Post(200 Word APA format) an explanation of the impact of ethical decision making on positive social change. Summarize specific examples of the ethical decisions you proposed throughout the course and explain how they might promote positive social change.
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TheRelativeEffectsofaSupervisoryEmphasisonEthicalBehaviorVersusPoliticalResponsiveness.pdf
Public Integrity, Summer 2007, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 265–283. © 2007 ASPA. All rights reserved.
ISSN 1099-9922/2007 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/PIN1099-9922090305
The Relative Effects of a Supervisory Emphasis on Ethical Behavior Versus Political Responsiveness SAMUEL J. YEAGER, W. BARTLEY HILDRETH, GERALD J. MILLER, AND JACK RABIN
Abstract
This exploratory study examines the effects of a supervisory emphasis on ethical guidance versus political responsiveness in a sample of public finance employees. Supervisors can encourage employees to act both ethically and responsively, or they can emphasize political responsiveness without setting ethical limits. Employees’ perceptions of the resulting balance affects their decision-making and their attitudes toward their job. Supervisors set the ethical tone in organizations.
Ethical behavior dominates public organization issues today. Recent actions on the part of highly visible leaders, including presidents, governors, senators, corporate executives, financial managers, accountants, stock analysts, and investment bankers, have spurred concerns about ethical management.
A call to address the “big questions” in public administration (Behn 1995) orients researchers to ethics and management. In this context, the big question is: “How does a public employee balance the overlap between ethical fairness and political responsiveness in doing the public’s business?” As a city manager put it, this issue is:
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one of the fundamental tensions or dilemmas with which we wrestle each and every day. How we operate is not one way to the exclusion of the other, but how we fairly balance both ethics and political responsiveness so that we produce quality pub- lic goods professionally and ethically. . . . The truth is that in a democratic society government is expected to be responsive to the political will of the people. Elected officials are the people’s representatives and their concerns must be ethically, profes- sionally and legally addressed.
Between the organization and the individual employee is the person with the central role of supervisor. A supervisor can provide ethical encouragement and guid- ance about political responsiveness. A powerful way to get employees to emphasize something is to build that factor into their performance evaluations. The purpose of this article is to answer the question of balance by examining the relative effects of ethical behavior and political responsiveness.
It is a truism of organizational life that the people at the top set the tone for their organization. In practice, supervisors usually set the tone for most employees at work. This article makes it clear that a supervisor’s ethical guidance has a strong impact on employees and their employing organizations.
Supervisors can either promote ethical behavior or undercut it. On the positive side, they can encourage employees to act ethically, promoting the professional application of nonpartisan professional competence and expertise. On the nega- tive side, supervisors can overemphasize political responsiveness, subordinating professionalism, task competence, and the appropriate application of expertise. This behavior may promote political bias or particularity and office politics over legitimate sources of direction (Brady 2003; Mayes and Allen 1977). Can supervisors do something about both factors—emphasizing both ethical behavior and political responsiveness? This study examines the possibility and the impacts.
The emphasis on political responsiveness is a matter of degree, not an either-or situation. Public managers, supervisors, and employees are expected to be politically responsive. To some extent, everyone expects political responsiveness. In fact, some may view unresponsiveness or insularity as inappropriate in public organizations, and perhaps even unethical. Being responsive does not make one automatically un- ethical, but political responsiveness can lead to ethical problems, hence the negative edge to this expectation (Jones and Euske 1991; Miller, Rabin, and Hildreth 1987). Once employees are told to be more politically responsive, they can allow external expectations to dominate their model of accountability, reducing the internal balance with ethical standards. Evidence exists that supervisors sometimes make ethically questionable demands, rewarding compliance and punishing noncompliance (Kanter 1977; Modic 1987; Posner and Schmidt 1984, 1987; Wahn 1993). The potential for this problem to occur is pervasive. It is present in the ENRON and similar scandals. In effect, it can lead to a “Nuremburg defense” on the part of the employee (“I did it because the boss told me to” or “I was afraid not to”).
This article adopts several approaches in examining the impact of supervisory ethical behavior on finance managers. First, it studies the individual separate effects of supervisors’ encouraging employees to act in an ethical manner and the degree of
An earlier version of this article, entitled “Men & Women Near the Top of the Or- ganization,” was presented at the 64th annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration, Washington, D.C., 2003.
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emphasis that supervisors place on political responsiveness in performance evalu- ations. Second, it examines the simultaneous effects of these alternative actions, investigating the interaction between ethical and responsive actions. Also discussed are the impacts of these alternatives on the ethical environment, employee decision- making, job attitudes, and perceptions of organizational variables.
Literature Review
Supervisory ethical encouragement and emphasis on political responsiveness may have different impacts on employee ethical perspectives, decision-making, and job attitudes and perceptions of the organization. The pertinent literature on these three subjects is examined below.
Ethical Perspectives. Employees see supervisors as the most important influence on ethics in their organizations (Posner and Schmidt 1984, 1987). The supervisor’s expectations are predicted to have a strong impact on an employee’s ability to cope with external ethics pressure. Supervisors are expected to set the ethical tone for their employees by communicating and enforcing expectations (Ball 2001; Drake, Meckler, and Stephens 2002; Lewis 1997; Menzel 1992, 1993a, 1993b, 1996; Schmidt and Posner 1986; West, Berman, Bonczek, and Kellar 1998).
Consequently, supervisors’ behavior in the form of encouraging employees to be- have ethically is expected to decrease perceptions of external ethics threats and increase positive perceptions of the internal ethical environment. The effects of an emphasis on political responsiveness in performance evaluations, however, are unknown. The literature provides little guidance on the question of whether discussion of political responsiveness during performance evaluations decreases perceptions of external ethics threats and increases positive perceptions of the internal ethics environment.
External Ethics Pressure. External ethics pressure may occur either in the mild form of someone asking for favors or as demands an employee might see as undue political pressure. It is expected that employee perceptions of external ethics pres- sure, particularly demands that an employee perceives as undue political pressure, would decline in response to a supervisor’s ethical encouragement (Jones and Euske 1991; Wittmer and Coursey 1996).
Internal Ethics Pressure. The ethical environment also includes peer pressure. Coworkers are powerful and influential social components of the working environ- ment. Their ethical behavior or personal integrity can affect employee expectations and actions (Lewis 1997; Menzel 1993a, 1993b; Schmidt and Posner 1982).
Coworkers and work groups respond to a supervisor in the same manner as individuals. If the supervisor strongly supports ethical behavior, this increases the probability that coworkers will act ethically and would affect perceptions of the group. An individual working for a superior who encourages ethical behavior is more likely to act ethically. Moreover, the work group can act as a buffer against a supervisor who does not emphasize ethical action or who overemphasizes political responsiveness at the cost of ethical action.
Ethics Stress. The pressure prompted by the types of demands coming from out- side sources and the peer pressure to act in a way other than the way the employee feels is ethical may be combined into a single idea. This single idea constitutes the concept of “ethical stress” as used in this report.
Employee Decision-Making. A supervisor may allow employees great latitude
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and considerable authority for decisions. The choice is a matter of employee ex- pertise, technology, organizational structure, and environmental stability, but the option is also a matter of the supervisor’s choice and emphasis (Denhardt 1998; Golembiewski 1998).
The opportunity to use professional judgment reflects discretion or having the freedom to make decisions on one’s own. In a specific yet common way, discretion occurs through delegation. In fact, limiting or taking away discretion might be viewed as showing distrust or lack of confidence in employees (Chen, Sawyers, and Williams 1997; Cigler 1990; Key 2002; MSPB 1990; Wilson 1994).
In public finance positions, in particular, employees face constant demands to use their professional judgment based on expertise. Finance officials have numerous opportunities for using discretion, and finance supervisors must prepare employees to exercise judgment on their own.
Supervisors may have two reasons for giving employees more discretion or wide latitude to make decisions on their own: because they believe the employees are competent and trustworthy, and because participation in decision-making can make employees feel a greater identification with the organization’s goals (Key 2002). Employee discretion, however, involves a degree of ethical risk for the supervisor and the employer. To minimize the risk, supervisors could make their ethical expec- tations clear to their employees. By providing ethics encouragement and allowing employee discretion, a supervisor shows faith in employee judgment to deal with such problems as outsiders asking for favors or other forms of political pressure (Chen, Sawyers, and Williams 1997; Cigler 1990; Hoivik 2002).
Supervisors also have an ethical responsibility to develop their employees (Drake, Meckler, and Stephens 2002; ICMA 2000; MacIntyre 1999). Therefore, when a supervisor emphasizes ethics, it is expected that a subordinate’s opportunity to use professional judgment will be enhanced. Conversely, supervisor emphasis on political responsiveness in employee evaluations is expected to reduce employee perceptions of the opportunity to use professional judgment. What an employee perceives as an overemphasis on political responsiveness may undercut a norm of nonpartisanship (Bonczek and Menzel 1994; Jones and Euske 1991; West et al. 1998).
Employee Job Attitudes and Perceptions of Organization Variables. Ethical stress, and the corresponding development of supervisory and subordinate relation- ships, influences job attitudes, and organizational perceptions.
Job Satisfaction. Nagy (2002), Schwepker (1999), and Shaefer (2002) indicate that job satisfaction relates positively to supervisory behaviors that include an em- phasis on ethical acts. Political pressure should result in lower job satisfaction if such pressure conflicts with ethical obligations reinforced by a supervisor (Cigler 1990; Nachmias and Rosenbloom 1977; Wilson 1994). Job satisfaction should increase when supervisors encourage their employees to act ethically.
Feedback Adequacy. Feedback adequacy concerns the supervisor’s reactions to and evaluations of job performance and relates positively to a wide range of employee attitudes and behaviors (Wright and Davis 2003; Yeager, Rabin, and Vocino 1985). Supervisors who provide ethical guidance to their employees may do so through
Employee discretion . . . involves a degree of ethical risk for the supervisor and the employer. To minimize the risk, supervisors could make their ethical expectations clear to their employees.
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feedback. Ethical guidance might include such actions as setting ethical standards, providing clear guidance on expectations, making employees aware of potential problems and how to deal with them, and reviewing and remedying of actual prob- lems (West et al. 1998). Adequate feedback can help employees cope with external pressure. Consequently, employee perceptions of feedback adequacy should vary directly with supervisor efforts to encourage employees to act ethically.
Most employees want to avoid ethical problems if they can (Fort 1998; Tjeltveit 2001). Actions that raise ethical questions about one’s work raise embarrassing questions about competence, professionalism, and trustworthiness (McMinn, Bu- chanan, Ellens, and Ryan 1999; Skaff and Milam 2000; Strom-Gottfried 2003). Prior communication including feedback is one strategy to avoid trouble (Krutz, Fleisher, and Bond 1998; Velasquez 1996; West et al. 1998). Consequently, it is expected that supervisor encouragement of ethical behavior will increase the likelihood that subordinates perceive feedback as adequate.
Likelihood of Changing Jobs. Ethics problems result in voluntary turnover (Saks, Mudrack, and Ashforth 1996; Schwepker 1999; Shaefer 2002). Therefore, individuals may be less likely to look for other jobs if they work in an ethical work environment. On the other hand, those who work in an environment that is ethically uncertain will be more likely to be looking for another position—as measured by the self-reported likelihood of changing jobs or the “intent to turnover” (Cigler 1990; Daley and Vasu 1998; Saks, Mudrack, and Ashforth 1996; Schwepker 1999; Shaefer 2002; Wilson 1994).
In summary, it is expected that a supervisor who encourages employees to behave ethically will have a positive impact on employee perceptions, including the ethical environment (both internal and external), decision-making (including opportunity to use professional judgment), job attitudes and perceptions of organizational vari- ables (job satisfaction, likelihood of changing jobs, and how much emphasis the supervisor places on political responsiveness in their performance evaluation). In contrast, it is expected that a supervisory emphasis on political responsiveness will have a negative impact on each of these variables and on perceived supervisory encouragement of ethical behavior.
Research Methods
This article reports findings from a survey of public-sector financial professionals. The investigation asked what degree of overlap between ethical action and political responsiveness the supervisor emphasized in directing employees. It also examined the consequences of the varying degrees of overlap for perceptions and actions by employees.
Figure 1 illustrates the design for analyzing each of these two perspectives on supervisory ethical guidance and their expected impacts.
It was expected that both supervisor encouragement of employee ethical behavior and supervisory emphasis on political responsiveness in performance evaluations would affect perceptions of the ethical environment, decision-making, job attitudes, and perceptions of organizational variables, albeit in different ways. An ethical em- phasis should have positive impacts, whereas an emphasis on political responsiveness in performance evaluations could have negative impacts. The theoretical basis for these expectations came from a synthesis of existing research.
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The findings presented here come from a sampling frame generalizable to gov- ernment finance managers. The sample consisted of a 20 percent stratified sample of Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) members (n = 1,512), a 20 percent sample from the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP) mailing list (251), 366 respondents to an earlier survey of financial professionals (Miller, Rabin, and Hildreth 1987), and 98 top-level financial executives working in state government.
Data were collected using a mail-back survey. The variables used in the study are summarized in the Appendix. The questionnaire was mailed in early June 2001. A reminder card was sent ten days after the initial mailing to enhance the response rate (Yeager 1998, 874–875); additional reminders might have increased the response rate marginally but were not used because of tight budget constraints. Of the 2,227 cases in the sample, incomplete addresses resulted in 1,917 surveys being mailed. Of these, 389 were returned by respondents, and 186 were returned unopened due to incorrect addresses. These factors resulted in an effective response rate of 22.47 percent. To focus on full-time financial managers, the analysis excluded surveys from twenty college professors, resulting in a working subset of 369 cases.
Many of the questions asked about individual experiences (ethical concerns, for instance) and about coworkers’ behavior and employer expectations. To address and reduce any possible reluctance to answer such questions or to respond to the survey at all, the cover letter gave assurances that the researchers would protect the anonymity of the respondents. It stated that the results would be reported only in summary form and that specific individuals or the organizations that employ them would not be identified.
Three factors affected the response rate in a negative way. First, many addresses for identifiable respondents to the previous survey were out of date. Second, the mailing addresses on the JFMIP list were partially out of date due to the flux fol- lowing the change of administrations in Washington. Finally, the survey instrument was very lengthy and difficult to complete.
The response rate affects the generalizability of the findings. This is only a sample, and, as such, it may or may not fully reflect the response pattern of the universe of public finance managers, because there is no reliable census of government finance managers. The study under-represents federal government finance managers because the changes in the Joint Financial Management Improvement Project, a source for respondent addresses, following a presidential election. Finally, the survey may represent finance managers most intensely interested in the questions asked about ethical action, career progression, and general questions about organization and management. These interests may bias the results in some unknown way.
Admittedly, a response rate of 22.47 percent raises issues about generalizability and makes the results exploratory in nature. The sample best represents local gov- ernment finance managers, since there are far more of them among the respondents. Exactly how this random sample of local government finance mangers compares to the full membership in the GFOA is unknown. Given the respondent character- istics, these finance managers do look like those the authors regularly encounter in consulting and at professional conferences.
Respondent Characteristics. The respondents were located in forty-eight of the fifty states and the District of Columbia (Delaware and Vermont yielded no respondents). Most of them were Caucasian (95.1 percent), and more than 61 per- cent were male. Inclusion of women in the sample was significant because there
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is some evidence that men and women have different ethical orientations (Eicher, Stuhldreher, and Stuhldreher 2002). The respondents’ average age was 48.17 years. More than four-fifths were over 40 (81.3 percent), and the standard deviation was 8.81 years. Respondents were well educated, and 51 percent had a master’s degree or better. Only 4.9 percent did not have a college degree.
The managers participating in the study were seasoned, experienced profes- sionals. Most of them (91.8 percent) had either a major role or some involvement in budgeting. Career tenure in financial management averaged 18.52 years, with a standard deviation of 10.05 years. Tenure in the current job averaged 6.93 years, with a standard deviation of 6.78 years. At the time they completed the survey, 26.4 percent had completed one year of service or less in their current position, and 79.7 percent had ten years or more of service in financial management. Finally, 74.4 percent were currently working in local government, 13 percent in state govern- ment, 7 percent in federal government, and the rest in other types of organizations (universities and schools, for example).
Coding Scheme and Statistical Analysis
Examination of the frequency distribution of employee perceptions of supervisor encouragement of ethical behavior found that 69.2 percent of the respondents had the highest possible response (a response of 5 on a range of 1 to 5). Ethical encourage- ment was used as a grouping variable in t-tests to determine whether the differences between the means of the variables studied were statistically significant. The groups consisted of cases whose responses fell into either the “high” or “low” category of supervisory ethical encouragement (as defined in the Appendix).
The study also examined the frequency distribution for supervisory emphasis on political responsiveness in employee evaluations. Altogether, 69.1 percent of respondents had the lowest possible score on political responsiveness (a response of 4 on a range of 4 to 9), and the rest had higher political responsiveness scores (the Appendix details the original coding method and the high-low coding scheme used in the statistical analyses). A “high-low” coding scheme emphasizes that the supervisor needs to communicate a clear, unambiguous message about what is an appropriate degree of responsiveness; otherwise subordinates will wonder where the supervisor stands and how they should behave. Dummy variables were constructed in order to incorporate the resulting nominal data, for example “high-low,” into the regression analyses.
Supervisory emphasis on political responsiveness was used as a grouping variable in t-tests to determine whether the differences between the means of six dependent variables were statistically significant. The groups consisted of cases whose responses fell into either the “high” or “low” category of supervisory emphasis on political responsiveness. Regression analyses were used to determine the simultaneous ef- fects of supervisor ethical encouragement and supervisor emphasis on political responsiveness during performance evaluations.
Findings and Analysis
Findings regarding the impact of supervisors on ethical behavior and political re- sponsiveness are reported below in three separate sections. The first covers supervi-
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sor encouragement of employees to act ethically. The second focuses on supervisor emphasis of political responsiveness in employee evaluations. Each of these two sections reports findings about the independent effects of the respective condition, that is, the effects of one without considering the other. The supervisor’s emphasis is the independent variable, and employee perceptions are the dependent variables. The third section covers the simultaneous effects of the two independent variables and probe the effects for the actual point where the variables no longer overlap.
Encouragement of Acting Ethically. The responding financial managers en- countered supervisory behavior that ranged from low to high encouragement of subordinates to act ethically; scores ranged from 1 or low to 5 or high on a Likert scale (see Table 1). Although nearly seven-tenths of the respondents were in the strongly agree category (69.2%), a significant number (slightly less than a third) give their supervisor a less than optimal score on this critical behavior.
One test of the basic proposition that supervisory ethical encouragement of subor- dinates has a positive impact on employees’ perceptions of their ethical environment, decision-making, their job, and organizational processes requires measurement of the deviation from a maximum score on this variable. Any deviation suggests that what a supervisor encourages has a negative impact on employee perceptions and action through an increase in the external ethical pressure reported by the employee. Significant differences in this test would provide powerful evidence of the importance of supervisors’ emphasizing ethics.
External Ethical Threats and Perceptions of Peer Ethical Behavior. Supervi- sory ethical encouragement of subordinates results in less perceived external ethical pressure or threat, and more positive perceptions of peers’ ethical behavior. When a supervisor exerted a high level of ethical encouragement, the supervisor’s subordi- nates had significantly lower perceptions of external ethics pressure (see Table 2). Supervisor ethical encouragement of subordinates resulted in subordinates’ having significantly higher perceptions of their peers’ standards of personal integrity. These findings supported the expectations described in the literature review.
Employee Decision-Making. Personnel whose supervisors provided a high level of encouragement for employees to act in an ethical manner perceived that they had a significantly higher opportunity to exercise professional judgment (see Table 2). This finding supported the a priori expectation for this variable.
Employee Job Attitudes and Perceptions of Organization Variables. Supervisory ethics encouragement results in a significantly higher level of job satisfaction overall (see Table 2). Those who experienced high encouragement reported significantly higher job satisfaction, perceived feedback adequacy, and a significantly lower
TABLE 1 Supervisor Encourages Ethical Behavior of Employees
Response N Percent
1 Strongly disagree 4 1.1
2 9 2.5
3 24 6.7
4 74 20.6
5 Strongly agree 249 69.2
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likelihood of voluntarily changing jobs. These differences were consistent with the expectations described in the literature. The level of supervisory emphasis on politi- cal responsiveness that employees perceived during performance evaluations did not differ significantly between those reporting high and low levels of supervisory ethical encouragement
These results indicate that supervisor encouragement of ethical behavior has an impact on employee perceptions of their ethical environment, decision-making, job attitudes, and perceptions of organizational processes. The results reveal that anything less than a crystal-clear position on the supervisor’s part has a negative effect on employee perceptions of organizational life and increases the probability of an employee’s voluntarily leaving the organization. In short, anything less than unambiguous encouragement through words and deeds is detrimental to the em- ploying organization.
Emphasis on Political Responsiveness in Employee Evaluations. Performance evaluations can lead to rewards, such as promotions, pay increases, and choice assign- ments. What supervisors emphasize in the performance evaluation process produces results (Key 2002; Moberg 1981, 2000; West et al. 1998). Here the impact of super- visory emphasis on political responsiveness is examined in further detail.
Most of the supervisors in the survey, nearly 70 percent, placed relatively little emphasis on political responsiveness in employee performance evaluations. This finding provides a basis for a dual analysis of the impact of political responsiveness on the perceptions of the organization reported here. Specifically, two groups of cases are identified—those who perceived that their supervisors emphasized political responsiveness, and those who perceived no such emphasis (see Table 3).
The Ethical Environment. Employees whose supervisors placed any emphasis on political responsiveness in performance evaluations (see Table 4) perceived a
TABLE 2 Impact of Supervisor Ethical Encouragement on Perceptions of Ethics
Variable
Low supervisor
encouragement High supervisor encouragement T
Ethics
External ethics pressure 5.79 4.84 –4.495*
Coworkers’ ethical behavior 4.05 4.53 5.286*
Decision-making
Opportunity to use professional judgment 4.25 4.54 2.770*
Employee job attitudes and perceptions of organization variables
Job satisfaction 16.67 19.54 6.654*
Feedback adequacy 8.37 10.78 6.721*
Likelihood of changing jobs 2.69 1.85 –5.169*
Supervisor emphasis on political responsiveness in evaluations 4.70 4.46 –1.723
*Significant at the 0.05 level or better.
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higher degree of external ethics pressure than did their counterparts in a low politi- cal responsiveness environment. They felt that they received less encouragement to behave ethically than their colleagues in a low responsiveness environment. Regard- less of how much emphasis was placed on responsiveness, employees did not differ in their opinions about the ethical behavior of their peers.
Employee Decision-Making. Employees who worked for high political responsive- ness supervisors perceived fewer opportunities to use their professional judgment (see Table 4).
Employee Job Attitudes and Perceptions of Organizational Processes. Job satisfac- tion and perceived feedback adequacy were significantly lower when a supervisor emphasized responsiveness (see Table 4). In addition, the employee’s likelihood of
TABLE 3 Supervisor Emphasis on Political Responsiveness in Performance Evaluations
Response N Percent
4 No emphasis 255 69.1
5 Low emphasis 33 9.8
6 20 5.9
7 13 3.9
8 14 4.2
9 High emphasis 2 0.6
TABLE 4 Impact of Supervisor Stress on Political Responsiveness
in Performance Evaluations
Variable Low supervisor
emphasis High supervisor
emphasis T
Ethics
External ethics pressure 4.89 5.73 –3.456*
Internal ethics environment (1 + 2) 9.03 8.69 4.086*
(1) Supervisor encourages ethical behavior of employees 4.63 4.28 3.477*
(2) People in my work unit demonstrate high standards of personal integrity 4.40 4.42 0.820
Decision-making
Opportunity to use profes- sional judgment 4.50 4.33 1.649*
Employee job attitudes and perceptions of organization variables
Job satisfaction 18.95 17.92 2.069*
Feedback adequacy 10.32 9.24 2.547*
Likelihood of changing job 1.94 2.52 –3.424*
*Significant at the .001 level or better. Combined scores may not total due to rounding.
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voluntarily making a job change within the next year was significantly higher when the supervisor emphasized responsiveness.
Simultaneous Ethical Encouragement and Emphasis on Political Responsive- ness. Given the power of the independent effects, the next step was to examine the simultaneous effects of supervisory encouragement of ethical action and political responsiveness. These analyses indicate that supervisory encouragement of em- ployees to act ethically overwhelms any simultaneous supervisory emphasis on political responsiveness.
Four major impacts warrant comment. First, supervisory encouragement de- creased the level of perceived ethical pressure from outside the organization and increased perceptions of how ethically coworkers behave (see Table 5). Second, employee perceptions of opportunities to exercise discretion or to make professional decisions on their own increased under the same conditions. Third, employee job satisfaction and feedback adequacy increased, and their likelihood of voluntarily changing jobs decreased when the supervisor provided ethical encouragement.
Supervisory emphasis on political responsiveness increased the perceived level of external ethical pressure and the employee’s likelihood of changing jobs. To avoid creating undesirable consequences, a supervisor acts responsibly as a buffer to decrease external ethical pressure on employees rather than increase it. From an organizational point of view, anything that increases ethical pressure and voluntary turnover of employees is undesirable.
TABLE 5 Summary of Findings: Simultaneous Effects of Independent
Variables with Full Range of Variance
Dependent variables
Independent variables
Supervisor encourages ethical behavior of
employees— expectation (beta)
Supervisor emphasis on political responsiveness in performance evaluations—
expectation (beta)
Ethics
External ethics pressure Decrease (–.294) Increase (.144)
Ethics of coworkers Increase (.229) Decrease X
Decision-making
Opportunity to use profes- sional judgment Increase (.167) Decrease X
Employee job attitudes and perceptions of organization variables
Job satisfaction Increase (.389) Decrease X
Feedback adequacy Increase (.347) Decrease X
Feedback timeliness Increase (.259) Decrease X
Likelihood of changing jobs Decrease (–.312) Increase (.138)
Note: X = Excluded from the analysis.
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Conclusions
This article examined the impacts of two different priorities that supervisors control. Supervisors can emphasize either ethical behavior or political responsiveness during performance evaluations of employees. Findings here suggest that, given a choice, supervisors should emphasize encouraging their employees to act ethically. If what supervisors say to their subordinates has the impact this study has uncovered, what are the impacts of a supervisor’s actual behavior? What happens when a supervisor says and does different things?
As expected, encouragement of employee ethical behavior affects employee perceptions of the ethical environment, decision-making, job attitudes, and percep- tions of organizational variables. When ethical behavior is encouraged, the employee perceives lower external ethics pressure and higher coworker ethical standards. As expected, where supervisor ethical encouragement is high, perceived opportunities for employees to use their professional judgment are high. In essence, they are equipped to deal with ethical threats despite being in high discretion positions.
The simultaneous-effects model justifies advice for supervisors and subordinates. Supervisors should realize that they have a considerable amount of power to influ- ence their employees to behave ethically. Political responsiveness, in the context of an evaluation of employee performance, is potentially threatening and best avoided. Supervisor behavior matters—especially ethical encouragement or guidance.
The big question framing this article is: How does a public employee balance, or handle the overlap between, ethical fairness and political responsiveness in doing the public’s business? The analysis presented here reinforces the point that there is significance in first examining the separate effects of each of the two competing values. Both ethical fairness and political responsiveness have significant individual effects. As shown in the preceding paragraphs, they affect one another. Specifically, employees in a high political responsiveness environment perceive a higher degree of external ethics pressure than do their counterparts in a low political responsive- ness environment.
This research addresses the simultaneous effects of ethical encouragement and political responsiveness. Results indicate that a supervisor’s effort to encourage em- ployees to act ethically overwhelms any simultaneous emphasis on political responsive- ness. Emphasizing political responsiveness significantly increases perceived external ethical pressure and the likelihood of the employee’s voluntarily changing jobs.
Supervisors matter. Ethical encouragement is good leadership. Key people set the tone for the organization. For most employees, the supervisor represents the larger organization. By encouraging ethical behavior, the supervisor decreases the amount of external pressure on subordinates. In decision-making, ethical encouragement seems to create greater opportunities for subordinates to exercise discretion. At the same time, their job satisfaction increases, their feedback tends to be more adequate, and the probability of their voluntarily changing jobs decreases.
The emphasis that supervisors place on encouraging subordinates to make ap- propriate responses matters. Appropriate responses to demands for preferential treatment from citizens and interest groups play a fundamental role in managing a public organization successfully and positively. Subordinates respond to the supervisor’s emphasis on even-handedness with confidence in their coworkers and an optimistic and constructive approach to their work. Organizational success
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depends on supervisors and the behaviors they choose. Supervisor success stems from an emphasis on merit and the rejection of biased responsiveness to external and internal claims in fiscal affairs.
It has traditionally been maintained that supervisory and organizational success stems from an emphasis on merit in evaluating employee performance. Emphasis on merit is the opposite of an emphasis on political responsiveness. This article shows that a supervisor’s emphasis on ethical behavior by employees is even more important than an emphasis on either political responsiveness or merit. Only ethical guidance yields consistently positive work outcomes.
This article does not address everything that has an impact on the ethical be- havior of employees. Other issues abound. For instance, finance managers were not asked to specifically address their interactions with elected officials. Nor did the study investigate how elected officials view the issues of ethical guidance and political responsiveness in their domains. In this regard, some chief financial of- ficers are elected, but the study was not designed to compare the experiences and perceptions of elected and appointed CFOs. Future research can examine these important questions.
Being responsive does not automatically make one unethical. Nevertheless, political responsiveness can easily lead to ethical problems. Supervisors can guard against this problem by providing guidance to their subordinates. Just as adults talk to children about the dangers of drugs, supervisors should talk with employees about handling political responsiveness in an ethical manner.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Samuel J. Yeager, professor of public administration at the Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs, Wichita State University, teaches organization theory and behavior, ethics, and computer applications. E-mail: [email protected].
W. Bartley Hildreth is the Regents Distinguished Professor of Public Finance, and director of the Kansas Public Finance Center, at the Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs and the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University.
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During the fall of 2005, he served as the Fulbright visiting research scholar in public policy at McGill University in Montreal. E-mail: [email protected].
Gerald J. Miller, professor in the Graduate Department of Public Administration at Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, Newark Campus, teaches pub- lic budgeting and finance. E-mail: [email protected].
Jack Rabin recently passed away. Jack was a professor of public administration and public policy at Pennsylvania State University in Harrisburg. He was the author/edi- tor/coeditor of more than thirty books and seven journals. In addition, he was executive editor of the Dekker Public Administration and the Dekker Public Policy book series of 104 titles and the Dekker Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy.
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Appendix Variable Names and Questionnaire Items
Variable name Questionnaire items
Independent variables
Supervisor encourages ethical behavior of employees
My supervisor of my work unit encourages employees to act in an ethical manner. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree) [For high-low coding: 5 = 1 and else equals 2]
Supervisor emphasis on political responsiveness in performance evaluations
Which FOUR of the following factors do you think counts the most when your supervisor evaluates your perfor- mance? Put the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 next to the items that count the most, the second most, the third most, and the fourth most, respectively. Only list the top four. How much effort I put into my job; My concern about the financial viability of my employing organization; How well I meet the budget for my office; My effort to provide quality services to clients/customers; My ability to manage subordinates; How efficiently I handle my job responsibil- ities; My attitude toward my work; How well I get along with my supervisor; Office politics; My responsiveness to elections and political forces. [Coded 5 if either of the two items in italics (not italicized in original) were selected as the first most important factor, 4 if either was selected as the second factor, 3 if either was selected as the third factor, 2 if either was selected as fourth factor; with all other responses coded 1 regardless of ranking. Therefore, the highest possible political responsiveness score is 11 (5 + 4 + 1 + 1). The lowest possible score is 4 (1 + 1 + 1 + 1). [For high-low coding: 4 = 0 and else equals 1.]
Dependent variables
External ethics pressure People outside my work unit ask work unit members for special treatment. There is undue political pressure on my work unit. (Each question coded: 1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree) [Reverse coded and summed]
Internal ethics environment This is the sum of two variables: (1) Supervisor encour- ages ethical behavior of employees; and (2) Coworkers’ ethical behavior
Coworkers’ ethical behavior The people in my work unit demonstrate high standards of personal integrity. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree)
Opportunity to use professional judgment
I have the opportunity to use my own professional judg- ment/initiative. (1 = To a small extent, 5 = To a great extent)
Job satisfaction includes five commonly identified dimen- sions, including satisfaction with the job itself, satisfac- tion with promotion opportunities, satisfaction with pay, satisfaction with coworkers, and satisfaction with the supervisor. These dimensions form an overall job satisfac- tion scale (Nagy 2002).
Total job satisfaction Sum of the following five job satisfaction facets.
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Variable name Questionnaire items
Satisfaction with supervisor How satisfied are you with your supervisor? (1 = Very Dissatisfied, 5 = Very Satisfied)
Satisfaction with job itself How satisfied are you with your job itself? (1 = Very Dissatisfied, 5 = Very Satisfied)
Satisfaction with promotion op- portunities
How satisfied are you with your promotion opportunities? (1 = Very Dissatisfied, 5 = Very Satisfied)
Satisfaction with pay How satisfied are you with your pay? (1 = Very Dissatisfied, 5 = Very Satisfied)
Satisfaction with coworkers How satisfied are you with your coworkers? (1 = Very Dissatisfied, 5 = Very Satisfied)
Feedback adequacy My supervisor gives me adequate information on how well I am performing. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree)
Likelihood of changing jobs What is the likelihood of your making a job change during the next year? (1 = Not Likely, 5 = Very Likely
Likelihood of changing jobs or intent to turn over is the best predictor of voluntary turnover (Reilly 1996).
Demographic variables
State Respondents asked to respond to an open-ended question by filling in their city, state, and zip code.
Gender Gender (Circle one): Male Female
Race An open-ended question.
Age Year of Birth [2001—cited year]
Education Education: Some College; Bachelor’s; Some Post-Bache- lor’s; Master’s; Some Post Master’s; Doctorate
Relative career tenure Year your career in budgeting/financial management began? [2001—cited year]
Current job tenure Starting year of current position? [2001—cited year]
Current employer Please list employer type
Involvement in budgeting How involved are you in the operating budget process? (Circle one) Major Responsibility, Some Responsibility, No Responsibility
