Ethics in Public Sector Organizations

This essay examines the crucial role of ethics in public sector organizations due to the public's dependence on government services. It analyzes various policy models, including normative and descriptive theories, highlighting their influence on policy formulation and ethical decision-making processes. The essay emphasizes the significance of evaluating public sector performance to ensure transparency, accountability, and public trust.

Running head: PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

1PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Rise in the Global expansion as well as higher levels of competitions in the various
industries have gave birth to various liabilities to prove one’s value in the society or the
market. To top the competition individuals have let go of the morality that once prevailed
amongst the individuals (Frederickson and Rohr 2015).
This essay deals with the issues that are mostly revolved around the public sectors and
the private sectors including the issues related to the ethics, the strategic management, the
methods of evaluation of the prospects of the private sectors and the policies that are being
incorporated
The purpose of this essay is to understand the implications and the evaluations of the
various aspects of management related to the public sector in comparison to the private
sector.
Answer 1:
Ethics has become more critical in the public administration system in the latest years.
The rising issues of corruption, fraudulent activities, bribery, misuse of the authority and
power within the governance has led to the breach of trust amongst the public (Frederickson
and Ghere 2013). Ethical behaviour and decisions are taken to maintain citizens’ trust as well
as ensure effective and efficient utilization of resources thus allow government to preserve an
individual’s rights along with assisting others in need.
Ethics is one of the imperative components that allow a democratic system to thrive in
a country. Ethics in the public organization is crucial to realize the security of the democracy.
In a democratic system, the government have a commitment towards the citizens, to treat

2PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
everyone equally and provide the maximum service to most of citizens (Van Dooren,
Bouckaert and Halligan 2015). The efficient functioning of democratic government obliges
that the public sector employees should be autonomous, unbiased and dependable towards the
people. Government policies should be prepared within the appropriate configuration of
government, enforce that the public offices should not be used for any kind of personal
achievement, and ensure that the public have confidence in the integrity of its government.
The ethical misconduct and outrage in government pose a threat to the democratic ideologies
in the rules of administration, equity and individual rights. Fraud, bribery and other misuses
within the government takes the power from people and gives it to a few who are in position
of control that ultimately distorts the notion of the equality of all participants of the public
life. Since public service is a public belief, citizens anticipate that the public servants
according to the public interest with even-handedness and manage the public resources fairly.
Ethical and steadfast services motivate trust and create a positive environment for businesses,
thus contributing to economic growth (Preston and Sampford 2012).
With reference to a country, Hong Kong is one the countries with good ethical
practises in terms of administration. The Hong Kong administration is no exemption. The
quality of the Hong Kong civil service well known and the civil servants are internationally
recognized as among the least corrupt and the least intrusive. However, the government has
faced ethical confrontations in the recent years. In order to preserve the integrity and
professionalism of civil service, the government has established the theory of serving the
community as well as being liable when it reforms the civil service and has been in effort to
improve the ethics management in its governance.
In most nations in the present day, there is a higher expectation from an ordinary
citizen towards the Governments, that it would establish and distribute privileged standards

3PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
of ethicality and integrity in the civil service and the Government itself. In order to achieve
such certain regulations are being followed to ensure the maintenance of the ethicality in the
public sector. With these propositions in the mindset initiatives have been taken to implement
effective civil ethics, codes of conduct, integrity coordination, anti – corruption measures and
transparency measures. Effective practise have led to better improvements in the ethical
environment of the public sectors. Disciplinary actions for justifying any action, effective
laws to protect the public interest disclosure, ethical audits to measure and maintain integrity
risks along with better human resource management strategies to promote merit based
promotions and anti discrimination in the public sectors.
Despite severe efforts to implement the ethical practices amongst the public service
employees the ethical practices faces it major weakness in terms of practise and
implementation. Ethical practises or conduct are set of rules that are only incorporated from
within the conscience of the organization and the individuals working for these organizations.
The principle weakness or challenges it the lack of comprehension for following the ethics
while involved in public service. The conscience makes the effort to help the individual
understand the value of ethics as ethics cannot be taught but it can be understood. Lack of
strict regulations to control the unethical practices or actions encourages individuals to
continue the use of unethical practises for individual purpose and need for the personal gain.
Negative influence plays a major role in terms of the ethical practises as observing others or
superiors engrossed in unethical activities encourages the others to follow the same without
thinking or rationalizing the consequences of those actions.
Answer 2:
With reference to the speech delivered in 2005. In a forum of public servants by the
former Minister for planning and National Development in the Republic of Kenya, Professor

4PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
Peter Anyang’ Nyongo, the secret to generating revenue is only possible if the belief is not
just limited to the perception or the words but the actual implementation of these beliefs into
the actions. This is not possible in a day’s time but with gradual practise and incorporation
the development would certainly prevail one day. Strategic management has become the
standardized tool for the shaping of the organization and the creating the value for the same.
The use of strategic triangle and the three management dimensions acts as a guiding
instrument for the management and the personnel. The three management dimensions in the
strategic management are Political, Cooperation and Operations (Hill and Varone 2016).
The political factor reflects the need and demand for the political support and is an
obvious principle of the public sector. The cooperation takes the new management hypothesis
of the governance into consideration, as the cooperation and the networking of the social
performer have gained increased significance. The operational element takes the efficiency
and the effectiveness into consideration (Vedung 2017). To implement and improvise the
strategies and create a value for the society, the ends of the triangle should be managed with
precision and dedication. Even if the strategic model in not known to any subject, these
management strategies can be always be related and would remain relevant in terms of
managing the strategies in the public sectors. These management strategies are
interdependent with each other and proper influence and compelling of the ministry to extend
the authorization can help an organization enter improvised forms of cooperation and modify
the operations, where new cooperation can mean the modification of the operations and
influencing of the political level (Branch, Hanushek and Rivkin 2012). As per the concept
new operations would attract stronger form of alliance that would ultimately help in the faster
development progress.

5PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
Answer 3:
As per the cited concern, the evaluation of the public organizations is more difficult
than that of the private organizations. The main reason than be held responsible is the
differences between the public and the private organizations. The main reason that can be
justified for the concern is the size, value and the complexity of the public organizations
makes it more complicated than the private organizations. The fewer measures to track the
progress of the success and failure is less due to the constant changing reforms of the
different governments. The civil service norms and regulations seldom encourage the
individuals in terms of outstanding or poor performance. There is very little risk of personal
gain in the government due to the serious implementations of certain policies or programs.
The principle key of the driving the public organizations is completely dependent on
legislative driven monopolies. The manager in the government often knows about the need
for certain changes and management in the government but can hardly implement it due to
the restrictions that are faced by the legal restrictions, regulations and the government
policies, that might have been probably made earlier for other circumstances. The authority
and the responsibility of the government tend to be asymmetrical and instead of well balance
that results in most of the difficulty in the evaluation proceedings. The goals and the
objectives of the government are pretty often divergent and distractive in nature that can often
lead to misunderstandings and confusions. These are the factors that are responsible to
understand the difficulty in the evaluation of the public organizations in comparison to the
private organizations as well as these are the factors that the employees in the public
organizations should take into consideration while operation within the organization
(Drennan, McConnell and Stark 2014).
This is significant for understanding since the public organizations have been formed
and acts for the benefit of the public and the citizens. Reconstruction in the strategic

6PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
formulations is utterly necessary to convey about the clear functionalities and objectives of
the government instead of creating deception, confusion and mistrust between the
organization and its publics (De Vries, Bekkers and Tummers 2016).
Answer 4:
Policy analysis is a method that has been implemented in the purpose of public
administration and facilitates the employees to scrutinize and evaluate the possible
opportunities to implement the objectives of these goals (Dunn 2015). It can be determined
the methodology of determining the different policies that would be influential and crucial in
achieving a predetermined set of objectives. The process of policy analysis can be
categorized into two different actions. The first action involves the analysis of the existing
policies those are descriptive and analytical. The second action is the analysis of the new
policies that are prescriptive and involve the formulation of the policies (Kraft and Furlong
2012). On addition the different stages of the rational model of the policy analysis is the
identification of the problem, agenda setting, formulation of the policy proposal through
diverse parties, the selection or the adoption of the legal enactment of the chosen policy and
the evaluation of the policy (John 2013).
With reference to the normative and the descriptive models in terms of decision-
making, the normative models or the prescriptive theory it is mainly concerned with the point
of considering the best decision that can be taken concentrating on the ideal decision maker
who would be able to take the decision rationally. On the other hand, the descriptive theory or
the positive theory is mostly concerned with the observation of the decision makers, if they
take any decision or act under certain influence during the session of decision-making. The
theories of the decision-making have been explained with the help of a policy as cited in the
assignment. Considering the policy of Principle of Ethical Conduct, this policy enforces of

7PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
the public organization employees about how they should act and how they can act based on
the ethical values (Normative and Prescriptive model theory). Based on the actions that the
employees take or have taken that breaches the ethical values, the decisions are taken into
consideration using the Descriptive theory.
As per the requirement, the normative model does serve the purpose of a descriptive model,
as these theories are instrumental and crucial in determining the necessity of the formulating
new and older policies as well as influencing the decision making process (Laegreid and
Christensen 2013).
Conclusion
With the help of this essay, it can be concluded that ethics is indeed one of the
important values that are necessary to be installed within the public sector organisations and
the employees working for it. The necessity lies in the relationship and dependency of the
public with the government. The formula of generating revenue by a nation or the
government is to transform and manipulate the strategies in the governance that involves the
political, cooperation and the operational factors. The evaluation of the public sectors are
difficult and complicated than the private organization due to the huge differences in the
operations and the categorization that involves the strict boundaries from the different legal
regulations. The significance of the evaluation is necessary since the public organizations
have been formed and acts for the benefit of the public and the citizens and it is important to
be clear about the regulations and actions to prevent confusion and mistrust. The method of
policy analysis and the policy model does serve the purpose of a descriptive model as these
steps are instrumental and crucial in the determination of the necessity and validation of the
formulation of new and older policies.

8PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
References
Frederickson, H.G. and Rohr, J.A., 2015. Ethics and public administration. Routledge.
Frederickson, H.G. and Ghere, R.K., 2013. Ethics in public management. ME Sharpe.
Van Dooren, W., Bouckaert, G. and Halligan, J., 2015. Performance management in the
public sector. Routledge.
Preston, N. and Sampford, C. eds., 2012. Public sector ethics: finding and implementing
values. Routledge.
Dunn, W.N., 2015. Public policy analysis. Routledge.
Branch, G.F., Hanushek, E.A. and Rivkin, S.G., 2012. Estimating the effect of leaders on
public sector productivity: The case of school principals (No. w17803). National Bureau of
Economic Research.
Kraft, M.E. and Furlong, S.R., 2012. Public policy: Politics, analysis, and alternatives. Sage.
Bardach, E. and Patashnik, E.M., 2015. A practical guide for policy analysis: The eightfold
path to more effective problem solving. CQ press.
John, P., 2013. Analyzing public policy. Routledge.
De Vries, H., Bekkers, V. and Tummers, L., 2016. Innovation in the public sector: A
systematic review and future research agenda. Public Administration, 94(1), pp.146-166.
Vedung, E., 2017. Public policy and program evaluation. Routledge.
Hill, M. and Varone, F., 2016. The public policy process. Taylor & Francis.

9PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT
Laegreid, P. and Christensen, T. eds., 2013. Transcending new public management: the
transformation of public sector reforms. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
Drennan, L.T., McConnell, A. and Stark, A., 2014. Risk and crisis management in the public
sector. Routledge.