Masters level short paper

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Review of Contemporary Philosophy Vol. 14, 2015, pp. 57–62, ISSN 1841-5261

ETHICAL VALUES IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

DOINA POPESCU LJUNGHOLM

[email protected] University of Pitești

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses the major trends in scholarship about the status of public sector ethics, ethical decision-making for actors in the public sphere, the ethical aspect of public administration managers’ activity, and adequate institutional- ization of ethics policies. The findings of this study have implications for the ethical grounds of public sector, ethics reforms and policies in the public administration, and the influences and forces impacting decision makers who are confronted with ethical decisions. Keywords: public service ethics; decision making; decision; policy

1. Introduction I am specifically interested in how previous research investigated the norma- tive grounds of administrative ethics, numerous sources of ethical values and behavioral norms (Petcu, 2014), and the decision-making process in the sphere of ethics policies. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the current literature by examining the ethical function and liability of bureaucrats, the advantages of powerful ethical grounds in public sector, the relevance of ethics for public managers, and ethical decision making in public administration.

2. The Status of Public Sector Ethics Ethics raises the problem of good conduct. The question of ethics emerges in the public sector on account of its subordinate character. Public administration ethics covers relations among politicians, but particularly between the latter and the concerned parties in the outside world: elected public servants, the media, public sector entities, and individuals. It makes almost no sense to impel codes of values and ethics if public servants who will have to imple- ment them do not bank on them or identify no concern in them. The burden

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of administrative culture and of social sources may be reduced by instruction in ethics. An ethical scheme built on duty to the government within the fabric of the constitution, the law and the established values of the political system is in the service of citizens by providing them quality services. (Gow, 2005) Decision makers employ a scheme to classify and acknowledge ethical claims. Universals are a route to comprehending ethical reasoning (Lăzăroiu, 2015) in numerous conceptualizations. Public sector entities can successfully back ethical conduct by clearly relating it to moral responsibilities to organi- zational and trained workmates, along with duties to citizens. It is more effective to accord emotion and reason when feasible, admit that both are active, and stimulate the ethically responsible individual to bring both to assist in making moral judgments. People approach a range of instrumental determinants when making an ethical decision and a concrete one is based on the interplay among these determinants. (Lewis, 2008) Ethical decision making is the operation whereby citizens employ their moral essence to establish whether a particular case or matter is right or wrong. iIn the public sphere, any occurrence of ethical misbehavior tends bring about negative publicity and deprivation of public and employee confidence. In numerous entities, the code of behavior or an ethics code functions as the vehicle for announcing those requirements with leader values and conducts acting as the ground for organizational norms. (Pelletier and Bligh, 2006)

Deregulation of ethics rules is politically unfeasible and requires further- ance of the general citizenship. The reality that ethics schemes are frequently scandal-driven brings about the idea of symbolic approaches, which at best results in the acceptance of novel procedures. As far as the strength of ethics mechanisms is involved (de Beaufort and Summers, 2014), leadership and receptiveness are considered the most adequate tools. Implementation and supervising of ethics schemes is a barrier impeding the institution of an operative ethics policy. Personnel’s grasps of ethical environment, principled culture and leadership patterns can be associated with workers’ positions and conduct. Ethical behavior of bureaucrats relies heavily on the current organi- zational, established and legal aspects. Conventional standards and particular ethics rules and principles (Nica and Potcovaru, 2015) are required for func- tionaries. The public services should determine and stress the collective ethical values that they apportion with other spheres. (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012) Activity in public administration increases the demand for ethical decision when confronting ethical quandaries that entail morally unsatisfactory choices or trade-offs (proper government is an ethical undertaking). Ethics requires knowledgeable reflection and separate assessment, and ethical managers are relied on to make sound judgments. Ethics and legitimate professional success harmonize in public administration. Public managers’ confidence, identity, and competence for decision making and innovation (Nica and Potcovaru,

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2014) are intertwined in ethics: public service is the society’s agent for handl- ing intricacy and mutuality. Managers should tackle refined ethical thinking (Mulligan, 2015) and employ strict ethical criteria to judgments and conduct. Public trust is associated with public understandings of ethical practice: energies transfer to enhancing the ethical attitude and standing of public sector for the purpose of raising public trust. Appreciation for democratic mechanisms, public confidence, and the undertaking of legal conformity ethically compel the bureaucrats. (Lewis and Gilman, 2005)

3. The Ethical Aspect of Public Administration Managers’ Activity Ethics is an internal assemblage of moral codes and analysis established on societal and prescriptive norms. Ethical appropriateness with reference to a manager’s conduct is frequently assessed in connection with abstract and extremely optimistic notions concerning citizen’s prescriptive tenets of how managers ought to act. The ordinary approach in trying to handle the ethical liability of bureaucrats has been the announcement of codes, schemes, and other guidance criteria. Leaders in public administration are required to preserve a degree of morality and probity which deals with the concerns of society while simultaneously indicates personal accountability, sensitivity, and honesty. (McDougle, 2007) Making ethical operations a prime concern covers performing with probity or being reliable, and honing the well- organized operation of public entities. Effective ethics are backed by political mechanisms which support ethics schemes from the configuration of the policy or tool to its carrying out. Ethics schemes should raise public trust in the government, establish the high degree of rectitude of most of government officials, prevent conflicts of interest from occurring, as official undertakings would be exposed to public inspection, and better empower citizens to assess the efficiency of bureaucrats considering their outside financial concerns. The ineffectiveness to adequately manage the intrinsic grounds of harmful work conduct and unethical behavior may be considered as a chief barrier for managers in public entities. Citizens progressively are likely to distrust prac- tices where public entities supervise their own ethical behavior. (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012)

A more intricate operational setting in which public servant managers perform is supplying productive basis for ethical quandaries to emerge. The constraints and intricacies intrinsic in the public administration enterprise have caused the circumstances for ethical quandaries to thrive. The latter tend to trouble public sector managers as they strive to select choices amongst rival series of standards, values and tenets. An organizational culture that furthers confidence and allows public managers to design ethical conduct is one in which organizational individuals will be stimulated to make ethical judgments.

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If public entities are to entrench ethical practices into their culture, mech- anisms and arrangement (Lăzăroiu, 2013), there is a powerful function for leadership in furthering this process. That would assist bureaucrats in grasping the undertakings they tackle and in elucidating ethical quandaries. (Cranston et al., 2014) The employment of a public position to follow any particular schedule is intolerable ethically in the public sector. Public man- agers are ethically constrained to perform via their public position for the benefit of the public concern, promoting the latter, which requires nonpar- tisanship. Ethical standards are inspirations to performance, operationalizing values and prompting conduct that are appropriate for public service. The organizational environment of public managers impacts decision making, per- formance, and ethical inquiry. Both public reasons and managerial routines have ethical facets. Accountability for ethical decision making is at the dis- posal of individual managers. The ethical public manager approaches unbiased receptiveness to master an ethical deadlock or elucidate an ethical quandary. Ethical standards and philosophical sounding panels maintain public managers in accord with public service. (Lewis and Gilman, 2005)

4. Ethical Decision-making for Actors in the Public Sphere What makes public administration ethics distinct (Nica, 2015) is that every citizen in a specific jurisdiction has an interest in how bureaucrats act. En- hancing ethical decision making in the workplace makes a shift to the function of public sector management. Openness is an essential component in the pre- servation of ethical soundness in public administration: the more unambiguous the undertakings of governments are, the more significant their ethical and administrative criteria. In any society, regardless how satisfactorily it routinely operates, ethics are significant and ethical criteria in public administration should be regarded as potentially insecure, being reliant upon the quality, view and conduct of the government in charge and the criteria of management established by the top of public administration. (Briggs, 2008) The require- ment of an ethical decision maker to express interest for the public good can be related to transformational leadership. The ethical requirement of public administration managers to regard workmates and subalterns with consider- ation and equity can be related to the transformational values of proving caution in decision-making (Mircică, 2014) and supplying motivational in- spiration to followers. The prevalent requirements of public managers to be more ethically and morally accountable may be partly responsible for a set- ting where a structured public administration leadership approach is embraced. (McDougle, 2007)

In regard to public sector ethics, the quality of leadership is of outstand- ing relevance (Popescu-Ljungholm, 2015a), being the most significant factor

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in the battle against corruption and unethical conduct. The demand to handle ethics relies on the degree of trust in the public sector. The relevance of good governance and ethical administration relates to the ordinary public manage- ment discourse which is emphasized by public servants and functionaries. Public administration personnel should make the right ethical decisions in all circumstances and should handle the fact that the public sector is not a restricted entity. The public services cannot depend exclusively on long-run workplace socialization to make sure that personnel grasp and implement public service ethical criteria. (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012) Ethical public service requests that bureaucrats interact with all ethical views. The public manager employs public command and tremendous government capacity to support judgments, and is frequently on the receiving end of ethical decisions. A compliant manager may not regard all ethical problems as equivalent and responsive to a separate, unchanging judgment. Ethical managers utilize sensible selectivity among liabilities (Tognato, 2015) and take their disputes in a just manner. Following a public schedule, ethical managers expansively interact for the purpose not to enable propensity in interpretation to soften their perspective or preference in handling slip into their conduct. Transparent ethical criteria provide public personnel more workplace self-determination by making sure that they know the criteria to which they will be held respon- sible. (Lewis and Gilman, 2005)

5. Conclusions The analysis presented in this paper contributes to research on the ethical tendencies within public administration settings, the ethical aspects of public sector, the bedrocks of ethical norms and conduct, and ethical liabilities of public managers. The implications of the developments outlined in the pre- ceding sections of this paper suggest a growing need for a research agenda on ethical and moral values in public service (Popescu Ljungholm, 2015b), ethical norms and behavior in public administration, and ethics schemes in public management.

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