The choice and use of concepts in administrative ethics is at times complex and overlapping. Several concepts tend to be ambiguous1 and contextually loaded, therefore I will clarify the main concepts used in the study.
In this part, I will narrow the definition of concepts into the following: public service ethics, ethics management, justice, ethos, transparency and ethical governance.
1 E.g. corruption and integrity both include a variety of definitions depending on the context, purpose and even culture in which they are used.
Public service ethics and public administration theories
Public sector managers Citizens Ethical dimensions
Justice Ethos
Transparency
Ethical maximum
Public service ethics. The definition of public service ethics for the purposes of this study is the following: public service ethics refers to the ethical practices and ethical values guiding and defining the actions and practices of public service.
Ethics in public service is present at different levels, ranging from the minimum of ethical consideration, which means paying attention only to the rules and laws, to the maximum of ethical consideration, meaning paying attention to key ethical values, ethical governance and ethics management. Ethical public service means more than the absence of corruption and malpractice: it means the application and consideration of ethics in the wider value framework as well as in the daily practice of public service. (cf. Denhardt 1988, Menzel 2005, Lawton 1998, Salminen 2010.) The citizen perspective and the managerial perspective in public service ethics differ in relation to the experience and the position and duty to maintain ethical conduct. It is a duty of public administration to promote ethical public service and one way to measure the success and level of ethics is through the citizens, through the service the users experience.
Ethics management. Ethics management refers to the ethics laws, rules, regulations, and codes that either prevent or promote ethical practices within an organization. Ethics management means the cumulative actions taken by managers to promote the ethical sensitivity and ethical decision-making that permeate all aspects of the organization. There are two main approaches to ethics management that will be further elaborated in this research: the compliance-based and the integrity-approach (these are linked to the low road and high road of ethics). Whereas the former approach emphasizes rules and regulations (Menzel (2012: 37) refers to this as the ‘old’ ethics management approach), the latter promotes the integrity of the organization through values, leadership and integrity.
We might readily agree that ethics, morals and values need to be given particular attention in the business of management, government and public service. Taking a more fundamental approach to the relationship of ethics and administration, Garofalo and Geuras (2006) have argued that public administration is fundamentally a moral enterprise, and therefore the administrator is a moral agent. This morality is bound to the legitimacy of the whole public administration. The moral legitimacy, or the claim to moral legitimacy, derives from the administration’s purpose to serve societal values and on the ends and means of how these values are enacted. (cf. Garofalo & Geuras 2009.)
Justice. The definition of justice is inextricably linked to the concept of equality, and in this research I will emphasize that egalitarian aspect. According to Rawls (1971: 3), justice is the first virtue of social institutions, in a similar manner as
truth is the virtue of systems of thought.2 Justice defines what is just and what is unjust. Every society and culture has their conception of justice. The idea of justice entails impartiality (justice is blind) and equality of opportunities. In the welfare state context, distributive justice is a key tenet, regarding what benefit is to be distributed and on what grounds. Procedural justice is especially central in administration, concerning the fairness of the decision-making process and procedures (see also Appendix 1).
The Rawlsian definition (Rawls 1971: 13) and conception of justice as fairness is one of the most central definitions. The idea of justice as fairness relies on two basic principles: the first demands equality in the assignment of basic rights and duties, and the second entails that social and economic inequalities are only acceptable in the circumstance where they benefit everyone, especially the most disadvantaged members of society.
Ethos. Ethos is basically defined as the set of ideas and moral attitudes that belong to a certain person or group. The concept involves a multitude of definitions, some even as broad as to suggest that ethos signifies the notion of a good life, the spirit of a culture and a value system (cf. Lawton 1998, Juuti 2002:
7, 38). In this research, I will use the definition of ethos as the guiding value set that derives from personal beliefs and priorities reflecting the values of the organization. It is possible to pair ethos with several attributes, such as the public service ethos that is the focus in this research. In the administrative ethics theories, a division into bureaucratic and democratic ethos is made (see also Appendix 2).
In terms of rhetoric, Aristotle viewed ethos as the credibility of a speaker, and the ability to convey a message in a trustworthy manner. This meaning underpins the trustworthiness that is attached to ethos3.
Transparency. Transparency means the disclosure of information. In this research, the definition of transparency is the availability and accessibility of relevant, timely, comprehensive, high-quality and reliable information about the functioning of the polity and government activities and the possibility to give
2 Justice also means the refraining from pleonexia, i.e. “gaining advantage for oneself by seizing what belongs to another” (Rawls, 1971: 3, Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics, 1129b-1130b5).
3 In his work Rhetoric, Aristotle viewed ethos as the character of the speaker, as a mean of persuasion in addition to pathos and logos. In contemporary research, communication
scientists define it as the perception of credibility a person has toward other persons or objects (Haskins 2003:45).
feedback and act upon the provided information (Gerring & Thacker 2004: 316, cf. Appendix 3 & 4). Transparency is often connected to the notion of openness and publicity. Openness is a wider concept than transparency, because it often denotes the wider attitude or approach, for example, in business or international relations. Publicity refers to matter that are made public (by the government or other stakeholders). The opposite of openness is secrecy, whereas the conceptual opposite of transparency is opaqueness, which can refer to unclear or incoherent information. However, the definition of openness and the open government includes the freedom of information aspect, and the public availability of information to the citizens or stakeholders. In the Finnish and the Nordic context, the ‘principle of publicity’ (Julkisuusperiaate) is a constitutional principle that guarantees the access to information. (Act on the Openness of Government Activities 621/1999, Erkkilä 2010, Mäenpää 2009.)
Another central, yet somewhat ambiguous concept is ethical governance¸ that is an umbrella term and a holistic concept that includes ethics management, ethical management and ethical leadership and emphasizes the context of public governance. The concept is used interchangeably with ethics management and ethical management in some contexts (cf. Menzel 2012). It denotes administrative measures, procedures, and policies that fulfill the criteria required for the ethically good or acceptable handling of public affairs, public administration, and public service. Ethical governance also denotes the absence of corruption.