public service is a public trust and that he or she must accept two paramount obligations: (1) to serve the public interest, and (2) to perform with integrity. Furthermore, top leaders in public organizations must advocate and exemplify these core values and obliga- tions. Subordinates’ performances, the council asserts, should be evaluated in light of these standards. Leaders should also make every effort to ensure that their organization recruits workers with strong ethical values.

Chris Wye (1994) shares the council’s view of the role that top leaders should assume in promoting ethical organizations. “At every level in the or- ganization, but especially at the top,” Wye (45) contends, “effective leader-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

14 CHAPTER 1

ship is an essential ingredient for maintaining the highest standards of ethi- cal conduct in an organization.” Nonetheless, Wye worries that the present course of action in the United States has been to focus on the “moral mini- mum,” not the “moral maximum.” Through the use of and reliance on laws and regulations, certain types of unacceptable behavior have been proscribed that become the default for defining the moral minimum for acceptable be- havior. “Shouldn’t we,” he asks, “spend at least some time encouraging good behavior?”

Managers Speak Out

James S. Bowman’s (1977, 1990, 1997 [with Williams]) surveys of public administration practitioners are also suggestive for understanding what eth- ics management is and how prevalent it is. When he asked managers in 1989 if their agencies had a consistent approach toward dealing with ethical con- cerns, nearly two-thirds said their organizations did not have a consistent approach. When he asked the same question in 1996, he found that a smaller (58 percent) yet large percentage of respondents replied in the same fashion: “My agency does not have a consistent approach toward dealing with ethical concerns.” Do these responses suggest that there is little ethics management in the public sector? Possibly—but not necessarily. Consider the findings reported by Berman, West, and Cava (1994) and Berman and West (1997).

In 1992 Berman and colleagues surveyed more than 1,000 directors of human resource agencies in municipalities with a population over 25,000 in order to find out what ethics management strategies are employed, how they are implemented, and how effective they are. Their results confirmed Bowman’s findings about the lack of a consistent approach—if consistent means “formal.” A minority of cities surveyed reported using formal ethics management strategies while a majority claimed that their cities relied pri- marily on leadership-based strategies—an informal strategy. They found four categories of ethics management—two they labeled as formal, one informal, and one a combination of formal-informal.

Formal ethics management strategies involve mandatory employee train- ing, use of ethics as a criterion in the reward structure, and adoption of organizational rules that promote the ethical climate, such as requiring financial disclosure and approval of outside activities.

Informal ethics management strategies involve reliance on role models and positive reinforcement and are behaviorally based (Berman, West, and Cava, 1994, 189).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 15

Code-based and regulatory-based strategies are the two formal strategies used by a large number of cities. Adopting a code of ethics or establishing guidelines for standards of conduct is part of a code-based strategy. Advo- cates of codes typically presume that codes contribute to a healthy organiza- tion and thus a higher-performing organization. Bowman’s surveys (1990, 1997 [with Williams]) of practitioner members of the American Society for Public Administration show that the members strongly embrace codes and believe that they have a positive influence on organizational life. Bruce’s research (1994) also adds to the believed real-world impact of codes. Her study of members of the International Institute of Municipal Clerks found that clerks “rank a code of conduct as the most powerful way a city can prevent corruption” (29). Using ethics as a criterion in hiring and promotion or requiring approval of outside employment constitutes part of a regulatory- based strategy. Leadership-based strategies, such as demonstrating exem- plary moral leadership by senior management, constitute an informal ethics management strategy. Employee-based strategies that incorporate ethics train- ing, protect whistle blowers for valid disclosures, or solicit employees’ opin- ions about ethics constitute a mixed strategy.

Does reliance on an informal strategy, which most cities claim to do, re- sult in ineffective ethics management? Not necessarily. Berman, West, and Cava’s research indicates that moral leadership strategies are more effective than regulatory- or code-based strategies in enabling cities to achieve ethics management objectives such as avoiding conflicts of interest, reducing the need for whistle blowers, and fostering fairness in job assignments.

Responses to Ethics Failures9

Ethics lapses and failures occur; they are part and parcel of contemporary life. When they happen, what else might be done? At the macro level, codifi- cation of acceptable behavior in the form of state law or local ordinance is common practice. Many states and cities, for instance, have opted for ethics laws and regulatory bodies or boards. Megacities like Los Angeles and Chi- cago, for example, have established ethics commissions to investigate real and alleged cases of wrongdoing. The United States government has also taken action, having established the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) with the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Now, more than twenty years later, nearly 15,000 full- and part-time ethics officials can be found in the federal executive branch (Gilman and Lewis 1996, 521).

These efforts have not gone unnoticed. Several investigators have attempted to assess what difference ethics laws and commissions make in states and communities. Williams (1996), for example, studied the Florida Commis-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

16 CHAPTER 1

sion on Ethics to assess the agency’s effectiveness in training officials, con- ducting ethics audits, investigating complaints, and encouraging an ethical climate. Based on unstructured interviews with commissioners and archival records of the agency, he concluded that the Florida Commission on Ethics was largely ineffective in all four areas. “Unfortunately,” Williams (71) says, “the commission apparently serves more effectively as a punitive agent than as an agent of constructive change.”

Menzel (1996b) also studied the Florida Commission on Ethics but from a different vantage point—the view from the street. He surveyed persons who had filed ethics complaints (legally referred to as complainants) and public officials (legally referred to as respondents) who were the objects of complaints. He asked three questions:

1. What is the relationship between how an ethics complaint is handled and citizen trust or distrust in government?

2. Do persons who file ethics complaints have a positive or negative experience? Are those experiences satisfactory and therefore build trust and confidence in government? Or are those experiences un- satisfactory and therefore contribute to the erosion of public trust and confidence in government?

3. What are the outcomes of the ethics complaint making?

The study involved mail surveys of 303 complainants (144 responded) and 555 respondents (161 responded) in the time period of 1989–92. He found that complainants were much more likely to say they were dissatisfied with the outcome of the complaint they filed than were respondents who were the object of the complaint.

Furthermore, neither complainants nor respondents differentiate process outcomes from substantive outcomes. How you are treated and how things turn out, regardless of whether you are the person filing a complaint or the person who is the object of the complaint, seem to go hand in hand. Finally, he concluded that “the ethics complaint-making process in Florida may be widening rather than closing the trust deficit.”

Trust Building10

Closing the trust deficit between the public and government agencies is a legitimate and needed activity and one that ethics managers should embrace.11

But how to reduce the trust deficit is no small challenge. However, research by Berman (1996) is suggestive. He sought to find out how much trust there is among local government officials and community leaders, what municipal

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 17

strategies are employed to increase trust levels, and how socioeconomic con- ditions may influence perceptions of trust in local government. He surveyed city managers and CAOs (Chief Administrative Officers) in all 502 cities with a population of more than 50,000 to obtain their perceptions of trust levels. He found that “community leaders have only moderate levels of trust in local government” but that cities with a council-manager form of govern- ment experience a significantly higher level of trust than do cities with the mayor-council form of government (33).

Berman identified three principal trust-building strategies—communica- tion, consultation and collaboration, and minimization of wrongdoing. Com- munication strategies emphasize providing information about the cities’ programs and performance. Consultation/collaboration strategies involve engaging community leaders via partnerships, meetings, panels, and so forth. The minimization of wrongdoing strategies emphasizes the adoption of eth- ics codes, the provision of ethics training, and so forth. Strategies vary from community to community, and no single one appears to be more effective than the other. However, there is some evidence that “using a range of strat- egies by local officials increases trust, even though the impact of individual strategies is modest” (34). Socioeconomic conditions, Berman concludes, influence trust levels. Positive conditions in a community such as high eco- nomic growth and cooperation among local groups inspire trust in govern- ment. “Negative community conditions, such as economic stagnation, low income levels, racial strife and high levels of crime reduce economic and political resources . . . for dealing with community problems,” contributing to a distrust of government (34).

A well-functioning democracy cannot survive without citizen trust and confidence in those who govern. Thus, behaviors or acts by officials that diminish citizen trust and confidence are a direct threat to democratic gover- nance. While trust is a renewable resource, “it is much easier to destroy than to renew” (Bellah et al. 1991, p. 4). Many factors can destroy trust in govern- mental institutions. However, none may destroy trust easier or faster than unethical behavior or blatant corruption by public officials.

Democracy requires a degree of trust that we often take for granted . . . [but] it is much harder to build trust than to lose it. But that is our prob- lem in the United States: we have begun to lose trust in our institutions . . . the heritage of trust that has been the basis of our stable democracy is eroding (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton 1992, 3).

Several trust-building strategies are pursued by the Miami-Dade Commis- sion on Ethics & Public Trust. For example, the Commission sponsors a Model

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

18 CHAPTER 1

Student Ethics Commission Program that “is designed to teach and to engage students in the policies and issues concerning ethics, good governance and accountability in the administration of government. Students review case studies regarding ethical dilemmas, identify solutions to various ethical issues within the local to international arenas and participate in mock public hearings to discuss/debate public policy issues.12 A second strategy is an ethics education and training program for companies doing business with local government. Free monthly ethics workshops are conducted in the business workplace. The objective is to increase the “company’s understanding about best business practices and the ethics rules as they relate to contracting with local govern- ment.”13 A third strategy is directed at candidates for municipal office and covers topics such as reporting and filing requirements, the role of the cam- paign treasurer, and the Ethical Campaign Practices Ordinance.

Organizational Perspectives on Ethics Management

Theories of organization and governance provide different perspectives on the development of effective ethics management strategies. Traditional bu- reaucratic theory, for example, that stresses hierarchy, rules and regulations, standard operating procedures, and work classification fits comfortably with a compliance-oriented ethics management strategy.14 Know the rules of ac- ceptable/unacceptable behavior and stay out of trouble, this perspective de- mands. The bad news is that much of what passes for ethics management in government is exactly this—compliance oriented. But, as it is argued through- out the book, this approach is inadequate because it minimizes moral agency.

Transaction-cost theory, which emphasizes decision making under condi- tions of asymmetrical information exchanges, offers another perspective. Gerald Garvey (1993, 25) describes transaction-cost theory as an effort to reduce “es- pecially the costs of gathering and processing information, as the driving fac- tor in rational human beings’ never-ending quest for efficiency.” Organizational life is viewed as a series of exchanges within and outside the organization. The principal goal is to minimize transaction costs, that is, strive for greater effi- ciencies and therefore lower the cost of getting work accomplished. Thus, any- thing, including (1) information that is inadequate or uneven (some have much more information than others) or (2) corruption or unethical behavior, that raises the cost of work in the organization is undesirable. This view would treat unethical behavior as a cost factor that should be reduced, minimized, or elimi- nated altogether. Consequently, management must embrace measures that ac- complish this goal. Such measures might include “one-shot” ethics inoculations, that is, requiring members of the organization to attend an ethics seminar from time to time, or more long-term investments in training.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 19

One limitation of transaction-cost theory is that it can be very reactive, not proactive. Another limitation is that it may put too much emphasis on an instrumental view of ethics. Thus organizational attention to eth- ics practices and behaviors are seen as a means to an organizational end—productivity.

Transaction-cost theory, however, draws attention to moral hazards in the workplace. Every occupation contains opportunities that can be corruptible. Police, for example, are always vulnerable to favors and bribes. Planners in public organizations are vulnerable to the influence of developers, including the prospects of post-public employment. Pentagon procurement officers are vulnerable to defense contractors’ offers of travel, vacations, and employment.

Organizations can also be viewed as learning systems that have the capa- bility to adapt to changes in the environment. One popular theory is advanced by Peter Senge in his best-selling book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990). A learning organization, Senge advises, is one “ . . . where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together” (3). The learning organiza- tion engages members who work as teams to accomplish organizational ob- jectives and, most important, to learn from one another. This system’s view and thinking puts the accent on the whole of the organization, not just the parts. Thus, it offers a long-term view of the organization’s well-being that is contrary to the more common emphasis on short-term performance.

A learning theory approach is attractive from an ethics management per- spective for several reasons. First, specific steps taken to promote ethical behavior are not treated as one-shot efforts. For example, ethics training, although directed at specific members of the organization, is presumed ben- eficial because those who have received the training will influence others. Stated differently, the learning process extends beyond the individuals who are trained. Second, the long-term emphasis of a learning organization would buffer attempts to cut back on, say, ethics training when organizational re- sources are threatened. Training activities are commonly reduced when or- ganizational budgets are challenged. Despite these positive features of the learning organization, fashioning an effective ethics management strategy is quite challenging. As Mark K. Smith (2001) points out, “while he [Senge] introduces all sorts of broader appreciations and attends to values—his theory is not fully set in a political or moral framework . . . his approach largely operates at the level of organizational interests.”

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

20 CHAPTER 1

Recent trends in governance by networks provide yet another perspective that can be taken toward building organizations of integrity. Stephen Gold- smith and William D. Eggers (2004, 7) point out that “in the twentieth cen- tury, hierarchical government bureaucracy was the predominant organizational model used to deliver public services and fulfill public policy goals . . . but its influence is steadily waning.” Rather, governments are relying ever more frequently on networks to deliver public goods and services. The growth of third-party government “is transforming the public sector from a service pro- vider to a service facilitator” (10). Outsourcing, contracting, privatization, and the commercialization of public-private partnerships are, as they put it, “the new shape of government.” Networked government promises greater speed, flexibility, and responsiveness in meeting the needs and demands of the public. The implications for ethical governance and the development of effective ethics management strategies are difficult to predict with confidence. However, the blurring of public-private-non-governmental boundaries, as the networked model posits, calls for the development of creative ethics man- agement strategies.

Organizational Cultures

Another significant organizational perspective derives from research on or- ganizational cultures. This perspective has a long and respectable heritage dating to Chester Barnard’s (1938) famous observations about informal organizations—that is, what happens in organizations is impersonal and not reflected by the organizational chart. In the same era, Mary Parker Follet (1924) wrote at length about the importance of group relationships in organi- zations, noting that authority in organizations derives from relationships among members of the organization.

Interest in culture as a conceptual lens for viewing organizational behavior languished for decades after Barnard and Follet drew attention to it. In the early 1980s, however, with the publication of popular books such as In Search of Excellence (1982) by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman and Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge (1981) by Wil- liam G. Ouchi, there was a renewal of interest in culture as a determining influence in organizations. Values, these scholars argue, must be understood, cultivated, and drawn on to build high-performing organizations.15

Viewing organizational life though the values embedded in the culture has much to offer in building organizations of integrity. The ethical culture of the organization then becomes an important subset of values that consti- tute the overall organizational culture. Managers who have a good grasp of the organization’s culture understand the importance of ethical values and

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 21

practices in contributing to the effectiveness of the organization and are likely to devote time and energy to building and sustaining an organization of in- tegrity. A culture perspective, therefore, is among the more promising or- ganizational perspectives to consider when devising a successful ethics management strategy.

Building an Ethical Culture16

But how can managers build ethics and integrity into the organizational cul- ture of their agencies? The quick answer is not easily! Creating and sustain- ing an ethical workplace takes many hands and much time. It is not that public organizations are staffed with unethical workers but that over the years many fall prey to a series of false assumptions about the role and place of ethics in agencies. So, the administrator who wants to build ethics into the organizational culture must first dismiss the following false assumptions.

Ethical Values Are Personal and Are Not Expressed within the Organization

Part of the mythology of working in the public sector is that employees should not act on their values and beliefs because to do so would undermine their ability to be fair and impartial. In other words, it is okay to have personal values and ethics but do not bring them to the workplace! This approach will breed ethical complacency and eventually contribute to ethical lapses within an organization.

Ethical People Always Act Ethically Regardless of What Goes on in the Organization

To assume that ethical people will not experience ethical lapses is a false as- sumption. Recruiting ethical people is certainly an important first step, but it is not sufficient to ensure that ethical government will result. Employees with sound ethical intentions still need support or reinforcement in the workplace.

Ethics Discussions in Public Organizations Contribute Little, if Anything, to Productivity, Morale, or Problem Solving

This is another false assumption. Many managers may believe that it is nice to talk about ethics in the workplace but that such talk matters little when it comes to getting the job done. Indeed, time devoted to ethics discussions or formal training might be viewed as a major distraction from time that could

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

22 CHAPTER 1

be devoted to providing services in a more cost-effective fashion. Growing empirical evidence shows a significant correlation between the presence of a strong ethical climate and the emphasis the organization places on values such as efficiency, effectiveness, quality, excellence, and teamwork.

It is important for managers to develop strategies that encourage dialogue on issues with ethical implications and to provide an approach to establishing an ethical workplace. The creation of a shared value system based on principles requires meaningful and serous dialogue through an inclusive, not an exclu- sive, process. The involvement of employees in training and development semi- nars that allow for questions and confrontations will give individuals the confidence needed to take action, resolve problems, and raise productivity.

Ethics Cannot Be Learned, Taught, or Even Discussed in any Meaningful Way

There is a widespread belief that ethics are acquired as a youngster, and therefore, any effort to teach or learn about ethics as an adult is fruitless. A corollary is that one can learn ethics only through the crucible of personal experiences. These views reduce ethics to whatever values and life experi- ences workers bring to the workplace and are hardly reassuring to managers who wish to build ethics into their organizational culture.

Neither ethical persons nor workplaces are entirely products of past expe- riences, whether personal or organizational in nature. This “naturalist” view of how an ethical sense is acquired or transmitted must be rejected. Rather, ethical behavior must be viewed as learned behavior that can be relearned and modified, if needed.

Ethical behavior is learned behavior, and managers can build organiza- tional processes and strategies that contribute to this learning effort. Initiatives such as placing ethics stories in newsletters and training, for example, might not transform unethical employees into good organiza- tional citizens, but they can facilitate decisions that reflect organiza- tional values and purpose. When training is successful, employees become aware of choices and have the knowledge and resources to choose and carry out the right choices.

Creating and Distributing a Written Ethics Policy Eliminates any Further Responsibility of the Organization or its Leaders

False! While it is important to have guidelines and to provide these to em- ployees, this action alone will fall short of guiding behavior and can do little

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 23

to change it, when such change is needed. Building ethics into the organiza- tional culture is not a one-shot event. It is a continuous happening that finds expression in many ways. A written statement of principles is an important beginning point and no organization should be without one. Equally valu- able, however, are the moral cues sent out by the top management. Managers who do not “walk the ethical talk” will soon experience a credibility gap that employees will see as hypocrisy—“do as I say, not as I do.”

Appearing to Do Wrong and Actually Doing Wrong Are Different Matters

Factually true but “so what?” when it comes to building ethics into the orga- nizational culture. The belief that a person’s ethics should be judged not by appearance but by facts does not reflect the power of perception. Appearing to do wrong when we actually have done nothing wrong may have the same negative impact as doing wrong. The appearance of impropriety erodes em- ployee and public trust in public agencies and weakens the principles of accountability. It may, for example, be legal for a manager to invest in a business that does business with her agency, but she will have difficulty con- vincing a skeptical public and workforce that she is not using her position for personal gain. The appearance of impropriety is inescapable, regardless of the reality. Appearances matter!

Practical Wisdom

Beyond dismissing these false assumptions, administrators should rely on both formal and informal ethics management strategies to strengthen their agencies’ ethical environment. Managers do not need to run through a daily checklist to achieve an ethical workplace. No algorithm or methodically cor- rect manner will cultivate an ethical organizational culture. Still, the litera- ture reviewed here suggests that managers should take a systemic and comprehensive approach. Evidence collected to date, although limited, points to the need to incorporate a wide range of ethical practices into the total fabric of an agency. Doing so is likely to have a lasting imprint on ethical life in the organization. Moreover, managers are likely to enjoy the benefits of a sustained ethical workplace by encouraging employees to participate in pro- fessional associations, finding creative ways for ethical behavior to be re- warded, establishing an ethics conscience within their organizations, adopting a code of ethics or statement of principles, providing for ethics training or dialogue, and “walking the talk.”

Organizations of integrity are places where human beings carry out their

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

24 CHAPTER 1

daily duties with pride and respect for others. This view is especially em- braced by practitioners whose viewpoints were examined in this chapter. Character, integrity, accountability, moral competency, and exemplary be- havior are words that one finds threaded throughout the practitioner litera- ture. These core values are exemplified in practice by the U.S. General Accountability Office. If you come to Washington, Comptroller General David M. Walker says, you can see three core values over the entrance to GAO’s headquarters—accountability, integrity, and reliability.

Ethical governance is not an oxymoron. Ethical workplaces can be found in many federal agencies, states, cities, counties, and special districts. Yet, no one size fits all. But how do government leaders and professional managers know which size to pick? Perhaps the advice that President John F. Kennedy offered is a helpful starting point: the ultimate answer to ethical problems in government is honest people in a good ethical environment. Honest people can certainly contribute to an ethical workplace but more is needed—a strong ethical environment. The components of a good environment include exem- plary ethical leadership, a community that cares about its least advantaged citizens, and a management profession that values integrity and demands high standards of performance.

But how does one create a strong ethical environment? Certainly not from the manager’s book shelf, as helpful as that might be. Rather, it is built and maintained the same way a new home is built—stick by stick, nail by nail, day by day. Ethical organizations require the same kind of care, competence, and attentiveness to build and maintain. There is no magic elixir to ingest or wand to be waved that produces ethical governance. And without a strong infusion of ethical leadership and management in organizations, it is not likely that we will find good government. Federal, state, and local government of- ficials and appointed public managers can—indeed must—do all within their power and imagination to build ethical organizations.

Key Themes

Five key themes are threaded throughout the pages that follow. First, scandal is the most common trigger for bringing about ethics reform. Nearly every instance recounted in this book about a city, county, state, or national gov- ernment adopting an ethics ordinance or law or code to foster integrity in governance was preceded by a scandal. And more often than not, the scandal involved elected officials, not appointed administrators. Public managers, nonetheless, often become “guilty by association” and become the target of bureaucratic reform while political reform is left untouched. Ethical gover- nance must encompass both political and bureaucratic spheres of action.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 25

Second, ethics issues and efforts to deal with them are not limited to the American experience. As chapter 6 on ethics management internationally il- lustrates, these matters are ubiquitous. Moreover, it is clear that efforts to man- age ethics internationally cannot be reduced to a “one size fits all” boilerplate. Creative solutions are needed that allow for cultural differences while at the same time not treating ethics as something that depends on the situation.

A third theme is that building organizations of integrity is not a one-shot affair. Rather, it is an ongoing process in much the spirit that it’s the journey, not the destination that matters. Still, the destination is very important, even if never reached. Earlier in this book I described the destination as “work- places where individuals treat each other with respect, take pride in their work, care about one another, promote accountability, and place the public interest over individual and organizational self-interest.” This is the idea and ideal of an organization of integrity. Have you worked in such an organiza- tion? Probably not. Would you like to work in one? Does this question even need to be asked?

A fourth theme is that a compliance approach to building an organization of integrity is not sufficient. Indeed, in its most pernicious form it can lead to the lowest common denominator that if it’s legal, it’s ethical. This low road approach will never lead to an ethical workplace. Rather, the workplace be- comes one in which rule evasion and dodging go hand in hand with a “gotcha” mentality. The high road of aspirational ethics must be taken. Members of the organization must always ask themselves, “What is the right thing to do?” Rules and regulations may help answer this question, but they will never be sufficient. Each person must strive to ensure that his or her ethical com- pass is working correctly. Having a floundering ethical compass is the surest way to get lost in the quagmire of today’s complex organizations.

The fifth and final theme is that there is no checklist for building organi- zations of integrity. The tools described in chapter 3—exemplary leadership, training, codes, ethics audits, and human resources management—are pow- erful tools when joined together in a systematic, comprehensive manner. Each tool must be used by ethics managers in a skillful manner, perhaps similar to that of an orchestra conductor who must be able to produce harmonious music from diverse musicians and instruments. No tool is the single best tool to transform the sour notes of unethical behavior into the reassuring culture of an organization of integrity.

The why, what, and how of ethics management have been discussed in this chapter. It should be apparent that there is no magic formula for achiev- ing the ethical workplace. Still, there are ways and means to strengthen an organization’s ethical culture, and it seems rather foolish not to employ those means to build organizations of integrity.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

26 CHAPTER 1

Plan of the Book

This book takes a public management perspective toward cultivating organi- zations of integrity. This perspective presumes a pro-active posture toward governing rather than a passive, caretaker posture. Administrators and their elected bosses are not content to simply “let things happen” but seek out best management practices and knowledge to make the wheels of governance turn more smoothly.

But do we know enough about cultivating ethical cultures in organiza- tions to draw on for this purpose? Without question. There has been consid- erable research on this subject over the past two decades that can be tapped to provide direction and suggestions. Among other things, the accumulated scholarship provides ideas and recommendations for resolving ethics and values conflicts, managing ethics-induced stress, fostering strong ethical cli- mates, preventing ethics failures, and even changing organizational cultures to make them more integrity friendly and responsive to the needs of employ- ees and the community of which they are an integral part.

In this chapter, you were provided with an introduction to ethics manage- ment. Chapter 2 follows with a discussion of the U.S. constitutional and ad- ministrative environments in which public officials carry out their duties and grapple with the challenge of building organizations of integrity. Chapter 3 describes and assesses the tools available to elected and appointed officials who are committed to building ethical organizations. Among others, these in- clude ethics training, audits, codes, and oaths. Chapter 4, “Ethics Management in American Cities and Counties,” explores this largely unmapped terrain. Three cities—Tampa, Chicago, New York City—and three counties—King County, Washington; Salt Lake County, Utah; and Cook County, Illinois—are exam- ined in some detail. In addition, the ethics management in two consolidated governments—Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas; and Jacksonville-Duval County, Florida—is described.

Chapter 5 canvasses legislative and administrative measures taken by the U.S. Congress, American presidents, the judiciary, and the fifty states to fos- ter ethical governance. This chapter also assesses state ethics laws, commis- sions, and boards, with three states—Florida, Illinois, and New York—singled out for closer examination.

Chapter 6 examines the international world of ethics management with particular attention focused on Europe and Asia. The final chapter, chapter 7, outlines the challenges confronting citizens and public officials committed to ethical governance. These include the meshing of boundaries brought about by the privatization movement, the enormous challenges of Information Age technology, globalization, and professional ethics education.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 27

Accompanying each chapter are two ethics management skill-building exercises that enable the reader on his or her own or as a member of a small group to engage in “hands-on” active learning. The exercises cover a wide range of issues and settings. Some are presented in a city or county setting; others are presented in a state, national, or international context. All are de- signed to stimulate the reader to think about the day-to-day world of ethics management and to challenge the reader to explore the intricacies and com- plexities of the subject matter.

Ethics Management Skill Building

Practicum 1.1. A Late Night Surprise!

Dennis, the city manager of a financially strapped municipality, is working uncharacteristically late at night. The offices are empty and quiet. As he is leav- ing, he notices a sliver of light coming from the door of the new budget director, Susan. He decides to stop in and praise her for her excellent report in which she discovered errors that will save the city millions of dollars, projecting for the first time in many years a budget surplus. As he approaches her office he can see through the few inches the door is open that she is in a passionate embrace with Gary, the assistant city manager. The city’s employment policy forbids dating between employees, threatening dismissal to those who do.

The city’s code of ethics requires him to enforce this policy, yet at the same time he does not want to lose either or both of his valuable employees. It would be difficult if not impossible to bring in someone else with their experience and credentials for the amount of money the city is able to pay.

Questions

1. What should Dennis do? Should he report Susan and Steve, in ac- cordance with policy? Is it his ethical duty to do so?

2. Should he overlook the situation believing the city will be best served in the long run? Is this a pragmatic utilitarian approach?

3. Should he speak to each of them and threaten to tell his elected bosses if they don’t end the relationship? Would this cause other employees to pay more attention to the city’s code of ethics?

4. Does Dennis have any right to interfere in a personal affair between two consenting adults?

5. Is this a management problem? An ethics problem? Both? 6. Can ethics problems be separated from management problems? Why

or why not?

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

28 CHAPTER 1

Practicum 1.2. Moral Management?

Assume that you are the top elected official of a county constitutional office, such as the clerk or property appraiser. As part of your campaign to get elected, you promise that you will demand that employees of the organization not behave in a manner that jeopardizes the credibility and integrity of the office. A week after you take office you learn that several employees who are mar- ried but not to each other are engaging in intimate behavior that offends your sense of morality and is causing disruption in the agency.

The agency’s written policy is quite clear. It states:

Agency personnel, whether married or single, shall not develop an asso- ciation with another member whom they know or should have known is married to another person. Married members also shall not develop an as- sociation with agency members who are single. Excluded from this are members who are separated and residing apart from their spouse, or those who have legally filed for divorce. For the purpose of this policy, “associa- tion” means residing with, dating, or entering into any intimate relation- ship with.

Questions

1. What do you do? Do you turn your head and hope the situation disappears? Is this solution in the best interest of the organization?

2. Are you obligated to enforce the agency’s written policy? 3. Do you call the employees to your office and have a conversation

about adultery? 4. Do you consider revising the agency’s written standard of conduct? 5. What changes would you make in the existing policy?

Notes

1. An excellent discussion of philosophical perspectives in administrative ethics is contained in Part II of Terry L. Cooper, Ed., Handbook of Administrative Ethics, 2nd ed., New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 2001. This discussion covers virtue ethics as well as deontological and teleological approaches to administrative ethics.

2. E-mail message to the author, February 27, 2006. 3. www.playboy.com/worldofplayboy/interviews/. Accessed February 27, 2006. 4. The first serious attempt to bring empirical research to bear on administrative

ethics took place in 1991 at Park City, Utah, when H. George Frederickson organized a conference for this purpose. The conference papers were published in Ethics and Public Administration, Ed., H. George Frederickson, Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1993.

5. See Brewer and Coleman Selden 1998; Folks 2000; Perry 1993; Glazer and Glazer 1989; Jos 1989; Miceli and Near 1985.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ETHICS MANAGEMENT 29

6. This discussion relies heavily on Menzel (2005a). 7. This discussion relies heavily on Menzel and Carson (1999) and Menzel (2001b). 8. See Richard J. Stillman II, Preface to Public Administration: A Search for Themes

and Direction, 2nd ed., Burke, VA: Chatelaine Press, 1999, for an excellent overview of the evolution of public administration practice in the United States.

9. This discussion relies in part on Menzel (2001b). 10. This discussion relies on Menzel (2001b). 11. A thorough discussion of trust building is presented by David G. Carnevale’s Trust-

worthy Government: Leadership and Management Strategies for Building Trust and High Performance, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995.

12. www.miamidade.gov/ethics/training.asp. Accessed June 21, 2006. 13. www.co.miami-dade.fl.us/ethics/beam.asp. Accessed June 21, 2006. 14. Max Weber is widely recognized as the intellectual father of modern bureaucracy.

Weber identified six key characteristics of bureaucracy: (1) official duties are fixed by rules, laws, or administrative regulations; (2) offices are arranged hierarchical with a clearly ordered system of super- and subordinate relationships; (3) management is based on writ- ten documents; (4) management is selected and promoted via the merit principle; (5) the official is a full-time employee; and (6) management follows general rules that are stable and can be learned. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, New York: Oxford University Press, 1958, translated and edited by H.H. Gerth and C.W. Mills.

15. For an excellent overview of issues and research on organizational cultures from a sociobehavioral perspective, see Benjamin Schneider, Ed., Organizational Climate and Culture, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990.

16. This discussion relies on Menzel (2001b).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

30 CHAPTER 2

2 Constitutional and Administrative

Environments

“Where a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself a public property.”

—Thomas Jefferson

The Founding Fathers believed that democratic governance requires lead- ers with impeccable moral and ethical credentials. Those who occupied office, whether appointed or elected, were expected to demonstrate the high- est degree of integrity and conduct themselves in honorable ways. A demo- cratic government—one that is open and accessible to popular will and thought—could be achieved only by morally committed men and women. As Louis C. Gawthrop (1998) notes in Public Service and Democracy, the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution for a new republic wove a garment threaded with ethical values and moral vir- tues. Those values “constituted an indivisible presence in all of the practi- cal and pragmatic decisions made concerning the structure and functions of the new government” (38).

A cursory examination of the historical record—the Constitution and the Federalist Papers—to identify the framers’ expectations of the qualifications one must possess to hold office suggests that, beyond age and residency requirements, members of Congress (especially the Senate) should have “sta- bility of character” and be “truly respectable.” A morally imbued constitu- tion required nothing less than morally imbued officials to ensure that a true democracy would prosper. Still, the framers were somewhat schizophrenic as they recognized a darker side of the human spirit—ambition, greed, and revenge. In Federalist Paper #6, Alexander Hamilton asserts that in creating a government of the people we must not forget that “men are ambitious, vindictive and rapacious.” James Madison (Federalist Paper #51) shared that view, arguing that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” Checks and balances, the separation of powers among the three branches of govern- ment, and the division of power between the national government and the states (federalism) were put forward as the structural means to “counteract

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 31

ambition.” And, as Madison so eloquently proclaimed, “In framing a gov- ernment which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself” (Federalist Paper #51).

This chapter examines this history and its implication for ethical gover- nance. Particular interest is focused on the evolution of government ethics in the United States over the past two hundred years.

Government of, by, and for the People

The framers’ contradictory views of human nature and the need for govern- ment conducted by upright persons was not without some tarnish in the early decades of the new republic. Washington’s secretary of war Henry Knox found himself deeply in debt as a result of an extravagant lifestyle and gam- bling debts incurred by his wife (Gilman 1995b). In 1791, in an effort to cope with his debts, he engaged in land speculation in Maine that resulted in lawsuits challenging the transactions. Friends came to his legal rescue, and he later rewarded them with recommendations for public office (63). Em- bezzlement was also a problem in the early republic. “A pointed example,” Gilman (1995b, 64) notes, “is the embezzlement case of Dr. Tobias Watkins, a close friend of President John Quincy Adams (1824–1828) and a high- ranking officer in his administration.” Dr. Watkins was later tried and impris- oned by the Jackson administration.

These transgressions, however, paled alongside the rampant patronage bestowed on political followers when Andrew Jackson (1828–1836) occu- pied the White House. Jacksonian Democracy, as historians dubbed it, meant that the common man could lay claim to any job in the federal government. And, perhaps most important, the credentials for this claim were neither the possession of moral character nor workplace competency; rather, they were rooted in political and personal connections. Thus the “spoils system,” whereby those who won political office and rewarded their friends and sup- porters, came to the fore.

Patronage politics was to dominate much of American government—city, state, and national—for the next fifty years. Even during the Civil War, Presi- dent Lincoln spent much of his time receiving and responding to federal job seekers. The war itself bred numerous accounts of corruption ranging from exorbitant sums of money changing hands in the purchase of rifles to the meat contained in food rations for soldiers. Nonetheless, as Gilman (1995, 65) succinctly notes, widespread corruption resulted in “America’s develop- ment of a legal foundation for ethical behavior.” The first set of conflict-of- interest statutes were drafted in the postwar years under the Grant

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

32 CHAPTER 2

administration in an attempt to stop federal officials from “participating in negotiations that might bring financial benefits to the employee either di- rectly or indirectly” (Roberts 1988, 12).

Still, government by “incompetent,” “immoral,” and “unethical” officials approached epidemic proportions by the end of the nineteenth century. Court- houses and state capitals became breeding grounds for the corrupt and ambi- tious. In New York City, for example, the Boss Tweed gang and a string of Tammany Hall political successors handed out jobs and dollars with impu- nity. Among the more famous personalities was New York state senator and ward boss George Washington Plunkitt, son of Irish-American immigrants who entered politics to amass and lose a fortune in his lifetime (1842–1924). Plunkitt’s ethics—or more appropriately, lack of ethics—eventually became the anathema of good government reformers.

“This civil service law is the biggest fraud of the age. It is the curse of the nation. There can’t be no patriotism while it lasts. How are you goin’ to interest our young men in their country if you have no offices to give them when they work for their party?”

—Senator George Washington Plunkitt

Despite the lively condition of big city political machines and patronage government in the second half of the nineteenth century, reform was launched with the passage of the Pendleton Act of 1883 (also known as the Civil Ser- vice Act). This new law aimed to inject “merit” and “political neutrality” into the operations of the national government and presumably lead to a modern civil service imbued with an ethical impulse. Joining the reformers, then Princeton professor Woodrow Wilson (1887) called for “a civil service cul- tured and self-sufficient enough to act with sense and vigor. . . .” His clarion call included a separation of politics from administration, contending that “administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics.” The result of civil service reform, Wilson argued, is “but a moral preparation for what is to follow. It is clearing the moral atmosphere of official life by establishing the sanctity of public office as a public trust. . . .”

Administration, Science, and Ethics

Wilson’s plea to remove the running of government from the “hurry and strife” of politics in order to have effective and moral government required two additional considerations: (1) that the field of administration be viewed

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 33

as a “field of business,” and (2) that efforts be undertaken to build a “sci- ence of administration.” These pronouncements, when taken together, pro- vide the first embryonic definition of public management and, as the industrial age roared into the twentieth century, found an intellectual home with the emergence of the “Scientific Management” movement founded by Frederick Taylor.

Taylor, an engineer who believed that America suffered enormously from inefficiencies in the factory and government, advocated “one best way” to accomplish work and introduced tools such as time-and-motion studies to find the one best way. The application of scientific management principles in industry and government, Taylor argued, would lift America out of its waste- ful and unproductive habits to the benefit of all. His siren call resonated well with good government reformers and the movement to create an impartial, merit-based civil service. Inefficiency, after all, was closely identified with corruption and other misdeeds so prevalent in America’s cities and states. Moreover, in creating a “neutral” cadre of public servants to carry out the work of government, the proper emphasis would be placed on work pro- cesses, not on personal or political friendships.

Scientific Management—an approach to management that emphasizes the application of “scientific” knowledge to work processes. Frederick W. Taylor (1856–1915), an engineer and the father of scientific manage- ment, published The Principles of Scientific Management in 1909.

A science of administration and Taylorism, as the Scientific Management school became known, became the dominant paradigm in the evolution of public management and administration. The ethic associated with this para- digm was utilitarianism (or instrumentalism—getting the job done right ben- efits the greatest number), and it found overt expression in the evolution of the city management profession. Staunton, Virginia, appointed the first per- son ever with the title of city manager in 1908. The manager was expected to be competent and politically neutral and to know how to get the city’s streets repaired and sewer and water lines working properly. This separation of management from politics was exactly what Wilson had in mind, and the fact that the prevailing ethic was utilitarian was not especially concerning to any- one. Indeed, utilitarianism fit very well with a work ethos. It also fit well with the evolution of the City Managers’ Association, which was established in 1914, although it should be noted that the Association recognized early on that it was important for its members to live by a strict code of ethics.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

34 CHAPTER 2

Morally Mute Public Management

Although these efforts to turn administration into a scientific practice began to waiver with the onset of World War II, they still stirred the imaginations of managers and organizational theorists well into the 1960s. Science, progress, and modern management, inextricably inter-woven, had become dogma by the late 1930s (Stillman 1991). The war effort—its scale, planning, and execution—brought a new reality and thinking. The politics-administration dichotomy floundered under the reality of policy makers who administered wartime programs and administrators who were heavily involved in policy making. Planning, coordinating, and executing programs and policies were not driven by scientific principles but by the necessity to get the job done quickly, efficiently, and effectively. And, with the advent of the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, many began to question whether progress needed to be redefined.

The war years contributed to a proactive management style and led to the “golden years” of working in the federal government in the 1940s and 1950s. Gone was some of the intellectual baggage, especially the identity of manag- ers as “neutrally competent” problem solvers. Neutrality, as epitomized through local, state, and federal civil service, had grown larger than the Wilsonian legacy of removing partisanship from government work. In con- junction with the ethic of utilitarianism and Weberian norms of impartiality and hierarchy, neutrality meant either that public servants had no claim to values (personal, social, political), especially insofar as they might enter into the carrying out of one’s official duties, or at best, as a professional, one could make an argument for a preferred course of action but must fall into line once a policy decision is made by organizational or political superiors. The end result of these influences was the emergence of amoral manage- ment—organizations led by perhaps moral men and women who refused to voice their beliefs.

Indeed, as managers and organizations became more morally and ethi- cally sterile, a movement was launched to do something about it. In the late 1960s, at the height of civil unrest and diminishing confidence in the abil- ity of the United States to become a Great Society, a group of young aca- demics gathered in upstate New York at a retreat called Minnowbrook and put forth a call for a “New” Public Administration. A “New” Public Ad- ministration would be one in which administrators and managers accepted responsibility for promoting social justice and equity. This value-infused movement was seen by many as an antidote to the perilous plight of the morally mute manager.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 35

What was new about the New Public Administration? Namely that ad- ministrators could and should become proactive in promoting the wel- fare of those less advantaged in the society. The Old Public Administration required administrators to be obedient and passive purveyors of the wishes and demands of their elected superiors.

For a variety of reasons, the “New” Public Administration did not have as great an impact as some had hoped. But, as Terry L. Cooper asserts (2001, 12), “ . . . when one surveys the history of administrative ethics during the last hundred years it seems clear that this movement made an important con- tribution to the emergence of a field of study focused on ethics in public administration . . . [especially] around a commonly shared ethical concept— social equity.” Nonetheless, its proactive posture made many managers and public officials question whether it was a proper role for nonelected officials to be so presumptuous in defining the public interest. After all, is that not the responsibility of legitimately elected officeholders?

No Road, Low Road, or High Road Ethics?

There’s a saying that “if you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will get you there!” These words of wisdom may have some relevance to the role and place of ethics in public management during the past several de- cades. The tumultuous 1960s came to a close with a quest to make managers more relevant morally and ethically, but then there was Watergate—and the aftermath. The secret White House tapes not only revealed a president who conspired with others to cover up a politically motivated break-in of the Demo- cratic Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, they revealed a president whose moral compass seemed ajar, if not altogether spinning aimlessly in the breeze. President Nixon’s resignation in 1974 spawned a wave of legislative initia- tives in Washington and the states to prevent wrongdoing in government and punish those who choose to break the law. State after state enacted ethics laws and established ethics boards or commissions, with some given sub- stantial powers to investigate alleged cases of wrongdoing by officials. At the federal level, Congress moved with dispatch to enact the Ethics in Gov- ernment Act of 1978, a law that, among other things, created the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the controversial Independent Counsel whose broad investigatory powers were put on display in Kenneth Starr’s investigation of President Clinton’s financial and personal affairs.

These efforts to legislate the ethical behavior of local, state, and federal

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

36 CHAPTER 2

officials, including high-ranking appointed managers and often frontline members of the government workforce, have produced dubious results. There is precious little empirical evidence that ethics laws, ordinances, or boards have given us good government. Indeed, there is even the suggestion that this legislation allows officials to employ the lowest common denominator in deciding right and wrong behavior. That is, by stating in law what are punishable offenses, lawmakers have given elected and appointed office- holders the opportunity to define ethics as “behaviors and practices that do not break the law.” Stated in the vernacular, “if it’s not illegal, its okay!” This approach has been appropriately labeled by John Rohr, a noted ethics scholar, as the “low road” to ethics. The low road features compliance and adherence to formal rules. “Ethical behavior,” Rohr (1989,63) asserts, “is reduced to staying out of trouble” and results in “meticulous attention to trivial questions.”

But is the low road the only road? It is certainly arguable that it is the “best” road. In fact, many scholars believe it is even a poor substitute for “no road.” What then might be a more agreeable or desirable alternative? The “high” road to ethics behavior for public managers, Lewis and Gilman argue in The Ethics Challenge in Public Service (2005), is the path of integrity. “Relying on moral character, this route counts on ethical managers individu- ally to reflect, decide, and act” (16). This approach blends accepting respon- sibility for one’s behavior with honorable intentions and personal integrity, that is, adherence to morals and principles. But to whose morals and principles should one adhere? Herein lie the challenge and difficulty of the high road.

The legislative flurry to enact laws in the 1970s is regarded by some as an important step forward. However, insofar as this step fosters the low road of compliance to ethical behavior, it may actually be a tiny step at best. To be sure, scholars are not advocating a blanket repeal of ethics laws and ordi- nances. Rather, they are calling for an awakening, perhaps a reawakening, of what might be referred to as the “moral sense” that inheres in every single human being. A tall order? To be sure. Indeed, one that is fraught with real- world challenges that were amply illustrated in the decade of the eighties.

The thrashing around to find an ethical road for public managers and elected officeholders to follow improved and worsened with the “me” generation of the 1980s. Scandals on Wall Street, in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and in the White House with the Iran-Contra affair sent ethical compasses spinning wildly. Why would inside traders such as Ivan Boesky on Wall Street use their knowledge to skim off thousands and thousands of dollars? Why would the leader (Samuel Pierce) of a federal agency (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) sell out to the highest bidders? And, why would an American president, Ronald Reagan, who was so well liked, lie to the American public about selling arms to an

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 37

unfriendly Iranian regime to raise money for an insurgency in another part of the world thousands of miles away?

The answer to the first set of questions is greed, with some overtones of Plunkitt ethics—“I saw my opportunity . . .” The Wall Street and HUD scan- dals clearly involved men and women of ambition and avarice. Some believe that these incidents were merely symptomatic of the 1980s “me” generation. Neither government officials nor private-sector managers and CEOs seemed immune to the question, “what’s in it for me?”

The Iran-Contra controversy in the mid-1980s involved the secret illegal sale of arms to Iran to raise money that the Reagan administration used to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, who were trying to overthrow the socialist-led Sandinista government. At the same time, U.S. officials believed that the arms deal would move Iranian leaders to use their influence to win the release of the American hostages in Lebanon.

Lying, as in the Iran-Contra affair, was equally troublesome and symptom- atic of a moral malaise that was gaining ground in America. This particular scandal was especially disturbing because the chain of command from the presi- dent through his top security advisors, and eventually Oliver L. North, seemed to be an unbroken lie bound together by patriotism, duty, and blind loyalty. As Lieutenant Colonel North explained to Congress, “Lying does not come easily to me. But we all had to weigh in the balance the difference between lies and lives” (U.S. Senate 1987). That President Reagan actually lied is arguable, however, given the congressional testimony of Admiral John M. Poindexter, the president’s national security advisor. Poindexter testifying before a joint Senate and House hearing in July 1987 said: “I made a very deliberate decision not to ask the president [about whether arms should be sold to Iran to raise money for the Nicaraguan Contras to fight the socialist-controlled Nicaraguan government] so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability.” In other words, Poindexter deliberately withheld informa- tion from Reagan about the money-for-arms transactions that Congress had specifically legislated against. Lying? No. Evasiveness? Yes. Poindexter pro- vided the president with plausible deniability that, in effect, undermined the constitutional responsibility of the highest elected official of the nation.

Plausible deniability is the act of withholding information from a supe- rior so that he or she will be able to speak in a truthful manner about an issue. Admirable Poindexter provided President Reagan with plausible deniability by withholding information about the sale of illegal arms to Iran to raise funds in support of the Contra guerrillas.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

38 CHAPTER 2

The ethical angst of the 1980s spilled into the world of public manage- ment as well—so much so that a number of countermeasures were initiated. One was the promulgation in 1984 of a Code of Ethics by the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). ASPA was established in 1939 by men and women of the New Deal generation to promote professional values and ethical behavior in public service. Yet it took more than forty years to build a consensus needed to adopt a code. Another countermeasure was the recognition by many schools of public affairs and administration that it was time to place ethics courses in their curricula. By the end of the 1980s, forty schools had added an ethics course to their graduate program of study (Menzel 1997). A related initiative was taken by the National Schools of Public Af- fairs and Administration (NASPAA) in 1989 when a new curriculum stan- dard on ethics was promulgated. Schools seeking accreditation, NASPAA asserted, must demonstrate that their programs have the capacity and means to “enhance the student’s values, knowledge, and skills to act ethically.”

Scholarship on administrative ethics also expanded significantly in the 1980s as evidenced by the number of ethics books and journal articles ap- pearing in print.1 Additionally, the International City/County Management Association published an influential volume, Ethical Insight, Ethical Action (Keller 1988), and the Public Administration Review published insightful articles.2

These collective efforts by individuals and professional associations con- stituted a major push to ensure that men and women who entered public service could contribute to ethical government as well as to competent gov- ernment. Whether these results have been achieved remains an important but mostly unanswered question. In fact, the pluralistic nature of these initiatives in combination with the rethinking of administration and management in the 1990s may have diffused the presumed desirable outcomes.

Administration as Management

The discussion thus far has assumed that public administration and public management are essentially the same—getting the job done in an efficient, effective, and economical manner. Therefore, it might be presumed that any discussion of ethics is relevant to either. During the past several decades, however, the meaning of managing and administering public programs and organizations has sufficiently changed to make it necessary to rethink what it means to be a public manager or administrator and to reassess the ethical implications associated with each role.

But what are the changes? Where did they come from? The most impor- tant change was the enlargement of management and the diminishment of

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 39

administration as operating concepts and practices in public affairs. One might go so far as to say that public administration in its most traditional fiduciary sense has been pushed aside in favor of a public management defined as business management. Entrepreneurialism, get me results, just do it, pay for performance, contracting out, competition, satisfy the customer, outsource the work, and more is the language and siren call of managerialism. Echoes of Woodrow Wilson’s assertion that administration is a field of business ad- ministration? Perhaps.

Another important change was the erosion of the meaning of public in public service. Where has the public gone in public administration? When institutions of higher education began to recognize the importance of edu- cating men and women for public service careers, the line between govern- mental and non-governmental employment was fairly clear. Thus the rise of MPA (master’s of public administration) degree-granting programs responded to the need to supply city, state, and national governments with talented and capable administrators. The degree, however, was supposed to convey more than competency on its holder. It was presumed that an MPA degree recipi- ent understood why competent administration was essential in a democracy and why he or she, in bringing competence to administration, was also serv- ing the public interest. Normative commitments to promoting democratic governance and the public interest explain precisely why graduate degrees in public administration are rarely named MGAs—master’s in government administration.

Nonetheless, times change, and over the past thirty years it has been in- creasingly difficult to separate public-sector from private-sector employ- ment—not to mention the enormous growth of third-party-sector employment (nonprofits, special districts, and quasi-public agencies). The result, some believe, has been an unwitting redefinition of the MPA degree to emphasize competency only. H. George Frederickson in The Spirit of Public Adminis- tration (1997) argues that this approach is wrongheaded and potentially dan- gerous. A democracy, he contends, requires a democratic administration, that is, one in which managers and workers are competent and morally commit- ted to serving the public. Redefining administration as management poses some risks and is also concerning with regard to “managerial” ethics, espe- cially the utilitarian views describe next.

As noted, the 1980s witnessed a renewal of interest in public-sector ethics issues and problems. This decade also witnessed the steady blurring of pri- vate/public-sector lines, unending bashing of bureaucrats and bureaucracy by the media and Republican presidents (remember, it was Ronald Reagan who quipped “Washington is not the solution to our problems: It is the prob- lem), and a steadily growing belief in the application of private-sector man-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

40 CHAPTER 2

agement tools to public-sector management problems (Quality Circles, Total Quality Management, Team Building, and so on). Thus, when management consultant David Osborne and former city manager Ted Gaebler published Reinventing Government (1992), the stage was set for even more dramatic change in our thinking about administration and management. The “Rein- vention” movement, as it is often called, was galvanized when the Clinton administration assumed office. In October 1993, the Clinton administration released the National Performance Review, a document that embodied the spirit and soul of reinventing government per Osborne and Gaebler, by prom- ising to turn the federal government into a government that “works better and costs less.”

Quality Circles and Total Quality Management are management tech- niques that were first applied in private profit-making firms to improve product quality and sales. Quality circles were popular in Japan in the early 1960s and later used in the United States. They involved small work groups who met regularly in the factory or business to discuss problems and solutions. Total Quality Management (TQM) emerged in the 1980s as an organization-wide approach to improve the quality of products and services. TQM is widely employed by private firms, gov- ernment agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

The “New Public Management” calls for managers to steer organizations— not row them; empower citizens and coach workers through teamwork and participation; thrive on and promote competition; reject rule-driven organi- zations in favor of mission-driven organizations; seek results not outcomes; put customers first; foster enterprising and market-oriented government; and embrace community-owned government. New Public Managers (NPMs) are also likely to find the privatization of public goods and services an attractive alternative and adopt new management tools such as benchmarking, strate- gic planning, reengineering, and Total Quality Management as the situation warrants. This new way of thinking about management casts public manag- ers into the forefront of getting the job done in an economical and cost- effective fashion. The era of the administrator who responds to citizen requests and demands rather than meeting the customers’ needs, fixes problems when they arise rather than preventing them before they become uncomfortable, and promotes the public interest per the New Public Administration or some other value set is passé.

But what are the implications of the New Public Management for ethical behavior and practices? Advocates are not encouraging NPMs to break the law or engage in unethical management practices. Rather, they are mostly

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 41

silent about the place of ethics or morality in public management. This si- lence has not gone unnoticed and has caused some observers to worry a great deal about what might be ahead. Larry Terry (1993, 393–394), an out- spoken opponent of New Public Management, believes that NPMs go too far in embracing entrepreneurial values such as “autonomy, a personal vision of the future, secrecy, risk-taking, domination, coercion, and a disrespect for tradition.” H. George Frederickson (1997, 22) also worries that NPMs’ ac- ceptance of utilitarianism, much as in years past when the tenets of science were believed well suited to public administration, will reduce the public interest to the “sum of atomistic individuals.” A public interest so defined is, essentially, no public interest, only competing interests. Furthermore, Frederickson cautions against the downside of turning citizens into custom- ers, which may result in a collective escape from responsibility and diminish civil discourse as individuals and groups vie against one another to extract promises and favors from government. He is equally concerned about the effect of the reinvention movement and privatization on public affairs.

Government . . . is being reinvented to put together public-private partner- ships, “empower” citizens with choices, and so on. In sum, it is now fash- ionable to de-governmentalize on the promise of saving money and improving services. If previously governmental functions are shifted to the private sector or are shared, it is a safe bet that corruption will increase. It is no small irony that government is moving in the direction of privatization at the same time that there is a rising concern for governmental ethics (171).

Louis W. Gawthrop (1999) has spoken about the risks of debureacratizing government and treating public service as merely work. In Public Service & Democracy (1998, 17) Gawthrop is unrelenting:

We are faced with a new reality in which the citizen has been reinvented into the customer; interest groups—broadly defined to include private-sector contractors, suppliers, and so on—have been re-designated stakeholders, and, most significantly, public servants have been recast in the mold of entrepreneurs. In the process of reconfiguring public bureaucracies, how- ever, little attention is being given to how this new reality conforms to the ethical-moral values and virtues that are deeply embedded in our demo- cratic system.

This new reality represents a break from the old but no less reassuring reality of the administrator as a detached, dispassionate rational provider of objective information and advice to elected bosses. Good men and women

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

42 CHAPTER 2

with good intentions who allow themselves to be seduced by a sense of duty as competent purveyors of neutral information became neither moral nor immoral actors. Rather, they became amoral and, in this capacity, can con- tribute little to ethical or democratic governance. Notions of faith, hope, and love, Gawthrop contends, are not “generally recognized as significant com- ponents of public administration in America today. Instead, it is the logic of utility that still provides the basic rationale for the classical management tenets of efficiency and control” (87).

Despite the enormous influence of the old and new management realities, Gawthrop is an optimist, not a pessimist, about public service, ethics, and de- mocracy. A moral impulse, he contends, must suffuse bureaucracy and democ- racy if the common good, as promised by a democratic society, is to be achieved. But from where could and should a moral impulse radiate? From the public? Elected officeholders? Administrators? Gawthrop places his confidence in ad- ministrators if, and only if, they can break out of “the habits of the self-serving good which allow public servants to pursue a procedural, quasi-ethical life” (139). In other words, an ethical life rooted in procedural correctness—avoid- ing conflicts of interest, disclosing financial information relevant to one’s office holding, and conducting public affairs in the sunshine—is, in Gawthrop’s view, a hollow ethical life at best. At worst, a procedural, quasi-ethical life produces a “government of persons without fault, operating in a society without judgment, through the ministrations of a Constitution without a purpose” (139).

Ethics is morality in action, he believes. It is, therefore, a mistake to sepa- rate morality and ethics, as is often done. Ethics defined only as compliance —“tell me what is right; what is wrong; what is legal; what is not permissible” —is also unacceptable. It is imperative that public administrators and man- agers understand that ethics is morality in action and that there is a moral dimension of democracy.

One other issue that might be amplified considerably by NPMs is the challenge of managerial discretion. As John Rohr notes, this is an enduring issue in public affairs that remains an unsolved problem. Put as a question, “how can a democratic regime justify substantial political power in the hands of people who are exempt by law from the discipline of the ballot box?” (Rohr 1998,6). He has dared to “solve” this unsolved problem in his book To Run a Constitution (1986). The oath of office, Rohr asserts, legitimates a degree of professional autonomy for the public manager and “can keep this autonomy within acceptable bounds” (69). The oath of office, he reminds the reader, is more than a mere promise; it is a morally binding commitment to uphold the Constitution. As such, it is a “statement of professional inde- pendence rather than subservience” (72). The oath guides autonomy and deters public managers from becoming maximizing bureaucrats.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 43

A maximizing bureaucrat is an appointed public official whose single- minded goal is to expand his agency’s authority, resources, and power.

As appealing as Rohr’s solution might appear, it is not without problems. For example, not all managers take an oath of office. Those in the U.S. fed- eral government do so, but this is not the case with all state or local manag- ers. Then there are those who manage nonprofit or quasi-government corporations. These managers might not take an oath as well. Finally, there is the bleak reality that those who do take an oath of office might still not grasp or understand Rohr’s contention that an oath places self-imposed limits on the exercise of discretion.

An Unfinished Portrait

Ethics in American public administration has a long, evolutionary history. The portrait sketched here remains unfinished in light of the changes and challenges in managing twenty-first-century public organizations. These changes are in no small measure exacerbated by the forces of privatization, globalization, computerization, and the rapidly moving world of informa- tion technology.

The threat of the resurrection of the morally mute manager is real and must be taken seriously. The New Public Management movement has yet to define itself ethically or morally. Or, in the worse case, it has redefined itself as a pernicious brand of moral muteness that reduces citizens to customers and public service professionals to businesspeople whose major task is to make citizen-customers satisfied with what they want and receive from gov- ernment. This pathway, as Gawthrop reminds us, is certainly not a pathway to the common good. It even raises the question of whether such an approach can avoid the worse pitfalls of unethical behavior and practices in government.

Moral courage is the willpower to do the right thing with the knowledge that it will cause pain for another person or members of one’s organization.

Public managers who do not understand why the word public cannot be removed from their job descriptions or cannot grasp why managerial/ethical competency are essential to effective governance should ply their trade in less demanding occupations. “No web of statute or regulation,” as President John F. Kennedy put it, “can hope to deal with the myriad possible chal- lenges to a man’s integrity or his devotion to the public interest” (Lewis

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

44 CHAPTER 2

1991, 14). And, as U.S. Comptroller David M. Walker adds, “we need more leaders with three key attributes: courage, integrity, and innovation . . . we need leaders who have the integrity to lead by example and to practice what they preach” (2005).

Even more is needed to build and sustain organizations of integrity. We turn next to an examination and assessment of the tools that public adminis- trators can use to transform their organizations into high-performance agen- cies that embrace ethical governance.

The Evolution of Government Ethics in the United States

1792–1828: Character and Integrity in Governance

George Washington set the moral tone of the new government by insisting that public officeholders be men of integrity and high moral character. He served as an exemplar of the values he exalted and appointed men to the federal bureau- cracy who were reputed to be persons of character as well as competence (Henry 1995, 240). Not all appointees, however, were persons of character.

1828–1870: Age of Patronage Governance

The election of the Tennessee populist Andrew Jackson in 1828 ushered in patronage politics and the spoils system. Government jobs were handed out freely to friends and political supporters. Corruption reached alarming levels as time passed and political machines in New York, Philadelphia, and Chi- cago put down deep roots among immigrants needing help.

The first code of public ethics for the U.S. government was developed by Postmaster General Amos Kendall in 1829.

1870–1900: Anti-patronage Movement

In 1883, the Congress passed the Civil Service Act (also known as the Pendleton Act), which called for a federal civil service system based on com- petence and merit in appointments and advancement. Federal administrators were to conduct themselves in a politically neutral manner. The law followed the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881 by a disappointed office seeker.

In 1887, then Princeton professor Woodrow Wilson penned the famous essay “The Study of Administration,” which was a clarion call for the separa- tion of politics and administration. Civil servants were expected to carry out their duties in an efficient and ethical fashion.

(continued)

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 45

1900–1930: Zeal for Government Integrity

Demands to end corruption and advance good government resulted in a zeal to reform the entire political system, not just the bureaucracy. Pro- gressive reformers advocated removing partisanship from officeholding, especially at the municipal level; staggering election cycles so that local elections are not held in the same year as state or federal elections; elimi- nating ward-based districts and replacing them with at-large districts; establishing independent commissions and authorities; ending patronage appointments.

Theodore Roosevelt waged a vigorous campaign to end patronage ap- pointments as a U.S. Civil Service Commissioner (1889–1895). He led ef- forts to investigate fraud and political abuse in government and expose corrupt government officials. As president, he championed the expansion of com- petitive civil service, which was increased from 110,000 to 235,000, approxi- mately 63.9 percent of the whole executive civil service. And for the first time, the merit system surpasses the spoils system in numbers of jobs in the executive service.3

The early twentieth century also witnessed the adoption of new local government models such as the Council-Manager Plan, which recognized the growing need for professional public management. New professional associations sprang up with the founding of the International City Man- agers Association in 1914. Thirty-two local governments in the United States and Canada became charter members as the ICMA became the front line in the battle for good government. A decade later (1924) the ICMA adopted the first public service code of ethics for local govern- ment administrators.

In 1914, the Society for the Promotion of Training for the Public Service was established, “a forerunner of the American Society for Public Adminis- tration, which was established in 1939” (Henry 1995, 23).

University of Chicago professor Leonard D. White published the first text- book Introduction to the Study of Public Administration in 1926, creating a benchmark for public administration as a professional field of study and practice.

Scientific Management, as enunciated by its inventor Frederick Winslow Taylor, demanded greater planning, specialization, standardization, and “one best way” to accomplish the work of the organization. As a moral code, Tay- lor claimed that Scientific Management “aids the worker in general intellec- tual and moral development” (Fry 1989, 63). But the reality is quite different. Attention to moral self and ethical behavior gives way to moral muteness and amoralism.

(continued)

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

46 CHAPTER 2

1930–1960: Administration as Science

These decades of strife, war, and recovery ushered in new views, attitudes, and realities of government and governance. Government was widely viewed as a positive instrument for social and economic advancement. “Can do” administrators armed with the science of administration occupied senior posts in government and became social engineers. Many brought to their work a philosophical view of ethics that is pragmatic and utilitarian.

States began to focus on ethics issues in this period. In 1954, New York became the first state to adopt an ethics law after a series of scandals involv- ing the bribery of public officials by organized crime.

1960s: Rise and Demise of “Can Do” Government

The 1960s witnessed the “can do” government of the Great Society launched under President Lyndon B. Johnson and, by decade’s end, the steady dimin- ishment of public trust and confidence in government as an instrument to advance social justice and improve the average American’s quality of life. Social upheaval, spawned by disillusionment with the Vietnam War and the inability of the federal government to resolve difficult social problems, pushed administrators into a defensive and ethically challenging corner. By decade’s end, growing concern with the irrelevance of public administrators moti- vated a call for a “New Public Administration.” Administrators were chal- lenged to reconnect themselves ethically and morally and commit themselves to placing social equity at the forefront of the public interest. Most failed to respond.

The first government-wide executive order on standards of conduct af- fecting all executive branch employees was promulgated on May 8, 1965.4

1970s: Ethical Breakdown

The foiled break-in of the Democratic National Headquarters in 1972 at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., by Republican operatives produces a cover-up that shocked the nation and forced President Richard M. Nixon from office in 1974. A year earlier, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew was charged with accepting bribes and falsifying income tax returns. He entered a plea of “no contest” to the income tax falsification charges and was forced to resign. He was fined $10,000 and placed on probation for three years.

In 1978, the Congress enacted the Ethics in Government Act to prevent future Watergates. Many states followed the lead of the Congress and en- acted ethics statutes before the decade’s end.

(continued)

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 47

1980–1990: Into the Ethical Wilderness

Despite the flurry of legislation to discourage unethical behavior at all levels of government, problems continued in both the private and public sectors. Wall Street scandals involving insider trading brought attention to the “me” generation and eroded public trust in America’s financial institutions. Scan- dals rocked the federal government and reached the highest office of the land with the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration.

The American Society for Public Administration unveiled its first public service code of ethics in 1984 with a decided emphasis on the public interest. Law making to regulate and investigate charges of unethical practices in states and communities continued with many laws adding provisions dealing with gifts, outside employment, and post-employment.

Congress passed the Ethics Reform Act of 1989, placing greater restric- tions on federal employees in the solicitation and acceptance of gifts, outside earned income from professional services, and financial reporting.

President George H. W. Bush issued E.O. 12674 in 1989, outlining “Prin- ciples of Ethical Conduct for Government Officers and Employees.” For the first time, as many as 250,000 federal employees received annual training on the laws and regulations (Gilman 2005, 73).

The legal-punishment trend toward outlawing corruption and cracking down on unethical behavior intensified, but not all viewed this as a positive development. Frank Anechiarico and James B. Jacobs describe the decade as dominated by a panoptic vision, one in which public employees were re- garded as similar to “probationers in the criminal justice system” (1994, 468).

1990s: Benign Neglect and Reawakening

Governmental ethics and reform moved to the sidelines in the early 1990s as the first Gulf War occupied the attention of both the public and President George H.W. Bush. Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, and the “reinvention” of the federal government got underway in 1993 with much sound and fury. Vice President Al Gore, in charge of the “reinventing” of the federal govern- ment, issued a report in October that outlined a government that works better and costs less. The Gore report called for reforming the federal bureaucracy, not political institutions. The Gore report did not mention the need for ethical governance. Benevolent neglect of government ethics prevailed.

In 1998, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal ensnarled all within its reach, es- pecially President Clinton. The White House is lambasted by critics for moral indignities that eventually placed the president on the path to impeachment. The country recoiled at the tawdry details publicized during the Senate im-

(continued)

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

48 CHAPTER 2

peachment trial in 1999 as questions were raised about the president’s be- havior, including lying under oath.

2000: Restoring Ethical Governance?

George W. Bush was elected in 2000 with the campaign promise to restore “integrity in the White House.” He put the country on the road toward a moral America. The White House pushed for restrictions on stem cell re- search and abortion. Ten months later, a wartime president emerged with an agenda that challenged the moral fiber of the nation. By 2005, accusations of White House deception, misinformation, secrecy, domestic spying, torture, and leaking classified information abounded.

In October 2005, President Bush ordered ethics training for all Executive Office personnel.

Ethics Management Skill Building

Practicum 2.1. When the Chief Asks You to Lie

Chuck is the captain of one of the city’s fire stations. The fire station is in serious need of repairs—a critical portion of the station has settled, causing it to become unusable. A tropical storm has blown across the city causing heavy damage and flooding. The area in and around the city has been de- clared a disaster area, and both state and federal disaster officials are assess- ing damage for emergency relief. The fire chief has advised federal/state officials that the damage to the station was caused by the storm. Prior to relief officials arriving to assess the damage at the station, the fire chief calls Chuck to advise him of their impending arrival and tells Chuck to inform the relief officials that the damage is a result of the storm.

While not stated, annual evaluations are due next month, and the chief is known to use the evaluations to reward loyalty and punish those who do not follow his wishes. Due to a previous illness in the family, Chuck is depen- dent on his annual evaluation to keep up with inflation.

Questions

1. Should Chuck lie for the chief? If Chuck turns his head and does what the chief wants, is he culpable of moral muteness? Or is he being unethical?

2. Should Chuck complain to the chief that he is being put in a position that he cannot agree with?

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS 49

3. Should Chuck pass the lie onto another staff member by asking him or her to deceive the assessment team?

4. What ethics management strategy would you employ to prevent situ- ations like this from occurring?

Practicum 2.2. Moral Courage

Imagine you are an inspector in the Village Engineering Department and have the responsibility to inspect the sidewalks of residents whose streets are being resurfaced. The village policy is clear—residents who live on streets that are partially resurfaced must pay up to $1,000 per home for their side- walks to be replaced. But, residents on streets that are fully resurfaced are not required to pay. Your job is to determine how much a resident who lives on a partially resurfaced street must pay to replace the sidewalk. The techni- cal criteria to determine the cost difference between a full resurface and a partial resurface are murky. Moreover, as the inspector, you have found it frustrating to try to explain the system to residents who are impacted. More- over, it is your strong belief that the required fee is too great of a burden, particularly for a large percentage of the residents who are retired. After years of expressing your frustrations to the director of the engineering de- partment and having them ignored, you decide to take the matter directly to the mayor.

The engineering director does not find your conversation with the mayor amusing. Indeed, he becomes quite angry with you for going around him to the mayor and having his policy decision questioned. He instructs you to proceed with collecting money from residents and lobbies the mayor to sup- port the current policy. You continue collecting checks and contracts from residents but decide not to cash them or process the contracts because you feel the mayor will rule in your favor. And, you are right. The mayor con- cludes the system is unfair, and resident contributions are eliminated for all sidewalk replacement projects.

On hearing the mayor’s decision, you return the unprocessed checks and destroy the contracts. The director, not having budgeted for the change, in- structs you to continue with the old policy for the upcoming construction season and to initiate the new policy the following year. Concerned about losing your job, you lie and say that you had not collected any money. You feel it would be impossible to collect the money for the upcoming project year as the change in policy had already been announced in the local press.

In the meantime, the director investigates and finds that the money had indeed been collected and subsequently returned. In his opinion, this action was contrary to a direct order. You admit lying but claim that you had merely

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

50 CHAPTER 2

followed the wishes of the elected officials. The director gives you a pink slip, thus terminating your employment with the village. You decide to ap- peal the decision to the assistant administrator.

Questions

1. Imagine you are the assistant administrator. What should you do? 2. Was the director right to fire the employee for her behavior? Was the

director acting out of his anger at having his decision overturned? 3. Did the inspector exhibit moral courage? Did she act in the best

interest of the community? 4. Is it ethical to disobey an order when you feel it is the right deci-

sion? Should the inspector be disciplined?

Notes

The discussion in this chapter draws in part from Menzel (2001a). 1. See Burke (1986), Cooper (1982, 1984, 1987), Denhardt (1988; 1989), Gawthrop

(1984), and Rohr (1989). 2. See Cooper (1987), Hart (1984), Frederickson and Hart (1985), and Thompson

(1985). 3. www.opm.gov/about_opm/tr/. Accessed February 28, 2006. 4. www.usoge.gov/pages/laws_regs_fedreg_stats/lrfs_files/exeorders/e011222.html.

Accessed February 28, 2006.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

3 Tools for Ethics Managers

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. —Peter F. Drucker

What are the tools available to public managers to build and sustain organi- zations that promote ethical behaviors and practices? How well do they work? Are some more effective than others? These are the critical questions ad- dressed in this chapter. Ethics management tools range from soft, even sym- bolic measures to more concrete measures such as ethics audits and training. No single one will suffice to build an organization of integrity. Rather, effec- tive ethics management requires a comprehensive approach with top-down and bottom-up commitments. The first tool, a soft but ever so vital tool, is exemplary leadership.

Exemplary Leadership

Managers like to say that you must “walk the talk”—that you cannot lead a modern-day organization simply by issuing rules, policies, and standard op- erating procedures. Effective leaders must demonstrate through their behav- ior that they believe what they say. Those who pronounce that their supervisors and street-level workers must adhere to the highest ethical standards in the conduct of their work must themselves adhere to those same standards. Lead- ers must be exemplars in their personal and professional lives. Easier said than done? Certainly, but it is essential. Much the same can be said about peer leadership. Middle-managers or even the cop on the beat must demon- strate day in and day out his commitment to ethical behavior. Failure to do so can result only in organizations without integrity.

Fast-forward to 2005 Hillsborough County, Florida, home of the pro foot- ball team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The county has a long and checkered history of wrongdoing among elected county commissioners with three of the five commissioners convicted in the mid-1980s of bribery, kickbacks, and extortion. And, more recently, newly elected commissioners have found themselves awash in free tickets to lounge in lush sky boxes during Bucca-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

52 CHAPTER 3

neer games. One commissioner explained that it was necessary to accept tickets because he couldn’t otherwise afford to attend all the community events at which people would like to see him.

This form of unethical, but not illegal, leadership can have a ripple effect on the entire 9,718-member county workforce. Consider the twenty-six-year- old after-school program leader for the Hillsborough County Parks and Rec- reation Department who was arrested for accepting a $150 bribe by an undercover officer. The bribe was offered in exchange for the young man’s willingness to falsify the records showing that the undercover officer had performed community service hours at a county facility (Graham 2005). It cannot be unequivocally asserted that the commissioners’ behavior motivated this young man to accept a bribe. But it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that the example set at the top of the organization does have an influence on the ethical culture of the county workforce.

Elected officeholders can also serve as exemplars, although it is some- times challenging to find an example. But it is not so challenging in the case of Mayor Steve Brown, Peachtree City, Georgia, population 31,580. Brown ran successfully for office on a platform of bringing ethical government to his community, yet was soon embarrassingly sitting before the Peachtree City Ethics Board accused of violating the city’s ethics code. What hap- pened? He found himself in a situation in which he needed to get his daugh- ter to summer camp and, at the same time, negotiate an agreement for a local option sales tax. His assistant volunteered to help and drove his daughter to camp—on city time! The city manager advised the mayor that he may have committed an ethics violation. Forty-five minutes later, Brown realized that the city manager could be correct so, embarrassed by this ethical lapse, he took out his pen and filed an ethics complaint against himself. After subse- quent deliberation by the Ethics Board, it was determined that no formal reprimand was necessary but that Brown should reimburse the city for the assistant’s time away from the office. Mayor Brown readily complied and reimbursed the city $8.94 (Brown 2005).

Some high-level managers exercise ethical leadership by helping a sub- ordinate understand that he (the subordinate) had a lapse in ethical judgment. Here is an example:

We had an incident whereby a manager hung some of her colleagues out to dry by blaming them for a problem and thereby deflecting her responsi- bility for a mistake. In counseling with her, I used the GFOA Code of Ethics to explain why her conduct violated a provision in the professional code. She recognized the problem, and there has been no recurrence of unethi- cal behavior (Berman and West 2003, 36).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

TOOLS FOR ETHICS MANAGERS 53

How Does One Become an Ethical Leader?

So exemplary leadership really matters, doesn’t it? But what more do we know about the leadership-ethics link? How does one become an ethical leader? An ethical follower? Is one simply born more or less ethical? James Q. Wilson (1993) argued more than a decade ago in his book The Moral Sense that all humans are born with a moral sense, an innate quality that enables us to understand and act on the difference between right and wrong. He points to how children at the very earliest age know when they are being treated fairly or unfairly. Still, even if we accept this view, we are not likely to believe that each of us has an ethical autopilot that will prevent us from straying onto the path of wrong behavior. So, there must be more.

Maybe the more has to do with how we were raised. What did we learn from our mother, father, sisters, brothers, friends? Fairness is certainly one of those ethical values that we probably learned about. It’s also likely that we were told to treat others the way you would like to be treated—the Golden Rule. We may even have had a mother or a father tell us about the importance of human dignity, although maybe not in those exact words. Treat others as an end, not as a means—each of us is worthy—timeless advice from eigh- teenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant. Perhaps you were given a list of virtues—honesty, courage, benevolence, bravery, patience, respect, trustwor- thiness, loyalty, to name a few—and told to follow your heart. And, if prac- ticed often enough, these virtues would become so fully instilled in your being that you would no longer face the dilemmas posed by right and wrong choices. Your “habits of the heart” would have taken over your life so com- pletely that you begin to become a virtuous person, a lofty goal that, however worthy, is never attained. Pursuing a life of integrity is just that.

Beware of the Utilitarian Trap

These are noble possibilities, but do they make sense in the rough and tumble world of the twenty-first century? Men and women of ambition are thrown into the lion’s den of “getting ahead” no matter what. How then is one to make sense of right and wrong? Enter the utilitarian. The admonishment to serve the public interest gets translated into making decisions that benefit the most people. As the top executive of a public agency, you might conclude that recommending an across-the-board pay raise to employees is better than a recommendation to raise the pay of a smaller number of employees on the basis of performance. The organization as a whole, you might rationalize, would perform worse if there are a large number of dissatisfied employees and only a small number of satisfied employees.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

54 CHAPTER 3

Ethics managers must not sacrifice the right thing to do by trying to sat- isfy too many people. This utilitarian trap is hazardous. So too is the prospect of justifying an unsavory or unethical means to achieve a highly desirable result. The ends do not justify the means of getting something done, no mat- ter how attractive the goal may be. This utilitarian trap is Machiavellian.

Niccolò Machiavelli was a sixteenth-century Italian who wrote The Prince (1513), a slim volume that advised rulers how to gain power and keep it by whatever means worked best. The term Machiavellian is used to describe a person who is cunning and ruthless in the pursuit of power.

A utilitarian approach, of course, is attractive because one can calculate, however roughly, possible desirable outcomes. Thus the right thing to do becomes an exercise in smart, and maybe lucky, calculations. But where does the administrator learn to do this? Maybe it is in the common sense of life to make such calculations. Or, maybe it is in the educational experience one receives. Public executives typically hold master’s degrees in business, public administration, or public policy. And, educational institutions that award these degrees are often committed to teaching students how “to act ethi- cally,” to borrow the phrase in the standards promulgated by the National Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. Accredited business schools are equally vociferous in this regard, although not everyone feels that such standards make a dime’s worth of difference. One business school graduate put it this way: “We had classes on ethical behavior. But if you are a rotten person going into B-school, you will probably still be a rotten person when you came out” (Bellomo 2005).

The manipulative, calculative act of projecting right and wrong outcomes might well grate on one, and it might be incorrect to charge public admin- istration educators with teaching ethics as an exercise in calculation. Yet, many educators believe that one can learn how to engage in a reasoning process that will more likely than not yield a “right” behavior or decision. Terry Cooper, a well-known ethics scholar, is the best-known proponent of what he calls moral reasoning. And, if the popularity of his fifth-edition book The Responsible Administrator (2006) is any indication, he is cer- tainly not alone. At the risk of oversimplifying his argument, Cooper con- tends that learning how to resolve an ethical choice, one involving right versus wrong—and sometimes, right versus right—one must develop the skill of moral imagination: have the ability to produce a “movie in our minds” that takes into account the dynamics of the environment in which a choice must be made.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

TOOLS FOR ETHICS MANAGERS 55

Ethics Training

Ethics training was a cottage industry a short while ago. No longer: It is now a big-time enterprise in both the private and public sectors. Scarcely a large American corporation does not conduct some form of ethics training. And governments at all levels in the United States are spending ever more taxpay- ers’ dollars for ethics training.

Ethics training is typically different from ethics education in the approaches taken and the emphasis given to laws, rules, and regulations. Normative eth- ics theories such as utilitarianism, principle or duty-based ethics, and virtue theory are unlikely to be touched upon in ethics training. Even the concept of “moral reasoning” is unlikely to be addressed in a direct fashion, although some training employs moral reasoning exercises.

Compliance Training

One model dominates ethics training in American governments at the federal, state, and local levels—the compliance model. It is designed to regulate em- ployees’ conduct. As Carol Lewis (1991, 9) notes, this model is “a largely pre- scriptive, coercive, punitive, and even threatening route . . . to spur obedience to minimum standards and legal prohibitions.” The model emphasizes training in what the law says, what the rules mean, and what one needs to do to stay out of trouble. An alternative model is the integrity model. This model, April Hejka- Ekins (2001, 83) contends, attempts “to create an awareness of a public service ethos, ethical standards and values, plus a process of moral reasoning to inspire exemplary actions or ethical conduct. The emphasis is on the promotion of moral character with self-responsibility and moral autonomy as essential components.”

Law is the touchstone of public organizations. Thus, it is not surprising that the compliance model is so prominent. Nor is it surprising that the ethi- cal comfort level for public officials involves understanding the law and fol- lowing it. Still, there is much to be said for adopting the integrity model. Perhaps a more realistic expectation would be to encourage governments to combine the two models into what Lewis calls the “fusion” model. Other ethics experts who recommend a fusion approach are Grosenick (1995) and Truelson (1991). Truelson further argues that the fusion model should blend with the organizational culture. That is, ethics training would both influence and be influenced by the organizational culture, thus fostering a genuine and deep-seated culture of organizational integrity.

Effectiveness of Ethics Training

The steady growth in ethics training at all levels of government in the United States is prima facie evidence that it is believed effective in discouraging un-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

56 CHAPTER 3

ethical behavior and encouraging ethical behavior. Definitive evidence, how- ever, is difficult to find. There are few systematic studies of the effectiveness of ethics training in either the public or private sectors. The local government experience strongly suggests that training is effective. Among the fifty states, however, it is a much more problematic story due to the heavy emphasis placed on a compliance approach to ethics training and/or an inoculation approach, as exemplified in the state of Illinois’s ethics management initiative.

Inoculation training is a one-size-fits-all effort to test large numbers of employees about their knowledge of ethics laws and regulations. This approach reinforces a legalistic interpretation of ethics—that is, what you need to know to stay out of trouble.

One recent study of business professionals strongly supports the view that ethics training makes a difference. Valentine and Fleischman (2004, 381) report “significant statistical support for the notion that business persons employed in organizations that have formalized ethics training programs have more positive perceptions of their companies’ ethical context than do indi- viduals employed in organizations that do not.” They further note that em- ployees in business organizations that have a stronger ethical context are more satisfied with their work than employees in organizations with a weak ethical context.

The results of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) Executive Branch Employee Ethics Survey 2000 also confirm the value of ethics train- ing. Employees, especially supervisors, who receive more regular training than other employees (1) have a positive perception of the ethical culture of their agencies, and (2) perceive a lower incidence of unethical behavior. Eth- ics training is an important factor in building a strong ethical culture in fed- eral agencies.

We turn next to a more detailed look at the scope and type of training and make some judgments regarding the effectiveness of ethics training as a management tool, keeping in mind that the compliance model dominates ethics training.

City and County Experiences

Should formal or informal ethics management strategies be adopted? What is the best strategy to adopt? No one size fits all. Rather, managers need to adopt ethics management strategies—formal or informal—that seem to fit their organization. Although, if Berman, West, and Cava’s findings (1994) are proven valid over time, comprehensive strategies may be most effective.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

TOOLS FOR ETHICS MANAGERS 57

The cliché that “too much is not enough” may be an apt characterization of the size and scope of ethics strategies needed in the public sector. At the same time, there may be two larger, perhaps overlooked issues: (1) the fail- ure of managers to understand that ethics management is attainable, and (2) the political willingness of managers to exercise the leadership to put ethics management strategies into place.

To learn more, West and Berman (2004, 189–206) conducted a follow-up study in 2002 of all 554 U.S. cities with populations over 50,000. City man- agers and administrators from 195 cities responded. How much ethics train- ing is taking place? A great deal, with two of every three cities reporting that they do training. New employees are the target of most training in six of ten cities while four of ten cities reported that managers are also trained. A smaller number of cities said that ethics training is mandatory.

Subject Matter and Methods

Most municipal training focuses on the city’s ethics code and/or the state’s ethics law. This information typically includes (1) knowing what a conflict of interest is, (2) what “having financial interests” means in a day-to-day, practical sense, (3) the meaning of personal honesty, (4) how to address eth- ics complaints, and (5) due process. However, some cities go beyond these topics to include subjects such as deciding if something is unethical, coping with an ethical dilemma, evaluating ethical choices, and understanding the importance of transparency.

Live instruction, as opposed to computer-simulated or Web-based instruc- tion, is the most common method employed by ethics trainers. This method includes the use of hypothetical scenarios, realistic case materials, role play- ing, and lecturing. Web-based or other electronic means for delivering ethics instruction is used in fewer than 10 of every 100 cities.

Strategies

The ethics management strategies span sixteen elements, ranging from ex- emplary moral leadership by senior management to the use of an ethics hotline. Among all but one of these elements (requiring approval of outside activi- ties), cities are doing more than ever to discourage unethical behavior and encourage ethical behavior.

The most notable changes the researchers reported between 1992 and 2002 were in adopting a standard of conduct (up 27 percent), monitoring adher- ence to a code of ethics (up 26.5 percent), and requiring familiarity with the city’s code of ethics (up 24.5 percent). Also noteworthy is the fact that more

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

58 CHAPTER 3

cities were using ethics as a criterion in hiring and promotion and mandating ethics training for all employees. And, more cities were making counselors available for assistance in dealing with ethical issues.

These data suggest that cities are moving aggressively to put into place a wide array of ethics management elements. But what is the evidence that these elements, in part or in whole, are making a difference? West and Berman address this question by examining the correlates between the six- teen elements of ethics management and three important organizational variables—organizational culture, labor-management relations, and em- ployee productivity. Cities that offer ethics training report that they experi- ence improvements in their organizational culture, better labor-management relations, and higher employee productivity. West and Berman also find positive correlations between leadership strategies and improvements in the organizational culture, better labor-management relations, and higher employee productivity. Code-based strategies, those that stress adopting a code and monitoring adherence to it, are much less likely to be correlated with these three organizational variables.

Ethics Training in State Government

Ethics training in the states lags behind the federal and local government ethics training initiatives. Indeed, many states provide no ethics training while others offer very limited training. New Jersey, which has provided some online ethics training in years past, initiated a much more ambitious ethics training program in 2005 for all state employees in the executive branch. Among other things, the training includes mandatory annual briefings on ethics and standards of conduct for all employees.1 Texas offers an online slideshow presentation to familiarize employees with state ethics laws.

New York State does not mandate ethics training but does offer a Web- based training course that was brought online in late 2003. The course cov- ers the fundamentals of the state’s ethics laws. More than 900 people took the course in 2004. “Those who complete the course successfully can print out a certificate. At least two agencies have used the course as the basis for their own on-line training programs,” according to Walter C. Ayres, Director of Communications, New York State Ethics Commission.2 The commission staff also provided fifty-five personalized training sessions in 2004 that were attended by 2,027 employees.

State ethics training, where it does exist, is heavily compliance oriented. And, in some instances, the training consists of little more than a superficial effort to inoculate the workforce against errant behavior. Illinois and Califor- nia are examples. The State of Illinois, one of the newest entrants into the

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 6 . M

. E

. S

h a rp

e I n co

rp o ra

te d . A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .