The paper describes a normative approach to defining ethics and integrity in the public service. An "ethics map" is presented. A wide range of behaviors that can be found in the public service is described in "The Ethics Map". These behaviors are grouped into three categories:

• "Value-Based Ethics": Behaviors that server the public good and foster the public interest by maximizing the values of life, health, and freedom;



• "Value Neutral or Relative Ethics": Behaviors that reflect an indifference to Value-Based Ethics," and



• "No Values": Behaviors rooted in illegal or immoral behavior that reflect values that are at odds with the definition of serving the public good and fostering the public interest as presented in the paper.

"The Ethics Map" is predicated on the assumption that those in the public sector are obliged to act in ways that give the highest priority to serving the public good and acting in ways that foster the public interest. A major purpose of "The Ethics Map is to compare and contrast behaviors across the three categories and to awaken understanding and insight that might serve as an impetus for nurturing and strengthening value-based behavior among those who serve in government in the United States of America as well as in all other nations with governments that prize freedom and democracy. The roots of Values-Based Ethics are discussed.  These roots are particularly well exemplified in the democratic mainstream lineage of American public administration, a topic addressed in the author's doctoral dissertation: Public Administration in the Public Interest (Gordon, 1975).

"If you don't know where you're going, you could end up anywhere." That old adage has been seen by some as having great relevance to the field of public administration. Dwight Waldo who had been one of the true luminaries in the field, had made a similar observation in the 1960's in an article entitled "Public Administration and Change: Terra Paene Incognita" (Waldo, 1969). Waldo asserted that the field was bereft of a philosophy of change or a sense of direction. Indeed, his work influenced my selection of a dissertation topic that addressed this absence of a philosophy or change or sense of direction in the field as it had been evolving in the 1950's and 1960's.

In my doctoral dissertation, Public Administration in the Public Interest: A Democratic Humanist Paradigm of Public Administration (Gordon, 1975), I described a paradigm of public administration based on an explicit philosophy of value-based change. Fundamental to this paradigm was a definition of what it meant to "serve the public good" or "act in the public interest". "To serve the public good or to act in the public interest" was "to act in a way that maximizes the values and ethical principles upon which this nation (the United States of America) was founded." In my view, those values included then and include now the values of life, health, and freedom. ("Health" is used here to encompass the concept of the "General Welfare" as the term is used in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. "General Welfare" can be interpreted as including human welfare, societal health, psychological health and general well being.

In the 1970s, I constructed a typology of ethical behavior, "A Map of the Range of Concerns Encompassed by 'Ethics and the Public Service'." I based this "Map" on the normative view of the meaning of "acting in the public interest." (Gordon, 1978). "The Ethics Map" was intended and is intended to provide an overview of a wide range of behaviors, behaviors that can be found in the public as well as the private sectors. The focus of "The Ethics Map" is primarily, although not exclusively, on behaviors in the public sector in the United States of America.

"The Ethics Map" is depicted in the following Table in which the same general behavior is viewed in light of three different categories:

• "No Values",



• "Value Neutral or Relative Ethics: Indifference to Value-Based Ethics," and



• "Value-Based Ethics."

For instance, in "The Ethics Map," the stance with respect to the commission of illegal acts in each of these three different categories is depicted. Numerous other behaviors are also characterized in "The Ethics Map."

I initially developed "The Ethics Map" for incorporation in workshop training materials designed for local public administrators. A series of workshops using these materials were held by the U.S. Department of Justice in different parts of the nation in the late 1970's. The training material was produced by Stanford Research International (Fletcher, Gordon, and Henzell, 1978).

"The Ethics Map" was also used in the 1970's as the basis for workshop sessions for the Training Bureau that served what was then known as the United States Civil Service Commission and the Federal Executive Institute. Subsequently I have used "The Ethics Map" in university courses and in panel and workshop presentations. The version of "The Ethics Map" in that is found in the Table in this paper has remained essentially the same over the years except for very minor modifications.

In the 1990's, I came across a book by Archie Carroll entitled Business and Society (Carroll, 1996). In it was a somewhat similar typology of ethical behavior. Carroll had constructed his typology with the private sector in mind. He also included three categories of behavior in his typology. (Carroll, 1987 and 1996). These were labeled as follows:

• "Immoral,"



• "Amoral," and



• "Moral."

While Carroll did not parse out specific behaviors in his work to the same extent that I had done in "The Ethics Map," Carroll's typology and general approach turned out to be quite compatible with "The Ethics Map." It should be noted that neither typology can be said to be derivative of the other, since neither of us had known of the other's work until the 1990's.

Gerald Caiden had focused in yet another way on immoral and amoral behaviors in "What is Public Maladministration?" (Caiden, 1991.) In an early book of his, The Dynamics of Public Administration, Caiden also considers the range of healthy and unhealthy or "bureaupathological" behaviors in public organizations (Caiden, 1971). Building on James Thompson's concept of "bureaupathology," Caiden notes the chief characteristics of an unhealthy or bureaupathological organizational culture as one in which the following characteristics can be found:

As I discuss in a later paper, unhealthy organizational cultures may be seen as nurturing and sustaining bureaupathological behavior. (Gordon, 2004-2005). Such unhealthy behavior can be seen as reflecting a lack of integrity and the absence of a moral compass. Such behavior can be seen as falling under the "No Values" or "Value Neutral" categories of "The Ethics Map" and the "Immoral" or "Amoral" categories of Archie Carroll's typology.

Of course, value-based or moral behaviors can still occur in organizational cultures that can be characterized as being predominantly "bureaupathological". However, acting in a value-based or moral way in an organization that has a pathological organizational culture can present hazards and pose great challenges, even to a person of considerable character and integrity.

A person who acts with integrity and character is defined here as one who

• Acts without deceit or cunning;



• Values truth and honesty and who is a person whose word can be trusted;



• Acts with a sense of fairness and justice;



• Exemplifies high mindedness and humanity; and



• Possesses a sense of responsibility that transcends his or herself alone.

One can argue that acting with integrity, acting in value-based and moral ways contributes to and helps sustain the healthiness of an organizational culture, whether or not the organization is a public or private sector organization. One can also argue that value-based or moral behavior can play a decisive role in transforming a pathological culture into a healthy one (Gordon, 2003 - 2004).

There is an important distinction to be made concerning behaviors in public and private sector organizations. That distinction has to do with the special nature of the obligation that those who serve in government have. As Paul Appleby had so succinctly stated about American government, "Government is different" (Appleby, 1945). Some would continue to argue, I among them, that government is different in that those serving in government in America have an obligation to act in a way that serves the greater public good and fosters the public interest.

In addition, all those becoming Federal employees in the United States are swear to (or affirm) the following oath when they assume their "office" or position. The Oath of Office for Federal employees is as follows:

The obligation that one takes on entering Federal service in the United States can be viewed, to use words from Websters, as being "binding in law or conscience."  In taking the oath, one "legally (and/or) morally binds oneself to a course of action".  An "obligation" can include "a formal contract, a promise," and can involve "demands of conscience or custom."

In this oath one can find the basis for the sense of obligation that is felt by many involved directly or indirectly in the public service in the United States. This includes those working in the government or working in academia in schools of public administration and public affairs, as well as those working in public service focused non-profit institutions. The sense of obligation can be felt by those preparing individuals who are planning to enter government service.  The same sense of obligation can be felt by those who go back and forth between serving within the government and serving in academia. In both cases an understanding of and adherence to public service ethics should ideally permeate the actions of those in government and the efforts and expressions of those in academia.

The differences between American public service and public service elsewhere, is interesting to consider. A generalization that one might make is that differences in the sense of obligation felt might well reflect the differences between the American constitution and the "founding documents" of constitutions of other nations. Even in those countries that may require those entering the public service to take a similar oath of allegiance or loyalty, the oath that they are taking is going to have a different meaning to citizens of those countries than the oath Americans take. This may be seen as being a result of the differences in the "founding documents" or constitutions and the differences with regard to heritage and traditions that can be found to distinguish all of the different nations, one from another.

It is interesting to conjecture the role that the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights could play in providing a basis for a value-based oath of obligation that might be evolved and used by other nations. The Preamble to the Declaration of Human Rights concludes with the following words:

Much has been said here of the public sector, but what can be said of the private sector. It can be argued that while in the United States those in the private sector are not similarly obligated to act in such a manner, they are free to do so. In the private sector, individuals are free to conduct business in a way that significantly contributes to the greater public good. Indeed, there are quite interesting trends that have been noted in business and industry in the United States that reflect an increasing emphasis on a balancing of the goals of making a profit and contributing to the public good (Chappell, 1993; Nichols, 1994; and Halal, 1996). These trends can also be seen in the activities and initiatives of the national organization, Business for Social Responsibility (http://www.bsr.org).

There are numerous examples of "new age companies" that strive to balance the goals of profit making with contributing to the public good (Nichols, 1994 and Halal, 1996). Examples include Southwest Airlines, Starbuck's, Whole Foods (Fresh Fields), Timberland, Jet Blue, and Tom's of Maine. In fact, Tom Chappell in his book, The Soul of a Business: Managing for Profit and the Common Good, has described the way in which he arrived at his personal philosophy and the approach that he now takes to his business, an approach that aims at balancing profit-making and contributing to the public good (Chappell, 1993). Henry Schultz of Starbuck's has also written of the approach that he has taken in the creation of Starbuck's, an approach that shares much in common with Tom Chappell's (Schultz, 1997).

Efforts to educate those who are, or will be in the public service, as well as efforts to educate those who are or will be in roles of responsibility in the private sector need to be equally focused on cultivating understanding of what constitutes ethical behavior. Those in both sectors need to have moral compasses that work. They need to be conversant with the true stories, cases studies, as well as journalistic accounts of what can happen in organizations where ethics and morality are lacking. They need as well to be familiar with examples of what can happen when ethical behavior is a driving force. If students can successfully grasp the issues and moral conflicts in even a small number of selected case studies, they will have broadened their comprehension of the essential elements of "The Ethics Map" and they will have gained a deepened understanding of the importance of having a moral compass and being a person of character and integrity.

Case studies that can serve such a purpose for those in either sector include such real life accounts as John Bartlow Martin's "The Blast in Centralia #5 ~ The Mine Disaster That No One Stopped" (Martin, 1953, in Waldo, 1953, pp. 2 - 22) and Kermit Vandivier's "The Aircraft Brake Scandal" (Vandivier, 1992). Accounts of the decisionmaking process leading up to the Challenger Disaster and the Columbia Shuttle Disaster are also instructive.

A multitude of documentaries, instructional videos, and films, including films made for television, can also be used to illustrate ethical behavior at its best and at its worst. "The Gathering Storm," "Apollo 13," "Serpico," and "The Dish" are but a few films that contain valuable lessons. "The Parable of the Sadhu," "Groupthink," and "The Abilene Paradox" are some instructional videos that also be used to stimulate thinking about values and ethics.

These various media can provoke serious reflection concerning the character and consequences of ethical and unethical actions. They can also help individuals increase their understanding of human motivations and aspirations. Those that feature ethical actions can also serve as a source of inspiration and provide examples that can be emulated.

While "The Ethics Map" reflects one perspective concerning ethical behavior, it too can serve to nurture the development of ethical behavior in the following ways:

• by provoking discussion concerning what constitutes ethical and unethical behavior;



• by providing a way of characterizing what constitutes proper and improper behavior;



• by helping true one's moral compass;



• by helping develop one's conscience and sense of responsibility; and



• by helping develop one's understanding of the importance of acting honestly and with integrity.

Those in the field of public administration can play a crucial role in bringing about the kind of focus and consideration of ethical behavior that is needed in today's world where moral compasses are too often broken or non-existent or where integrity is too often in short supply.  Those involved in teaching as well as those who are practitioners in the field be an inspiration to others by setting the standard through their own exemplary actions.

Moral values and principles, and a sense of responsibility can be imparted through example. They can be cultivated in others through the sharing of experience, common sense, understanding, knowledge, wisdom, and insight. A sense of what acting in the public interest means can be gleaned by direct or indirect exposure to the actions of the best who have served in public life.  Those coming up, as well as others already in roles of responsibility, can learn much from both the successes as well as the failures of the past.

Ideally individuals who choose to serve in government will naturally act in value-based ways; ideally they will have the strength of character and courage to do so. It is possible to help encourage and sustain such behavior not only through example but through education and training, and the maintenance of a supportive and healthy organizational culture.

There have been and are individuals who possess the ideal attributes needed for public service. These individuals have needed neither carrots nor sticks to motivate them or influence their behavior. The likes of luminaries in the public service such as Don Stone, Roger Jones, and Harlan Cleveland during their service in government acted out of the deepest sense of integrity and commitment to serving the public good. The behavior of such metamotivated individuals could never be manipulated.

A major challenge presently before us is how to recruit such high-minded, metamotivated individuals into government service. What kind of selection process might help ensure that individuals are selected who are eminently well qualified for public service, individuals with integrity, character, maturity, a sense of responsibility, and a commitment to public service. For the process to have the hoped for result, it would seem necessary that those involved in making the recruitment and hiring decisions act on the basis of their own well developed discernment, experience, intuition, understanding, and knowledge. It would seem imperative that they act on the basis of their own inner sense of integrity and responsibility, and their own unswerving commitment to serving the public good.

Public administration and public service in the United States have been rooted in the normative, value-based vision of the nation's Founders and of those in government and academia who have followed most closely in their footsteps and who have helped sustain the vision and raison d'etre of the Founders. These have included Woodrow Wilson, Mary Parker Follett (Follett, 1920), Paul Appleby, Emmett Redford, Dwight Waldo, Don Stone, Roger Jones, and Harlan Cleveland. These individuals have been a part of what Howard McCurdy called "the mainstream lineage of public administration" as distinguished from the other two lineages: the Weberian lineage and the "administrative science" lineage (McCurdy, 1973, p. 10). I later augmented McCurdy's depiction of the mainstream lineage of public administration in my dissertation (Gordon, 1975, p. 187).

The mainstream lineage of public administration has been the target of considerable antipathy from the "Administrative Science" lineage of public administration. That antipathy can be found in large measure within many schools of public administration and public affairs today. The roots of that antipathy and its expression in recent decades are discussed at greater length in an interview I participated in in 2004 (Gordon and Heichelbech, 2004). The continuing significance of the clash of perspectives held by Dwight Waldo (of the mainstream lineage of public administration) and Herbert Simon (of the "Administration Science" lineage of public administration) and unresolved nature of that clash are also discussed there. In addition, my dissertation addresses these matters in some detail in that I have described there a value-based paradigm of public administration. (Gordon, 1975). Chapters 5 and 6 of my dissertation also go into some detail concerning the roots of the clash and the differences in the sets of values, assumptions, models of man, and approaches to understanding and knowledge that divide adherents of the mainstream lineage and adherents of the "administrative science" lineage and their direct predecessors. (Gordon, 1975, pp. 165 - 283.)

The ethical character of the actions of those in the public service today can be greatly enhanced through the awakening or reawakening of integrity, a sense of responsibility, and a dedication to serving the public good. Such fundamental integrity and principled action should once again define the aspirations, actions, and attitudes of all those who strive to serve the public good and to foster the public interest through their roles in public service. In order to make significant progress in the direction of such an ideal, the unresolved clash between the value neutrality of the "Administrative Science" lineage of public administration and the value-based approach of the mainstream lineage of public administration will need to be fully surfaced, recognized, understood, and addressed.

REFERENCES:

Appleby, Paul (1945) "Government is Different," from Big Democracy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf as reprinted in Jay M. Shafritz and Albert C. Hyde, Classics of Public Administration, 2nd edition, revised and expanded. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1987.

Business for Social Responsibility. www.bsr.org.

Carroll, Archie B. (1987) "In Search of the Moral Manager." Business Horizons (March-April): 7-15.

Carroll, Archie B. (1996) Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management. 3rd ed. Mason, OH: South-Western.

Caiden, Gerald E. (1971) The Dynamics of Public Administration: Guide to Current Transformation in Theory and Practice. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston.

Caiden, Gerald E. (1991) "What is Public Maladministration?" Public Administration Review (November/December) 51, no. 6: 486-493.

Chappell, Tom (1993) The Soul of a Business: Managing for Profit and the Common Good. New York: Bantam Press. Fletcher, Thomas; P. D. Gordon; and S.Hentzell (1978) An Anti-corruption Strategy for Local Governments. Palo Alto: Stanford Research International.

Follett, Mary Parker (1920) The New State. London: Longman, Green, and Company. Accessible online at http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/Mary_Parker_Follett/XIX.txt.

Follett, Mary Parker (1925) "Power" A paper presented before the Bureau of Personnel Administration Conference held in January 1925. Reprinted in Dynamic Administration ~ The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, ed. By Henry C. Metcalf and L. Urwick, New York: Harper & Brothers Publications, 1940, pp. 66 - 87. Also reprinted in Mary Parker Follett ~ Prophet of Management, ed. by Pauline Graham. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Books, 1995, pp. 97 - 119.

Gordon, Paula D. (1978) "Map of the Range of Concerns Encompassed by 'Ethics and the Public Service'." In An Anti-corruption Strategy for Local Governments, Fletcher, Thomas; P.D. Gordon; and S. Hentzell, pp. 46-55. Palo Alto: Stanford Research International.

Gordon, Paula D. (1975) Public Administration in the Public Interest: A Democratic Humanist Paradigm of Public Administration. (Doctoral Dissertation, American University, 1975) and Retrospective Comments (2003) (Accessible online at http://www.jhu.edu/pgordon.)

Gordon, Paula D. (2002) "Public Administration in the Public Interest, Thoughts after September 11, 2001."  (September 12) (Accessible at http://users.rcn.com/pgordon/homeland/public_administration_in_the_pub.html or see link at http://gordonhomeland.com. Also posted at http://www.aspanet.org/ethicscommunity/ideas.html#new.

Gordon, Paula D. and James Heichelbech (2004) "The Ethics Map: An Interview with Paula Gordon," Ethics Today, Volume 7, Number 2, Winter 2004 http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/aspa/unpan019613.pdf. Also posted at http://users.rcn.com/pgordon/homeland/EthicsMapInterview.html or see link at http://gordonhomeland.com.

Gordon, Paula D. (2004-2005) "Transforming and Leading Organizations," posted at http://users.rcn.com/pgordon/homeland/transforming_orgs.pdf or see link at http://gordonhomeland.com. Also published in Government Transformation, Winter 2004-05.

Glasser, Susan B. and Michael Grunwald, "Department's Mission Was Undermined From Start" by, Washington Post Staff Writers, December 22, 2005. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-yn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102327_pf.html)

Grunwald, Michael and Susan B. Glasser, "Brown's Turf Wars Sapped FEMA's Strength: Director Who Came to Symbolize Incompetence in Katrina Predicted Agency Would Fail" by, Washington Post Staff Writers, December 23, 2005. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122202213.html?nav=hcmodule)

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Martin, John Bartlow (1953) "The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped." In Ideas and Issues in Public Administration-A Book of Readings, ed. Dwight Waldo, pp. 2-22. New York: McGraw Hill.

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Nichols, Martha (1994) "Does New Age Business Have a Message for Managers?" Harvard Business Review (March-April 1994). (As retrieved from The Manager's Bookshelf. eds. Jon L. Pierce and John W. Newstrom, 4th ed., pp. 375-384. New York: HarperCollins.)

Schultz, Henry with Dori Jones Yang (1997) Pour Your Heart Into It. New York: Hyperion.

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Vandivier, Kermit (1992) "The Aircraft Brake Scandal." In Ethical Issues in Business: A Philosophical Approach, ed. Thomas Donaldson and Patricia H. Werhane, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Paula D. Gordon is a consultant, analyst, educator, and writer based in the Washington, DC area. She has served as a member of the Practitioner Faculty at Johns Hopkins University since 1996 and teaches for a number of other institutions of higher learning. She has worked in a wide range of roles in Federal government agencies. Her writing on homeland security and other work on public administration, leadership, organization behavior, and ethics can be found at http://gordonhomeland.com. Her doctoral dissertation, Public Administration in the Public Interest is posted in its entirety along with retrospective comments at http://www.jhu.edu/pgordon. She can be reached by e-mail at pgordon@erols.com.