Global brand website assignment Individually, select a global .docx

Global brand website assignment
Individually, select a global brand that has localized country
websites
Visit 4 websites of different countries of your brand （I choose
McDonald as my brand. The websites of countries have to
include China and U.S.A.. The other two are free elective.)
Observe and compare—What are the similarities & differences
in products, visuals, appeals, target consumers, and what
elements (logo, packaging, slogan, etc) are customized or
standardized?
Explain why the brand has to or ought to standardize and
localize what elements (you can talk about the brand value,
reputation, history as background information)
Write a two-page report (single space)
DUE: 11/7 Tuesday. Come to class prepared to share a few
interesting highlights.
James H. Svara is visiting professor
in the School of Government at the
University of North Carolina and former
professor in the School of Public Affairs at
Arizona State University (ASU). He served
as co-chair (with James Nordin) of the

Working Group to Revise the ASPA Code
of Ethics (2011–13) and chair of the Ad
Hoc Committee on Implementation of the
ASPA Code (2013–14). Support for these
activities was provided by the Lincoln
Center for Applied Ethics at ASU.
E-mail: [email protected]
Who Are the Keepers of the Code? Articulating and Upholding
Ethical Standards in the Field of Public Administration 561
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 74, Iss. 5, pp. 561–569. © 2014 by
The American Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.1111/puar.12230.
James H. Svara
Arizona State University
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Establishing a code of ethics has been a challenge in
public administration. Ethics is central to the practice of
administration, but the broad fi eld of public administra-
tion has had diffi culty articulating clear and meaning-
ful standards of behavior and developing a means of
upholding a code of ethics. Although a number of special-
ized professional associations in public service adopted

codes, starting with the International City/County
Management Association in 1924 and others after 1960,
the full range of public administrators did not have an
association to represent them until the American Society
for Public Administration (ASPA) was founded in 1939.
Despite early calls for a code of ethics in ASPA, the fi rst
code was adopted in 1984, with revisions in 1994,
but neither code had a process for enforcement. A new
code approved in 2013 builds on the earlier codes and
increases the prospects for ASPA to work with other pro-
fessional associations to broaden awareness of the ethical
responsibilities to society of all public administrators.
It has long been recognized that ethics is inte-gral to public
administration. Although ethical behavior is not always
achieved at the individual
or organizational level, it is obvious that an essential
element of administration is missing when unethical
behavior occurs. Still, establishing clear and mean-
ingful standards to guide behavior has been diffi cult
for the practitioners and scholars who make up the
fi eld. Although specialized groups of administrators
that organized themselves as professional associa-
tions developed codes of ethics, starting with the
International City/County Management Association
(ICMA) 90 years ago, the profession more gener-
ally, as represented by a diverse membership asso-
ciation such as the American Society for Public
Administration (ASPA), was
slow in adopting a code of eth-
ics. Th is article examines the
shifting attitudes about codes of
ethics in public administration
and the progression of ASPA’s
code of ethics as a study of the
challenges of developing a set

of enforceable standards for a large and heterogeneous
group of practitioners. Understanding the issues and
challenges that have infl uenced the development of
ethical standards for administrators can contribute to
advancing our understanding of ethics and improve
the prospects for eff ectively implementing a code of
ethics that applies broadly to public service positions.
After calls for establishing a code for the profession
of public administration starting in the late 1930s,
ASPA—the association created in 1939 with the
intention of organizing the fi eld—did not act and was
often criticized for its failure to approve a code of eth-
ics until its forty-fi fth year. Th e ICMA code of ethics
was off ered as an example of what might be created
for public administration generally (Mosher 1938),
but for decades, scholars and practitioners in public
administration generally viewed codes negatively
and gave little attention to the study or promotion
of ethics (Cooper 1994). ASPA did not take formal
actions to advance ethical codes within the fi eld until
the 1970s. Th e questions of whether to have a code
of ethics and what it should contain have been central
to the debate about whether public administration is
a profession as opposed to a collection of professions
with vague, shared values (Mosher 1968; Pugh 1988).
Th e fi rst code of ethics adopted by ASPA in 1984
was an important step that established fundamental
standards shared by public administrators. It was
revised in 1994 with reorganization and clarifi cation
of the sources of ethical standards. A new version was
approved in 2013 that broadened the scope of values
and standards for administrators who serve the public
across fi elds and levels of government and other sectors.

Th e debate over the appropri-
ateness, content, and imple-
mentation of a code of ethics
for public administration is
examined in this article. Th ere
were shared values in the public
administration community
Who Are the Keepers of the Code? Articulating
and Upholding Ethical Standards in the Field
of Public Administration
Th e debate over the
appropriateness, content, and
implementation of a code of
ethics for public administration
is examined.
562 Public Administration Review • September | October 2014
Th e long absence of a code in ASPA and complaints about
taking
too narrow an approach to developing a code (Chandler 1982,
1983) have led some to conclude that adopting broad ethical
standards was a diffi cult departure from earlier thinking in the
fi eld
that stressed a narrow “technical-rational” approach to
administra-
tive practice (Adams and Balfour 1998; Pugh 1991). Th e
traditional
approaches to the theory and practice of public administration,

however, were rooted in a broad range of public-serving
values.1 As
Lewis and Gilman put it, “ethics is more accurately seen as a
renewal
rather than a radical departure from traditional practice” (2012,
11).
Ethical Values and Standards in Public Administration
Th e moral dimension of public administration has deep
historical
roots. Duty was stressed by Plato (French 1983), virtue by
Aristotle
(Cooper 1987; Hart 1984), and honesty and respect for cultural
values by Confucius (Gladden 1972, 149–50). Many of the
values
that were promoted in modern American public administration
were intrinsic to the fi eld from the eighteenth century onward
as developed in Europe (Lynn 2006; Rutgers 1997)—values that
refl ect standards for internal administrative performance as
well as
larger ethical and social values. Th e founders of the federal
govern-
ment expected administrators to be “public spirited” (Bowman
and
West 2011, 33), and these same values were explicitly advanced
by
the reformers of the late nineteenth century (Richardson and
Nigro
1987, 368). It is noteworthy that the Congress in 1884, after
pas-
sage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883,
adopted
the oath to be taken by executive branch employees that is still
used
today (5 U.S.C. § 3331) (OPM n.d.). Administrators in the
federal

government are not simply expected to passively or obediently
discharge the duties of their offi ce; they pledge to uphold the
U.S.
Constitution and advance its purposes (Rohr 1989, 69–70).
Values in “Traditional” Public Administration
Th e fi eld of public administration in the fi rst half of the
twentieth
century developed more fully the expectation that
administrators
would demonstrate values that support their shared mission to
serve
the public and elevate the performance of government. It is
com-
mon, however, to portray these early administrators as
technocrats
(Adams and Balfour 1998) who were “value-free” (Henry 1975,
379–80), with an overwhelming commitment to promoting effi
-
ciency (Waldo 1948, 200) and no interest in promoting
democracy
(Waldo 1948, 73–74; Waldo 1952, 85). In Pugh’s view, “the
cast of
mind that dominated this fi eld was essentially bureaucratic”
(1989,
2). It is important to recognize that even traditional
administrative
values such as effi ciency, expertise, and accountability serve a
larger
social purpose. Th ey take on a “moral character” by promoting
“fair-
ness, justice, avoidance of favoritism, and the consideration of
all
relevant interests,” as well as “a commitment to stewardship of
the
public’s resources through expert management to assure

economy,
effi ciency, and eff ectiveness” (Denhardt 1989, 188).
In addition, there was also attention among early scholars to a
broad
range of values that aff ect how administrators should be
involved
in the interpretation and formation of policy, in the relationship
of
administrators to citizens and groups, and in the political
process in
general. Th e public administration literature before 1940
examines
both the internal and external responsibilities of administrators
and
how they relate to each other. “Th e ‘old’ public administration
pro-
vides prescriptions that are remarkably relevant to current
concerns”
historically and early proposals for a code of ethics in 1938 and
1949. Developing a code was delayed by negative views of
codes
within public administration, but the ASPA code, with revisions
over time, has articulated standards for all people in public
service.
In the conclusion, future steps to implement a code and promote
awareness of ethics across public administration are considered.
The Purpose of Codes of Ethics
Codes of ethics provoke opposing views in public
administration.
Th ey have often been criticized for being too abstract or too
specifi c
to be meaningful (Ink 1979, ii). Ladd (1980) even questioned
whether a code of ethics is necessary. In his view, ethics cannot

be set by fi at; having a code contradicts the notion of ethics
itself.
On the other hand, codes of ethics can specify acceptable and
unacceptable behaviors in a profession. If accompanied by eff
ective
implementation that regularly identifi es ethical issues
confronted by
practitioners, codes can ground ethics in the challenges of
practicing
a profession (Gilman 2005). Bowman (1990) suggested that
codes
may be designed to be regulatory, educational, or inspirational.
Th e
goals expressed in the inspirational tenets in codes are akin to
the
“internal goods” that associations (or “practices”) are supposed
to
advance (Cooper 1987). Beyond identifying aspects of
unaccept-
able behavior, codes can express the expectations of positive
ethical
behavior by people at all levels of administration (Svara 2007,
76).
Finally, codes inform people outside the profession what they
can
and should expect. For example, one of the explicit purposes of
the
National Association of Social Workers code is to provide
“ethi-
cal standards to which the general public can hold the social
work
profession accountable” (NASW 2008, “Purpose”).
Th e creation of codes occurred along with the development of
professional associations in the twentieth century. In contrast to
the

ICMA’s early action, the NASW adopted its fi rst code of ethics
in
1960, fi ve years after the association was formed (Reamer
2009).
Th e American Society of Planning Offi cials created its fi rst
code in
1962, and the affi liated American Institute of Certifi ed
Planners
(AICP) established its code in 1971 (Silva 2005, 312). Before
1984,
the vast majority of public administrators might have been
guided
by the codes of these associations if they were aware of them,
but
these codes were not written for them and did not necessarily
match
their responsibilities. Th us, most public administrators were
left to
decide as individuals what standards to adhere to and whether
and
how to observe them.
Th e question of what approach should be taken regarding the
development of a code of ethics is related to the perennial
question
of whether ASPA is intended to advance the professional
qualities of
individuals in public administration by promoting research,
educa-
tion, and networking or lead a profession of public
administrators
with clear standards of ethical behavior. Instead of viewing
itself as a
profession of public administration, ASPA “opted for the
pursuit of
professionalism among its members—a subtle but signifi cant

distinc-
tion” (Pugh 1988, 3; Pugh 1989). After a code was fi nally
adopted
in ASPA, the professionalism-versus-profession question
became
whether individuals should use the code on their own as a guide
to
their behavior or whether the association should also establish a
proc-
ess for enforcing the code (commentary by Mylon Winn, in
Menzel
2010, 123). Th is question has persisted: can public
administration be
a profession without an enforceable code of ethics?
Th e code should be based on four major themes that, in
Mosher’s
view, are well established and widely accepted: the public
interest,
relationships with other offi cials and “offi cial-public
relationships,”
“personal integrity,” and a commitment to serving “the whole
public, performing their tasks impartially and without fear or
favor”
(Mosher 1938, 339). While acknowledging the ICMA code and
one
for teachers, Mosher argued that developing a code would “go
far
toward stimulating a professional esprit de corps” among all
adminis-
trators who are “engaged in serving the public” (336).

Th e second call for a broad code of ethics in the fi eld of
public
administration came from Fritz Morstein Marx. To promote
ethics
in administration, he saw the need for the “growth and
acknowledg-
ment of an administrative morality always
ready to raise its voice in support of the needs
of democratic society” (1949, 1144). Like
Mosher, Marx stressed the linkage between
public service and “popular government”
(1127) and “a long-range concept of the
general interest” (1132). Administrators are
not “inanimate cogs or mindless robots,” but
they do not exercise “absolute discretion” to
determine the ends they pursue (1127–28).
Administrators have the opportunity or formal responsibility “to
render advice” on pending measures (1137). Marx, like Mosher,
asserted that “recognition of the importance of common
standards
of ethics is one of the hallmarks of a profession” (1144). A
similar
approach was taken by Monypenny, who called for
administrators
to develop and adopt a “systematic statement of the highest
stand-
ards of perception and devotion” (1953, 187) that apply to their
work. Later scholars would reinforce the importance of
enforcement
for the standards to be meaningful (e.g., Bowman and Williams
1997; Chandler 1983; Pugh 1989).
Despite these statements that expressed the rationale for having

a
code and outlined the areas that could be covered, there was
little
attention given to ethics in the public administration literature
before the 1970s. Th e limited articles on the topic of codes
con-
veyed diff ering views about the nature of ethical standards and
expressed reservations about using a code to promote ethics.
Nigro
and Richardson (1990) observed that the attempt to integrate
external and internalized controls suggested by Monypenny was
not
examined further in subsequent editions of Public
Administration
Review through the 1980s.2
Criticizing and Ignoring Codes of Ethics
A fundamental objection to internal standards within a
professional
fi eld is based on the importance of external control. As refl
ected in
the views of Finer (1941), some argue that administrators
should be
neutral and highly responsive to elected offi cials (Flemming
1953)
and that restoration of bureaucratic controls of administrative
behav-
ior is needed to increase accountability (Gawthrop 1981,
summariz-
ing a presentation by Donald Devine). Wood
focused on the need to prevent corruption and
asserted that “public offi cials have the duty to
make sure that their employees are honest”
through expanded “administrative investiga-
tory facilities” (1955, 3). Although Appleby

observed a “special kind of integrity” (1952,
(Svara 1999, 691), including a broad commitment to democracy.
In
Newland’s view, the ideal of public administration was
promotion of
the general welfare, supporting democracy, and “giving
meaning to
civic duty” (1984, 18).
Many of these values were contested and subject to diff ering
inter-
pretations in the fi rst 50 years of the fi eld of public
administration
in the United States, and they could easily be overshadowed by
the
strong emphasis on administration as a science in the 1930s
(Martin
1952). Still, the theory and practice of administration did not
war-
rant the conclusion that administration was a “self-contained
world
of its own” (Sayre 1958, 102). Scholars who adopted this view
that
the fi eld was “self-contained” concluded that administrators
did
not recognize the need to be concerned with
value questions because they were resolved by
elected offi cials. Reexamination of the early lit-
erature challenges the idea that the founders of
the fi eld constructed a politics–administration
dichotomy and ignored ethical issues (Svara
1999). Furthermore, the “classical” model of
public administration in the 1930s includes a
“recognition of the policy-making role of civil
servants, the inevitability of administrative

discretion, … the concomitant requirement for responsible
conduct
by managers and civil servants, and the necessity for ensuring
that
citizens can somehow participate actively in matters aff ecting
their
well-being based on adequate information” (Lynn 2001, 151).
Th e ICMA Code of Ethics, initially adopted in 1924, refl ected
these
responsibilities. Most city managers before the 1950s were
trained
as engineers, and the American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE)
was a path setter in adopting a code for its members in 1914.
Whereas the ASCE code stressed the responsibilities of
engineers to
their employers and to each other, the ICMA code articulated
the
association’s social purpose, respect for the democratic process,
and
the broad responsibilities of city managers to advise the
council,
inform the public, and exercise their own executive judgment in
accomplishing policies set by the council. Th ere were many
bound-
ary issues that managers had to confront in the early decades,
but
they clearly manifested through their association a commitment
to a
broad set of ethical standards (Arnold and Plant 1994, 39).
Th e administration community that organized as an association
in
1939 had a strong value base and extensive informal
professional-

ism on which to build. Th e question was how the values would
be
articulated and whether they would be codifi ed and enforced.
Early Calls for a Code of Ethics for the Field
William Mosher (1938, 333), who would become the fi rst
president
of ASPA in 1939, included ethics among the three key factors
that would provide the foundation for a “profession of public
service” (336). In his view, ethics is both an individual and
shared
responsibility: “Although each member of
the profession is the keeper of the code, its
long-run maintenance occasionally calls for
disciplinary measures which should be judi-
cially applied by a properly constituted body
acting under prescribed procedures against
those who violate it” (338).
Reexamination of the early
literature challenges the idea
that the founders of the
fi eld constructed a politics–
administration dichotomy and
ignored ethical issues.
A fundamental objection to
internal standards within a
professional fi eld is based on the
importance of external control.

(Cooper 1998, 160). Herman Mertins, the editor of the
workbook
Professional Standards and Ethics, stated in the introduction
that
“although it is possible to develop a long list of ‘thou shalts’
and
‘thou shalt nots,’ as many professions have done, ultimate
responsi-
bility for applying standards and ethics still falls on the
individual”
(1979, 1). Th us, the workbook provided a diagnostic rather
than a
prescriptive approach to help individuals assess their
responsibilities
and decide on an appropriate response to the challenges they
faced.
Despite reservations about codes of ethics, the PSEC began
working
on developing a code. An initial subcommittee draft was
proposed
in 1981, but it was not acceptable to the full committee despite
a spirited defense by the subcommittee chairperson, Ralph Clark
Chandler (1982, 1983). In an alternative approach, a Statement
of
Principles had been developed and was approved by the
National
Council in 1981. Finding the right content, tone, and rationale
for
a code that would address the standards of public service
profession-
als and secure support from the diverse practitioner and
academic
membership of ASPA was a challenge. Still, no other existing

profes-
sional code matched the conditions of the broad fi eld of public
administration, and work continued on drafting a code.
Codes of Ethics in ASPA
From 1984 through 2013, ASPA adopted a code of ethics and
approved two revisions. After the features of each code are
briefl y
reviewed, the development of the content of the code over time
will
be considered.
Based primarily on the 1981 Statement of Principles (Plant
2013), a
code was developed by the committee that secured National
Council
approval in 1984, and in the next year, a set of implementation
guide-
lines was adopted.4 Th e response to the initial code was muted
and
often critical. Some academic scholars in ethics would have
preferred
a more active and far-reaching code (Chandler 1982; Cooper
1987;
Denhardt 1989; Pugh 1991), but it was a signifi cant step
forward to
establish a code that was relevant to all public administrators.
Th e 1994 code was a major reorientation of the code that
clearly set
forth the major principles for organizing ethics for the fi eld
while
incorporating most of the 1985 version.5 Th e fi ve principles
stressed
the responsibility of administrators to take actions that are
consist-

ent with and advance the law, public interest, integrity,
organiza-
tional ethics, and developing excellence in oneself and others
(Van
Wart 1996). Th e new code was well received and widely
respected
by members of ASPA (Bowman and Williams 1997, 521),
although
it was later criticized for shortcomings in addressing social
responsi-
bilities (Svara 2007, 78). A review of the ASPA Code of Ethics
was
undertaken from 2001 to 2003, but no changes resulted from
this
review (Van Wart 2003).
A new code was approved in 2013.6 Th e new code expanded
the
scope of the values and standards and focuses on eight
principles
based on formal roles, key relationships, and responsibilities to
society. It returned to the approach taken in 1984 (and
suggested
in 2003) by making the eight principles the code and providing
a
separate statement of practices to guide the use of the code.7 As
in
earlier versions, the code reached beyond ASPA members in
seeking
“to increase awareness and commitment to ethical principles
and
standards among all those who work in public service in all
sectors.”
55) among public administrators based in part on “self-
selection” of

people searching for an opportunity to serve,3 he stressed the
impor-
tance of political control and viewed hierarchical structure a
protector
of morality because it ensured that decisions would move up
levels in
the organization to offi cials with broader perspectives, more
experi-
ence, and greater political awareness. Frederick Mosher (1968,
215)
was concerned that codes reinforced professional autonomy.
Th ere were several objections to a code for public
administration
from those who supported ethics but off ered practical or
conceptual
objections to having a code. Merriam posted an immediate
response
to Mosher’s article with reservations about developing a code of
ethics that would apply “to our public services as a whole”
because it
is too diverse (1938, 723; see also Arnold and Plant 1993). A
related
argument was that ASPA was not a professional association that
had
a stake in securing recognition for its members as a qualifi
cation for
employment and ensuring that its members meet the
association’s
standards (Plant 2013).
A common argument was that codes were too narrow and
negative
in their focus (Leys 1943, 12). Th e Code of Ethics for
Government
Service approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in 1958

with concurrence of the Senate refl ected this shortcoming with
its
focus on specifi c requirements and prohibitions. Commentary
by
Geoff rey Cornog summed up what appeared to be the
prevailing
view about how to promote ethics: “We can choose the way of
the
codes, the administrative regulation, and the statute, or we can
fol-
low Moses (Robert, that is) when he says fi rmly: ‘ … what we
need
is better men, not more laws to guarantee their competence and
honesty’” (1962, 103). Similarly, Rohr (1978) criticized the
low-
road approach to ethics based on narrow rules of conduct.
Alternative approaches to promote responsible behavior by
admin-
istrators were emphasized by leading scholars. Bailey (1964)
stressed
individual moral qualities and individual responsibility. Bailey
argued that the “hard questions of public ethics are not
answered
by the semantic concoctions, pious platitudes, and appalling
lack of
subtlety that often characterize the codes enunciated to guide
politi-
cal and administrative behavior” (1964, 234). Instead, he
stressed
individual virtues. Th e “essential moral qualities of the ethical
public
servant are: (1) optimism; (2) courage; and (3) fairness
tempered by
charity” (235–36). Like Appleby (1952, 145), Mosher feared the
consequences of growing “professional enclaves” with

“professional
(as against civil service) control of personnel” (1968, 212–13).
Responsible public administrators need to develop the values
and
moral standards stressed by Bailey. Th ey should also acquire
the
“ability to weigh the relevant premises judiciously” in handling
problems (Mosher 1968, 218) through continuing education
courses in higher education: “Th e universities off er the best
hope of
making the professions safe for democracy” (219). Leys (1943)
as
well advocated the study of philosophical approaches to ethics,
and
Rohr (1978) promoted the study of regime values.
Th ere were few visible activities within ASPA to promote
ethics
into the early 1970s. Spurred by the Watergate scandal and the
attention to social equity raised by the New Public
Administration
(Marini 1971), ASPA formed the Professional Standards and
Ethics
Committee (PSEC) in 1974. Th e PSEC focused initially on
helping
administrators refl ect on their ethical values and
responsibilities
Table 1 Changes in Ethical Standards in ASPA Codes of Ethics
1984 1994 2013

Public service
and public
interest
2.* Serve the public with respect, con-
cern, courtesy, and responsiveness,
recognizing that service to the public
is beyond service to oneself.
8. Exercise whatever discretionary
authority we have…to promote the
public interest.
I. Serve the Public Interest. Serve the public, beyond
serving oneself.
IV-2. Subordinate personal interests and institutional
loyalties to the public good.
1. Advance the Public Interest. Promote the inter-
ests of the public and put service to the public
above service to oneself.
1-e. [Serve] with dedication to high standards.
1-a. Seek to advance the good of the public as a
whole, taking into account current and long-
term interests of the society.
Respect the
Constitu-
tion and
the law
12. Respect, support, study, and when

necessary, work to improve federal
and state constitutions and other
laws.
II. Respect the Constitution and the Law. Respect,
support, and study government constitutions and
laws that defi ne responsibilities of public agencies,
employees, and all citizens.
II-1. [Apply] legislation and regulations relevant to
their… role.
II-2. Improve and change laws and policies that are
counterproductive or obsolete.
II-7. Promote constitutional principles of equality, fair-
ness, representativeness, responsiveness and due
process.
2. Uphold the Constitution and the Law. Respect
and support government constitutions and laws,
while seeking to improve laws and policies to
promote the public good.
2-a. Recognize and understand the constitutional,
legislative and regulatory framework in which
you work and fully discharge your professional
roles and responsibilities.
2-c. [Develop] proposals for sound laws and poli-
cies and for improving or eliminating laws and
policies that are… unethical.
Democratic
process

Guideline. Encourage citizen coopera-
tion and to involve civic groups, to
bring citizens into work with the
government as far as practical, and
to respect the right of the public
(through the media) to know what is
going on in your agency.
I-3. Recognize and support the public’s right to know
the public’s business.
I-4. Involve citizens in policy decision-making.
I-6. Respond to the public in ways that are complete,
clear, and easy to understand.
I-7. Assist citizens in their dealings with government.
3. Promote democratic participation. Inform the
public and encourage active engagement in gov-
ernance. Be open, transparent and responsive.
3-c. Involve the community in the development,
implementation, and assessment of policies and
public programs, and seek to empower citizens
in the democratic process.”
Social equity 10. Support, implement, and promote…
programs of affi rmative action to as-
sure equal employment opportunity…
from all elements of society.
11. Eliminate all forms of illegal discrimi-
nation….
I-2. Oppose all forms of discrimination and harass-
ment, and promote affi rmative action.

II-3. Eliminate unlawful discrimination.
4. Strengthen social equity. Treat all persons with
fairness, justice, and equality and respect individ-
ual differences, rights, and freedoms. Promote
affi rmative action and other initiatives to reduce
unfairness, injustice, and inequality in society.
4-c. “Reduce disparities in outcomes and increase
the inclusion of underrepresented groups.”
Advising
superiors
and peers
5. Fully Inform and Advise. Provide accurate, hon-
est, comprehensive, and timely information and
advice to elected and appointed offi cials and
governing board members, and to staff mem-
bers in your organization.
Personal
integrity
1. Demonstrate the highest standards
of personal integrity, truthfulness,
honesty and fortitude in all our public
activities.
5. Serve in such a way that we do not
realize undue personal gain.
6. Avoid any interest or activity which is
in confl ict with…our offi cial duties.

7. Protect the privileged information.
III. Demonstrate Personal Integrity. Demonstrate the
highest standards in all activities to inspire public
confi dence and trust in public service.
I-5. Exercise compassion, benevolence, fairness and
optimism.
III-1. [Do not compromise integrity] for advancement,
honor, or personal gain.
III-5.Take responsibility for their own errors.
III-6.Conduct offi cial acts without partisanship.
6. Demonstrate personal integrity. Adhere to the
highest standards of conduct.
6-c.Resist pressures to compromise ethical integrity
and support others who are subject to these
pressures.
6-d. Accept…responsibility for the consequences
of one’s actions.
6-f. Disclose any interests that may affect objectiv-
ity in making decisions and recuse oneself from
participation in those decisions.
6-g. Conduct offi cial acts without…favoritism.
Organiza-
tional
ethics
4. Approach our organization…with a

positive attitude and…support open
communication, creativity, dedication,
and compassion.
10. Support, implement, and promote
merit employment….
11. Eliminate all forms of … fraud, and
mismanagement of public funds, and
support colleagues if they are in dif-
fi culty because of responsible efforts
to correct such discrimination, fraud,
mismanagement or abuse.
IV. Promote Ethical Organizations. Strengthen organi-
zational capabilities to apply ethics, effi ciency and
effectiveness in serving the public.
II-4. [Establish] strong fi scal and management controls
[and support] audits and investigative activities.
II-6. [Support] legitimate dissent activities in govern-
ment and protect the whistleblowing rights of
public employees.
IV-3. [Support] procedures that promote ethical
behavior and hold individuals and organizations
accountable for their conduct.
IV-4. [Provide] administrative means for dissent, assur-
ance of due process and safeguards against reprisal.
IV-7. Support an organizational code of ethics.
7. Promote Ethical Organizations: Strive to attain
the highest standards of ethics, stewardship,

and public service in organizations that serve the
public.
7-b. Promote stewardship.
7-d. Correct instances of wrongdoing or report
them to superiors [or to persons outside the
organization].
7-f. Increase the representativeness of the public
workforce and the full inclusion of persons with
diverse characteristics.
Professional
develop-
ment
3. Strive for personal professional excel-
lence and encourage the professional
development of our associates and
those seeking to enter the fi eld of
public administration.
9. Accept as a personal duty the
responsibility to keep up to date on
emerging issues.
V. Strive for Professional Excellence. Strengthen indi-
vidual capabilities and encourage the professional
development of others.
V-4. Advance the development of students.
8. Advance Professional Excellence: Strengthen
personal capabilities to act competently and
ethically.

8-c. [Advance the development]of interns,…, and
beginning professionals.
* The number of the principle or tenet in the original code.
Guidelines for implementation (in the 1984 and 2013 codes) and
specifi c tenets (1994 code) are printed in
italics with the principle and guideline number. Entries are
limited to additions to the standards contained in previous
versions.
“demonstrate the highest standards of personal integrity,
truthfulness, honesty and fortitude in all our public activities,”
avoid personal gain, and avoid confl ict of interest (1984). In
addition, administrators should “exercise compassion,
benevolence,
fairness and optimism,” “demonstrate personal integrity,” and
not
compromise integrity “for advancement, honor, or personal
gain”
(1994). Taking responsibility for “errors” and avoiding
partisanship
(1994) was broadened to accepting individual responsibility for
the
consequences of one’s actions and not showing “favoritism”
(2013).
Administrators support others who are subject to pressures to
compromise ethical integrity (2013). They should “disclose any
interests that may affect objectivity in making decisions and
recuse
oneself from participation in those decisions” (2013).

Ethical organizations. Administrators should approach their
“organization and operational duties with a positive attitude and
constructively support open communication, creativity,
dedication,
and compassion.” They should support the merit system,
eliminate
all forms of “fraud and mismanagement of public funds,” and
“support colleagues if they are in diffi culty” for attempting to
correct organizational failings (1984). It is their responsibility
to
establish “strong fi scal and management controls” and support
“audits and investigative activities,” provide “administrative
means
for dissent” and “safeguards against reprisal,” and protect the
“whistleblowing rights of public employees” (1994).
Administrators
should promote procedures that promote accountability, an
organizational code of ethics (1994), and stewardship (2013). It
is
the responsibility of administrators to “correct instances of
wrongdoing or report them to superiors” or to people outside
the
organization (2013). They should promote inclusion and
diversity
in their organizations (2013).
Professional excellence. The 1984 code called for
administrators to
“strive for personal professional excellence as well as
supporting the
professional development of associates and persons entering the
fi eld
of public administration” and to “keep up to date on emerging
issues” (1984). They should advance the development of
students
(1994), interns, and beginning professionals (2013).

New Implementation, Research, and Linkages
Entering 2014, the status of public service codes of ethics
approxi-
mated the conditions that had existed since 1984. A number of
specialized professional associations had codes focusing on
their area
of emphasis, and ASPA had a code off ering standards for
handling
the ethical challenges that all administrators face. Its code,
however,
was presumably little known beyond its own members and
simply
advisory to them. To be eff ective, codes require an
implementation
process that involves interpreting the code and providing
education
and training, as well as a process for enforcing the code
(Gilman
2005). ASPA should provide expanded educational activities
and
training materials, monitor challenges to ethical behavior in
public
service, and highlight important issues at annual and regional
conferences. It should provide advice and assistance to members
in handling ethical problems and highlight instances of
exemplary
ethical behavior. Finally, it should review and seek to resolve
ethics
complaints and take action that could include expulsion when an
ASPA member is found to have violated the code.8 Th ese
changes
will provide the foundation for ASPA to reach out to other
associa-
tions to expand the ethical perspectives of all public servants.

Evolving Content of the Codes
Th e eight principles in the current ASPA code build on and
expand
the previous versions. In the following sections, the
development of
each principle is elaborated, stressing points added in each
version.
No important standards were rejected in the progression. A
com-
plete summary of the evolving content is found in table 1.
Public service and public interest. These two values have been
intertwined from the beginning. Public administrators should
“serve
the public with respect, concern, courtesy, and responsiveness,
recognizing that service to the public is beyond service to
oneself ”
(1984) and “with dedication to high standards” (2013).
Administrators should subordinate “personal interests and
institutional loyalties to the public good” (1994). They should
use
their discretion to promote the public interest (1984). More
broadly, all actions should advance the public interest, which is
defi ned as “the good of the public as a whole, taking into
account
current and long-term interests of the society” (2013).
Uphold the Constitution and the law. Administrators should
uphold
the law by demonstrating that they “respect, support, study, and
when
necessary, work to improve federal and state constitutions and
other
laws” (1984) and understand and apply “legislation and
regulations
relevant to their professional role” (1994). They should work

“to
improve and change laws and policies that are
counterproductive or
obsolete” (1994) or “unethical” (2013) and, in general, seek “to
improve laws and policies” (2013). Administrators should
“promote
constitutional principles of equality, fairness,
representativeness,
responsiveness and due process in protecting citizens’ rights”
(1994).
Democratic process. Administrators have the responsibility to
“encourage citizen cooperation and to involve civic groups” and
“to
bring citizens into work with the government as far as practical”
(1984). They should “recognize and support the public’s right to
know the public’s business,” “involve citizens in policy
decision-
making,” “respond to the public in ways that are complete,
clear,
and easy to understand,” and “assist citizens in their dealings
with
government” (1994). More broadly, administrators should
“promote
democratic participation” and encourage “active engagement in
governance” (2013).
Social equity. Administrators have the responsibility to oppose
discrimination and harassment and promote affi rmative action
and
seek to eliminate unlawful discrimination (1984 and 1994).
They
should work to “strengthen social equity” and to “promote affi
rmative
action and other initiatives” to “reduce disparities in outcomes
and

increase the inclusion of underrepresented groups” (2013).
Advising superiors and peers. The 2013 code is the fi rst to
explicitly assert the principle that administrators should “fully
inform and advise” elected offi cials and their superiors and
peers
within the organization. They are expected to “provide accurate,
honest, comprehensive, and timely information and advice” that
is
“based on a complete and impartial review of circumstances and
needs of the public and the goals and objectives of the
organization.”
Virtue. The three codes offer ever-expanding statements of what
is
expected of virtuous public administrators. Administrators
should
More research is needed on the ways that
professional codes of ethics relate to organi-
zational codes and training programs and to
the proliferating ethics laws in state (NCSL
2013) and local governments (ICMA 2012,
2). Th e impact of diff ering combinations of
law-based and professional code-based con-
tent in training can be examined.
Public administration has come a long way
since 1939, when only city managers and
school teachers had codes of ethics. Many professional

associations
have now developed a code of ethics supported by a review
process.
Following their example, ASPA in its seventy-fi fth anniversary
year
has moved beyond enunciating standards that members can
choose
to observe to taking more active measures to uphold and
advance
ethical standards in the public service. It is becoming an
organiza-
tional keeper of the code that off ers guidance to members,
highlights
their ethical achievements, and reviews ethical lapses. With
these
initiatives, ASPA can make contributions that extend beyond its
members. In partnership with other associations, ASPA can
expand
the awareness of overarching ethical standards to meet the
shared
challenges of all people in public service.
Notes
1. For reviews of the emergence of ethics research in public
administration gener-
ally, see Nigro and Richardson (1990) and Cooper (2001).
2. As editor of Public Administration Review, Dwight Waldo
(1967) reprinted a pro-
posal for a code of ethics for political scientists, but there was
no reference either
to its relevance to public administration scholars or to the
question of whether
public administration should have a code.

3. Research on the public service motivation of those in public
service would
substantiate this tendency (Perry 1997; Perry and Wise 1990).
4. For the code of ethics, see Pugh (1991, 20). Th e
implementation guidelines are
available at http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/3335 (accessed
June 26, 2014).
5. Th e complete code is available at
http://www.aspanet.org/public/ASPA/
Resources/Code_of_Ethics/ASPA/Resources/Code%200f%20Eth
ics1.aspx
(accessed June 26, 2014).
6. Th e code and the Statement of Practices are available at
www.aspanet.org/
CodeofEthics [accessed July 8, 2014].
7. Th is approach is used by the International City/County
Management
Association, the American Institute of Certifi ed Planners, and
the American
Psychological Association.
8. Th ese are recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee on
Implementation of
the ASPA Code of Ethics, January 22, 2014. Th ey were
approved by the ASPA
National Council on March 15, 2014, as part of a proposal to
establish a new
standing Ethics and Standards Implementation Committee. Final
approval is
subject to a vote by ASPA members to revise the bylaws in
November 2014.

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Big Questions/Big Issues 395

Terry L. Cooper
University of Southern California
Big Questions in Administrative Ethics:
A Need for Focused, Collaborative Effort
Introduction1
I have argued elsewhere that administrative ethics as a
significant field of study is only about 30 years old, dating
from the mid-1970s, largely instigated by the work of the
New Public Administration, and reflecting developments
in thought about public administration dating back into the
1930s.2 During these few decades, scholarly work on ad-
ministrative ethics and its application to practice have ex-
panded with enormous speed and rich diversity, both in
the United States and around the world. The number of
journal articles, books, courses, conferences, and training
exercises have proliferated beyond anyone’s wildest ex-
pectations. More than a passing fad, administrative ethics
has demonstrated its sustainability and its centrality to the
field (Cooper 2001, 1–36).
What is lacking with respect to these developments is
anything like a focused effort by groups of scholars to study
specific sets of significant research questions in a sustained
and systematic fashion. There is an enormous amount of
interesting but highly disparate scholarship on administra-
tive ethics reflecting the diverse and often episodic inter-
ests that capture our attention. The existence of this rich
diversity of work is not bad at all; rather, it indicates lively
intellectual engagement and the multifaceted nature of the
field. It also may be viewed as a necessary scoping of the
field in its early stages, the product of an energetic explo-
ration of the range of concerns in the study of administra-
tive ethics.

After approximately three decades, however, there is
very little that manifests ongoing scholarship by working
groups based on specific theoretical perspectives, sets of
related problems, or significant issues.3 Without collabo-
rative efforts to fix our gaze on the most fundamental and
vexing questions that are essential to moving administra-
tive ethics forward, there is a risk that the creativity and
energy now being directed to the subject will dissipate,
and that our field will fail to earn the sustained promi-
nence in journals, curricula, and professional development
it deserves. Without this kind of concentrated work, ad-
ministrative ethics may remain an interesting but periph-
eral concern.
None of us can define the elements and boundaries of
such concentrated efforts; that needs to become a matter
in which many of us invest ourselves. We need to work at
building consensus among those interested in administra-
tive ethics about sets of research questions that, in some
sense, define the heart of the field. Not intended to pre-
clude or exclude other work on other questions, the call
here is for the establishment of a center of gravity for the
development of administrative ethics around some focused
collaborative efforts. Diversity of interests articulated by
many from various areas in public administration are
needed to keep the field fresh and lively; focused efforts of
those mainly committed to studying administrative ethics
may be required to provide sustainability, coherence, and
sufficient weight to advance it solidly into the core of pub-
lic administration.
This essay should be viewed as the first bid in a conver-
sation about those “big questions” around which some fo-
cused, sustained, and collaborative activity might be orga-

nized. It began with an invitation I sent out to the ASPA
Section on Ethics Listserv on September 27, 2002. In that
message, members of the section were asked to offer their
nominations for the “big questions” in administrative eth-
ics. Thoughtful responses were received from 10 persons,
with excellent proposals for questions of central impor-
Terry L. Cooper is the Maria B. Crutcher Professor in
Citizenship and Demo-
cratic Values in the School of Policy, Planning, and
Development at the Uni-
versity of Southern California. He is the author of two books—
The Respon-
sible Administrator: An Approach to the Ethics of the
Administrative Role,
and An Ethic of Citizenship for Public Administration—and
editor of two
other volumes, Handbook of Administrative Ethics and
Exemplary Public
Administrators: Character and Leadership in Government. E-
mail: [email protected]
usc.edu.
Big Questions/Big Issues
396 Public Administration Review • July/August 2004, Vol. 64,
No. 4
tance. These questions reflected a wide range of perspec-
tives on the field and helped to provide a sense of the scope
and types of questions on the minds of others interested in
ethics.4 However, I do not attribute my big questions to
any of those respondents, but appreciate the stimulation
they provided.

Some Big Questions in Public
Administration Ethics
These questions are presented in no particular order of
importance, nor are the relationships among them ad-
dressed. They are laid out simply as an attempt to identify
significant topics that have not been fully explored, but are
deemed essential to the development of administrative eth-
ics as a field of study. My intention is to stimulate discus-
sion about the big questions of the field, not to urge others
to simply adopt the ones I have advanced.
What Are the Normative Foundations for Public
Administration Ethics?
This question has plagued all who have attempted to en-
gage in research, education, and training in administrative
ethics. Usually it is framed less formally, often simply posed
as, “whose ethics should we adopt in making ethical deci-
sions in government?” Typically the questioner assumes
all we can turn to are our own personal ethical perspectives
rooted in religion, political commitments, secular philoso-
phies, or some highly personal ethical orientation that has
been improvised through socialization, life experience, and
coping with the world of work. The notion that there is
another category of ethics—in addition to one’s own per-
sonal perspective—called “professional ethics” seems not
to have been acknowledged and understood generally
among students and practitioners of public administration
(Adams 2001). This is probably because there is no clear
consensus about what the normative substance of a profes-
sional public administrative ethic might be.
Also, the lack of a strong professional identity for pub-
lic administration has left most thinking only of their em-

ployment role rather than understanding with clarity the
difference between the obligations of employment by an
organization and those associated with being a member of
a profession.5 This lack of professional identity leaves pub-
lic administrators vulnerable to dominance by organiza-
tional and political imperatives; hence, the question “whose
ethics should we adopt?” is an appropriately innocent one
that still deserves responses. As we search for answers, it
is important to keep in mind that we are looking for nor-
mative foundations, not in the sense of ultimately given in
the nature of things (ontologically), but in the sense of a
social construct that fits a particular context—American,
in our case.
As we consider where we might turn for the normative
touchstones of a profession or “practice” (MacIntyre 1984)
of public administration, the literature of the last three de-
cades suggests several perspectives are vying to become
answers to this vexing question. I see five major alterna-
tives that have been advanced in the literature over the last
30 years: (1) Regime values, constitutional theory, and
founding thought seem so closely related they are worthy
of being treated together rather than as separate streams;
(2) citizenship theory is somewhat related to these, and not
inconsistent with them, but sufficiently different to require
distinction; (3) social equity, often of a Rawlsian variety,
is a third alternative originally associated with the so-called
New Public Administration of the late 1960s and early
1970s; (4) virtue, or character-based ethics provides a dif-
ferent kind of answer that is also not incompatible with
the other perspectives; and finally, (5) the public interest is
still a way of grounding normative ethics for public ad-
ministration ethics that emerges from time to time. I will
comment briefly on each of these perspectives without any
attempt at an exhaustive or even representative review of
the literature for each.

Regime Values, Constitutional Theory, and Founding
Thought. In public administration this general stream of
ideas is most clearly associated with the work of John Rohr.
Rohr’s path-breaking book, Ethics for Bureaucrats: An
Essay on Law and Values (1989), first published in 1978,
argued that public administration ethics ought to be ground-
ed in the American constitutional tradition and the regime
values upon which it rests. Rohr maintained these regime
values are to be found in the U.S. Constitution and the
U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretations of it. The three re-
gime values he identified are freedom, equality, and prop-
erty, although he indicated this is not an exhaustive list.
Rohr called for public administrators to steep themselves
in this evolving tradition of constitutional values because
when one accepts employment in a regime, it is extremely
important to be clear about its core values and whether
one can uphold them.6 That is the fundamental professional
ethical problem to be resolved, and addressing it does not
require the full range of knowledge and skills expected of
moral philosophers.7 Thus, taking a job in government is
an ethical decision, as well as an economic and career de-
cision. Others affirmed Rohr’s work and developed this
way of grounding administrative ethics beyond the Con-
stitution. They examined other founding documents in ad-
dition to the Constitution in an attempt to broaden the field
of regime values. Among those scholars are Richardson
and Nigro (1987a, 1987b), Vetterli and Bryner (1987), Hart
(2001; Hart and Smith 1988), Frederickson (Frederickson
and Hart 1985), and Chandler (1987).
Citizenship Theory. Also historical in its approach, this
body of thought generally views the citizen’s role in the

American political tradition as providing the normative
foundations for public administration. It is the area in which
I have focused my efforts to contribute to the ethics litera-
ture. The public administrative role is viewed as derived
from that of the citizen, thus making administrators repre-
sentative citizens, professional citizens, fiduciary citizens,
or citizens in lieu of the rest of us. Public administrators
hold the role of citizen in trust as they conduct the public
business previously done by citizens, but now handed over
to professional citizens who have the time, technical train-
ing, and resources to carry it out. Their ethical obligations
are associated with the good citizen in American society.
Thus, there is discussion of the importance of being re-
sponsive to citizens, encouraging their participation, be-
ing accountable to them, viewing them as the locus of ulti-
mate administrative loyalty, respecting the dignity of the
individual, fostering reasoned deliberation, and encourag-
ing civic virtue and concern for the common good. Ad-
ministrators may be employed by the police department,
the water department, the health department, or the public
schools to undertake certain specialized tasks, but they work
in those places on behalf of the citizens they represent.
Administrators work in bureaucratic organizations where
hierarchical bonds and obligation are important, but they
also need to cultivate horizontal bonds and obligations
among the citizenry for whom they are surrogates.
H. George Frederickson published the first journal ar-
ticle on this subject in 1982, but the citizenship perspec-
tive emerged significantly in the administrative ethics lit-
erature following a conference on citizenship and public
administration organized and led by Frederickson in March
of 1983 preceding the national conference of the Ameri-
can Society for Public Administration. The papers were

published in a special issue of Public Administration Re-
view in March of 1984. Among those addressing citizen-
ship as a normative foundation for administrative ethics
were Frederickson and Chandler, Gawthrop, Hart, Rohr,
and Cooper.
Since the 1983 conference and the special issue of PAR
in 1984, there has been a steady stream of articles and books
examining, critiquing, developing, and applying the citi-
zenship foundation for public administration ethics. Among
the authors contributing to this literature are Stivers (1988,
1990a, 1990b, 1991, 1994, 1996), Cooper (1991), Timney
(1998), King and Stivers (1998), Foley (1998), Box and
Sagan (1998), and Kalu (2003). As with the work on re-
gime values, constitutional theory, and founding thought,
this perspective has not risen to a dominant position, but
remains one of the normative orientations that continue to
be of interest.
Social Equity. This single ethical principle was the nor-
mative perspective around which administrative ethics as
a field of study was first focused in the early 1970s. John
Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) argued that justice is
the central organizing principle of government and set forth
a fully developed argument for specific criteria for estab-
lishing social equity. The New Public Administration move-
ment, which found its first organized expression at the
Minnowbrook Conference in 1968, claimed Rawlsian so-
cial equity as its core ethical principle (Marini 1971).8
Rawls’s work was the subject of special issues and sym-
posia in scholarly journals in virtually every discipline and
field of study. Public administration was among them, with
a special issue of Public Administration Review in 1974
that included six articles on administrative ethics. These

essays by McGregor, Chitwood, Porter and Porter, White
and Gates, Harmon, and Hart addressed a number of ad-
ministrative areas such as personnel management, fiscal
federalism, the use of statistics in service delivery, and
social service productivity. Two pieces amounted to clear
and significant contributions to administrative ethics:
Harmon’s “Social Equity and Organizational Man: Moti-
vation and Organizational Democracy,” and Hart’s “So-
cial Equity, Justice, and the Equitable Administrator.” The
other essays offered specific concrete applications, but these
two addressed the use of the concept more generally.
Although New Public Administration is no longer an
identifiable movement, its contributions to administrative
ethics were crucial in the development of a field of study.
Social equity never achieved acceptance in the field as the
single central ethical principle, but clearly it has become
one of the major normative touchstones for administrative
ethics. This seems to have been exemplified by the offer-
ing of a panel session at the 2003 conference of the Na-
tional Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Ad-
ministration, “Reflections on Teaching Social Equity.”9
Perhaps indicative of the status of social equity as a guid-
ing principle for public administration ethics was that, al-
though the session attracted 25–30 people, much of the
discussion had to do with the importance of social equity
as a touchstone for the field at present. No one suggested it
is no longer relevant, but some argued it is associated too
much with the New Public Administration of the 1970s
and projects such as affirmative action to be used gener-
ally. Others maintained that social equity clearly rises above
those episodic events, but is just another ethical concept in
our tool kit, not the central one. I would argue that it clearly
antedates New Public Administration and affirmative ac-
tion and, as one expression of the principle of justice, should

occupy a position of great prominence in any ethic associ-
ated with democratic government. However, it is equally
clear that it is not the cornerstone of the administrative
ethics edifice.
Virtue. The early work on administrative ethics during
the 1970s focused mainly on reasoning about ethical deci-
sions and the appropriate normative orientations for
No. 4
cognitively resolving ethical dilemmas faced by adminis-
trators. In 1981, Mark T. Lilla launched a frontal attack on
the rational analysis approach to ethical decision making,
which he characterized as simply training administrators
to rationalize whatever suited them at any given time. He
inveighed against focusing on the analysis of ethical quan-
daries as lacking any normative foundation, and therefore
likely to be manipulated to serve the interests of the ana-
lysts. Instead, Lilla argued for the cultivation of a demo-
cratic ethos in public organizations that would be condu-
cive to the formation of character appropriate for public
service.
This challenge was followed shortly by Pincoffs’s more
extensive critique of what he called “reductivism” in pro-
fessional ethics. After a critique of analyses of ethical quan-
daries, he joined Lilla in calling for a focus on virtue un-
derstood as character. Pincoffs maintained this could be
accomplished by “judging” the lives of others. He did not
mean to encourage pronouncing judgment from some pre-
sumed position of moral superiority, but rather regularly
reflecting on the character of others, as one of their fel-

lows, by examining them biographically and assessing their
character. Pincoffs argued that being able to weigh the char-
acter of others in a given community—even a community
of practice—is an essential moral skill. He asserted, “It is
our daily business to assess, to appraise, to judge persons.”
He went on, “It is a task so important and central in life
that it takes on a life of its own; it is the central stuff of
drama, film, literature, and history and of several psycho-
logical and social sciences and arts” (1986, 166–67).
A number of other authors followed the lead of Lilla
and Pincoffs in asserting the importance of virtue under-
stood as character. Hart was one of the leading voices in
calling attention to virtue, not as the sole focus of adminis-
trative ethics, but as an essential element. In “The Virtuous
Citizen, the Honorable Bureaucrat, and ‘Public’ Adminis-
tration,’” (1984) he outlined the desired character traits of
public administrators as superior prudence, moral hero-
ism, caring or love for humanity, trust in the citizenry, and
a continuing quest for moral improvement. In “The Moral
Exemplar in an Organizational Society” (1992), a chapter
in Exemplary Public Administrators: Character and Lead-
ership in Government, Hart set forth a framework for as-
sessing character that focused attention on “moral episodes”
and “moral processes.” Within the broad category of moral
episodes, Hart identified two subcategories of action, which
he termed “moral crises” and “moral confrontation.” Un-
der the scope of moral processes, he specified two subcat-
egories called “moral projects” and “moral work.”
Hart’s framework for reflecting on character was used
by the authors of the character studies in Cooper and
Wright’s Exemplary Public Administrators: Character and
Leadership in Government (1992). Radey (1990) argued
for the importance of stories in developing professional

ethics. Vitz (1990) maintained more specifically that life
stories were particularly important because they can be
understood as “the laboratory of moral life.” Because as-
sessing character seems to imply a biographical focus, with
the assistance of Wright, I invited a group of scholars to
identify someone, living or dead, whose character they
could study biographically in chapters for the edited vol-
ume. The book finally included 11 character studies that
were developed using Hart’s framework. I concluded the
book with “Reflecting on Exemplars of Virtue,” in which I
drew some tentative conclusions (Cooper and Wright
1992b). The main one was that in all of the lives studied in
that volume, the pursuit of moral processes (moral work
and moral projects) in the daily routines of practice pro-
vided a foundation for dealing with the more dramatic
moral episodes such as moral confrontations and moral
crises. Character, understood as the predisposition to be-
have consistently with one’s espoused values and prin-
ciples, is built slowly and consistently over time, not all at
once when confronted with a dramatic challenge.
Virtue, or character, is clearly one of the elements of
the normative foundations of public administration ethics.
All of the rational analysis of morally charged situations,
ethical principles, citizenship obligations, and regime val-
ues will come to naught without the courage of our con-
victions. Absent the strength of character to “walk our
walk” and “practice what we preach,” ethics is ultimately
an empty exercise. However, it is still unclear how, and
even whether, we ought to see a role for ourselves in culti-
vating character, evaluating the character of specific indi-
viduals for hiring and appointment decisions, or in creat-
ing organizational environments that uphold character.
The Public Interest. This is probably the most widely
recognized and most generally espoused normative touch-

stone for public administration ethics. There is an enor-
mous literature on the public interest (Friedrich 1962;
Flathman 1966), but it has received little attention by schol-
ars of administrative ethics. Charles T. Goodsell noted in
1990 that he had been unable to find any “serious advo-
cacy of the notion in the literature which is avowedly pub-
lic administrationist” since 1957 (97). Goodsell attributed
the ignoring of the public interest concept to a critique by
Glendon Schubert in the same year. Although Schubert’s
biting attack on the use of the public interest concept may
well have had a significant impact on thought in the mid-
twentieth century, the apparent longer-term reason is that
the concept is so broad and diversely understood that it
has little operational value. The public interest has a num-
ber of somewhat specific meanings, but these tend not to
be indicated when the term is used—usually in a vague
manner, as though it conveys particular meaning when it
does not.
Goodsell’s “Public Administration and the Public In-
terest” (1990) and Douglas Morgan’s “The Public Inter-
est” (2001) are notable exceptions in recent years to the
lack of attention to the concept by scholars of public ad-
ministration ethics. Goodsell reviews four different per-
spectives on the public interest and attempts to apply them
to public administration. Morgan develops the public in-
terest concept historically in the American context. After a
treatment of its origins around the end of the seventeenth
century, he traces the evolution of the public interest
through the American founding debate, the rise of Jackso-
nian democracy, populist reform, the Progressive move-
ment, and more recent formulations.

My own view is that the public interest has a place in
the construction of a normative administrative ethic as our
moral compass, orienting us to a fundamental obligation.
It serves a symbolic purpose by raising an important ques-
tion before every administrative and policy decision: “Are
you acting on behalf of broad shared interests or limited
particular ones?” The public interest concept is most use-
ful in reminding us that as public managers, our ethical
obligation is to the former rather than the latter. It is often
raised retrospectively when it is clear that something has
gone seriously wrong in a particular situation and we are
trying to redefine what should have been done in the past
and what should be done in the future. When confronted
with scandal and gross misconduct, the idea of the public
interest provides an intuitive navigational beacon that
points us in the right direction. It was raised during crises
such as Watergate and the Iran-Contra hearings, and many
others. Goodsell observes that “the words public inter-
est—despite their poor academic reputation—remain in
use in the realm of practical government. They are found
sprinkled throughout the statutes practitioners adminis-
ter, the memoranda they write, the testimony they give,
and the verbal speech with which they articulate their
points of view” (1990, 97).
So, we have these four approaches to establishing nor-
mative foundations for public administration ethics. They
do not seem to be incompatible, but they have not been
clearly integrated into a coherent and operational adminis-
trative ethic. That work remains to be done.
How Do American Administrative Ethical
Norms Fit into a Global Context?
After reviewing the options that seem to be under con-

sideration for normative ethics in the United States, it is clear
that much of this work is being constructed out of the Ameri-
can experience and tied to our history and political culture.
This is especially true for the regime values and citizenship
perspectives. Whether or how these fit with the administra-
tive ethics of other political communities and traditions
around the world is an increasingly pointed question. Do
administrative ethical norms have to be created specifically
for each nation? Is there anything one could call a global
administrative ethic? If administrative ethics is socially con-
structed and the world is experiencing greater global inter-
dependence due to trade, travel, and communication (includ-
ing especially the effects of the Internet), might there be an
emerging global ethic for public administration?
This is one of the more intriguing and newer questions
that administrative ethics faces, to which the answers are
few and only suggestive at best. However, in my experi-
ence this question is raised with increasing frequency, both
in international meetings and in cities such as Los Angeles
that are truly global in their population and cultures. Gilman
and Lewis published the first attempt to address this ques-
tion in the public administration literature in 1999. Subse-
quently, I was invited to a small conference on globaliza-
tion in Seoul in the summer of 2000 and asked to address
the question, “Is there an emerging global ethic for public
administration?” Diane Yoder and I attempted an answer
by carrying forward the path-breaking work of Gilman and
Lewis. We examined a large number of international trea-
ties, pacts, agreements, conventions, and programs going
back to the 1970s in an attempt to identify the core values
that were explicitly advocated or implicitly assumed. We
also tried to examine the reasoning connected with such
values. Why were they deemed important?

In “Public Management Ethics in a Transnational
World,” we identified self-determination, freedom, hon-
esty, trust, and stability as the values that are clearly cen-
tral to the initiatives we examined (Cooper and Yoder 2002).
Recognition of an increasingly interdependent world and
a growing worldwide commitment to market economies
and democratic governance are the reasons given in these
documents and programs to justify support for the five re-
curring core values. Whether these values are enacted or
just espoused is not known and goes beyond our study.
However, we argue that the fact they are espoused inter-
national values indicates they are at least viewed as aspi-
rations. What we can say is that there may be an emerging
consensus that these at least are the values which nations
of the world believe they ought to say they support. The
profession of them is significant.
The story that seems to run through these documents is
that, in an increasingly interdependent world aspiring to
democracy and market economies, stable governments are
achieved by upholding and maintaining self-determination
of the citizens of each nation and honesty in domestic and
international affairs because these help to build trust, both
internally within nations and among the nations of the
world. Market economies do not work without trust, hon-
esty, and stability, nor can democratic governance be
achieved and maintained without these same values.10
No. 4
Next comes the question of how these values mesh with
the elements of the normative foundations of administra-
tive ethics in the United States discussed previously. The

short answer is that there appear to be no inconsistencies
or conflicts. The long answer, yet to be explored, is that
we do not know how seriously these values are being taken
by the various nations of the world, and we cannot be cer-
tain of their congruence with U.S. norms without a lot more
experience with concrete applications. Values have mean-
ing only in specific contexts. Here, as in the case of our
own domestic norms, we appear to be engaged in a pro-
cess of socially constructing (on a global scale) a set of
normative foundations for public administration ethics.
Whether that will be successful remains to be seen. At best,
we get glimpses from time to time about the reality of this
process.
For example, one of the requirements frequently ad-
vocated as a basis for trust in government is a subsidiary
value, transparency. Currently, it is as close to being a
universally advocated public value as one can find. The
importance of transparency for trust to exist within a na-
tion and among nations was visible in China’s handling
of the SARS crisis in early 2003. When the Chinese gov-
ernment attempted to conceal the spread of SARS in
Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and a number of other
cities, trade, tourism, and business travel dropped pre-
cipitously. Considerable turbulence also occurred inside
China. Distrust of the official reports threatened China’s
emerging market economy and its internal stability (LA
Times 2003). A lack of transparency in this case appears
to have had powerful negative effects that were under-
stood only after China’s leadership was confronted with
the resulting domestic and international problems.
One caveat is that if such a social construction process
is occurring internationally, that does not necessarily im-
ply the diverse cultures of the world are being homogenized,
westernized, or destroyed. There may be different over-

lays of culture that involve domestic life within a society
and international relations as somewhat distinct entities.
People may live and act within a culture at home while
also engaging a global culture. Whether it is possible to
maintain such a juggling act remains to be seen.
A serious concern worth noting is that commitment to
social equity is not frequently found in the documents we
examined. Amy Chua (2004) argues persuasively that mar-
ket economies coupled with emerging democratic politi-
cal systems can be an explosive mix.11 If, as seems to be
the case in many developing countries, the market is largely
dominated by an ethnic minority, while the mass of the
populace is moving toward democratic government, ten-
sion is created between political and economic access.
Absent some commitment to social equity, these imbal-
ances may create enormous instability and unrest.
How Can Organizations Be Designed to
Support Ethical Conduct?
Since the 1960s, before the birth of administrative eth-
ics as a field of study, we have had evidence that organiza-
tional structure and culture are not neutral with respect to
ethical conduct. Our typical hierarchical bureaucratic or-
ganizations generally not only have failed to encourage
ethical action by the people who work within them, but
often have created serious impediments to their efforts to
do the right thing. Milgram’s experiments at Yale in the
1960s and Zimbardo’s prison simulation at Stanford in the
1970s made painfully clear how simple hierarchical ar-
rangements and culturally determined organizational roles
can shape behavior toward humanly destructive ends
(Milgram 1974; Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo 1973).
Milgram was able to create a basic organizational struc-

ture in a laboratory setting that induced obedience among
very large numbers of people of different ages, genders,
religious orientations, occupations, and educational lev-
els—even to the point of being willing to administer pow-
erful, painful, and dangerous electrical shocks to other
human beings. Some 980 subjects went through various
versions of Milgram’s experiments, and the majority did
as they were told, even while protesting that they were being
ordered to impose agonizing shocks on the other partici-
pants in the experiments. Milgram explained how this oc-
curred as the “agentic shift,” a series of gradual psycho-
logical transitions through which the subjects moved from
being relatively autonomous individuals to becoming will-
ing instruments of the experimenter, and in the process
abandoned all responsibility for their actions.
Zimbardo discovered to his dismay that college students
assigned roles in a simulated prison, with only the briefest
explanations of the typical behavior associated with those
roles, would become harsh prison guards and retaliatory
prison inmates within a matter of a few days. The guards’
treatment of the inmates became so inhumane and abusive
that the inmates experienced emotional breakdowns, turned
on each other, and reacted aggressively against the guards.
Guards and prisoners alike were captured by roles associ-
ated with certain cultural and organizational norms that
shaped their behavior. The experiment had to be termi-
nated after six days instead of running the full two weeks
planned at the outset.
During the late 1960s through the 1970s, the tendency
of large bureaucratic organizations to stifle conscience
and punish those who called attention to corruption and
misconduct became painfully apparent. The case of Ernest
Fitzgerald, a high-level executive in the Department of
Defense, was probably the first widely known example

of behavior that became characterized as “whistle blow-
ing.” Far from being a self-promoting publicity seeker,
as has been obvious with some whistle blowers, Fitzgerald
had been quietly working inside the department to call
attention to the enormous cost overruns of a new cargo
aircraft, the C5A. Finally, he was subpoenaed by a U.S.
congressional committee and forced to reveal what had
been going on. For testifying before Congress under oath
and telling the truth, Fitzgerald lost his job and suffered
retribution for years (Nader, Perkas, and Blackwell 1972).
In 1978 Senator Patrick Leahy conducted hearings on 70
cases of legitimate whistle blowers who had experienced
severe retaliation from their own employing organizations
for reporting forthrightly to higher authorities the involve-
ment of these agencies in serious misconduct (Leahy
1978).
Literature on the dominance of large hierarchical orga-
nizations also began to appear in the academic literature
during these years. As early as 1956, William H. Whyte
was writing about the tendency of modern organizations to
create servile “organization men” whose loyalty was so fully
tied to the wishes of its hierarchy that they simply did its
bidding without question. By the 1970s, a flood of writings
on this problem followed suit. In Freedom Inside the Orga-
nization: Bringing Civil Liberties to the Work Place, David
Ewing (1977) lamented employees’ surrender of most of
their rights upon entering the workplace each day; he char-
acterized large organizations as “minigovernments” and
charged that “for all practical purposes, employees are re-
quired to be as obedient to their superiors, regardless of

ethical and legal considerations, as are workers in totalitar-
ian countries.” Ewing proposed a legally enforceable em-
ployee bill of rights to deal with this problem of organiza-
tional dominance.
The problem of organizational dominance appeared
quite early in the public administration ethics literature.
William G. Scott and David K. Hart published Organiza-
tional America in 1979, raising the specter of a fascist state
growing out of the oppressive nature of large bureaucratic
organizations. Alberto Guerreiro Ramos argued for “orga-
nization delimitation” in The New Science of Organiza-
tions: A Reconceptualization of the Wealth of Nations in
1981 because organizations threatened to dominate their
employees’ lives with an emphasis on a narrow market
mentality that would turn them into economic maximizers
devoid of appreciation for the qualitative side of human
existence outside the workplace. The first edition of my
book The Responsible Administrator in 1982 called atten-
tion to the problem of organizational dominance. Six years
later Kathryn G. Denhardt’s book The Ethics of the Public
Service (1988) developed the problems of the organiza-
tional context further.
More recently, the problem of organizations impeding
ethical conduct has been manifested in two space shuttle
catastrophes, when Challenger exploded during launch on
January 28, 1986 (Cooper 1987), and Columbia on Febru-
ary 1, 2003. The executive summary of the accident report
on Columbia includes the following revealing statement:
The organizational causes of this accident are rooted
in the Space Shuttle Program’s history and culture,
including the original compromises that were re-
quired to gain approval for the Shuttle, subsequent

years of resource constraints, fluctuating priorities,
schedule pressures, mischaracterization of the
Shuttle as operational rather than developmental,
and lack of an agreed national vision for human
space flight. Cultural traits and organizational prac-
tices detrimental to safety were allowed to develop,
including: reliance on past success as a substitute
for sound engineering practices (such as testing to
understand why systems were not performing in ac-
cordance with requirements); organizational barri-
ers that prevented effective communication of criti-
cal safety information and stifled professional
differences of opinion; lack of integrated manage-
ment across program elements; and the evolution
of an informal chain of command and decision-
making processes that operated outside the
organization’s roles. (Columbia Accident Investi-
gation Board 2003, 9)
The identification of organizational factors is much more
explicit in the report on this second shuttle tragedy than
in the Challenger report. We learned during that earlier
investigation that shuttle engineers had been locked in an
all-night struggle with NASA and Morton Thiokol man-
agement over whether it was safe to launch in the sub-
freezing temperatures that had prevailed through the night.
The engineers insisted the O-rings that sealed the major
sections of the booster rocket tank would not be suffi-
ciently pliable in the cold temperatures to prevent the di-
sastrous escape of superheated gases. There being no dis-
sent channels in NASA for such expert judgments to be
heard in time to prevent the launch, the engineers were
finally told to take off their engineering hats and put on
their management hats. The launch went ahead as sched-
uled on January 28, 1986, the external fuel tank exploded,
and the crew was killed. In the report of the investigation

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