Ethical Behavior in Public Organizations: Rule and Leadership - Essay Sample

Introduction

Ethics is a significant element of good governance and can potentially influence public trust in various forms of government. Past studies have identified numerous factors that can transform the code of conduct in the organization, among which, the role that leadership plays. Indeed, the ethical traits of leaders have attracted global attention as various leaders continue to be adversely mentioned in integrity violations and high profile moral cases (Downe, Cowell, & Morgan, 2016).

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Current have identified a myriad of essential outcomes that emanate from ethical leadership such as increased readiness of employees to use voice to enhance organizational performance, increased employee self-awareness and job satisfaction, as well as, increased trust in the organizational leadership and management both from the public and employees (Menzel, 2015). Further, extra effort has been enacted to define necessary behaviours and actions that leaders can pursue to improve ethics. Examples of such behaviours and actions include a unique leadership style that can inculcate a culture of maintaining good conduct. However, investigating the effects of leadership and its role in fostering ethical behaviour have been poorly conducted, particularly in the public sector. As such, there is inadequate testing of the theory against empirical study compared with business ethics. Besides, although it is widely accepted that leaders can have significant influence through their conduct, character, and regulating the behaviours of others, there are relatively scanty studies that examine the causal relationships between leaders, ethics regulations frameworks, as well as, the resulting behaviour standards. Wright, Hassan and Park (2016) argued that there is little theory regarding the most appropriate combination of compliance based and value-based policies.

As such, there is a need to bridge this gap by exploring the roles that leaders play in transforming the decent performance of local governments in public corporations across the globe. Principally, the local government is a critical focus for the contemporary ethics study because the local jurisdictions in different regions of the world have constitutional responsibilities and mandates for disbursing an appropriate amount of public funds.

References

Downe, J., Cowell, R., & Morgan, K. (2016). What determines ethical behaviour in public organizations: Is it rules or leadership? Public Administration Review, 76(6), 898-909.

Menzel, D. C. (2015). Research on ethics and integrity in public administration: Moving forward, looking back. Public Integrity, 17(4), 343-370.

Wright, B. E., Hassan, S., & Park, J. (2016). Does a public service ethic encourage ethical behaviour? Public service motivation, ethical leadership and the willingness to report ethical problems. Public Administration, 94(3), 647-663.