DRAFT: Executive Summary (Dr. Emerson)
The LAWA/Ontario Airport provided ethics training in the summer of 2007 and in winter and spring of 2008 the Masters in Public Administration program at Cal Poly Pomonaassessed employee’s response to this effort.
Ethics efforts raise fundamental questions for organizations: what is our ethicalfoundation, what approach should we take, does workforce diversity influence our approach or success, what ethical code might we adopt, how do managers and supervisors influence our efforts/success, is the public sector’s ethical responsibility unique, is training appropriate, what consequences may be expected and how might we assess our efforts?
LAWA/Ontario elected to develop its own code of ethics that emphasized six core values: honesty, integrity, citizenship, public trust, responsibility and respect/collaboration. It chose to train managers who in turn trained employees in their areas. The 38-item survey sought to assess the impact of the training on employees.
Generally speaking demographic factors (age, gender, ethnicity, education) had little influence on responses. There were exceptions. Gender appears to influence responses to questions regarding confronting others. For example, males are more likely to confront coworkers regarding a questionable phone bill than are females. Ethnicity seems to have an influence on the respondent’s willingness to confront a manager regarding inconsistency between a manager’s instructions and LAWA policy. However, the instances where demographic factors were significant and even moderately influential were few.
A respondent’s area (public safety, community/business, operations) had a significant and moderate to strong influence on all six ethical values. For example the respondent’s work area influenced views on:
- whether there was a gap between what the organization said and did,
- whether or not ethical behavior was rewarded,
- whether or not employees were treated fairly
- whether or not the public interest is being served and so forth
A contributory factor was often whether the respondent was a supervisor or not. These differences suggest that the functional areas inside the airport have substantively different perceptions and needs with regards to developing an ethical culture and serving the public.
Employees scored relatively high (personal ethics) on what they would do in challenging situations. Years in the organization and functional area of responsibility does appear to affect these responses. However, area of responsibility is the strongest contributor to the respondent’s assessment of the organization’s ethical environment.
Overall the sum of all scores indicated no significant relationship with any demographic or organizational attribute of respondents. Significant differences arise primarily when examining how individual attributes effect specific values of honesty, integrity, trust, etc.
The training program was well received overall. However it appears to have had the greatest success in areas with the fewest employee relations and communication challenges. This suggests that future training and/or program efforts might be customized to serve the diverse interests of the functional areas at the airport. It suggests that how the ethics program is delivered to employees may be as important as what the ethics program is. This report concludes with some recommendations on future training/program efforts to build on the work begun in summer of 2007.
Introduction
Ethics programs are designed to improve employee conduct and enhance the public’s trust. Employee morale and conduct is vital to building trustworthiness in an organization. Employee conduct has consequences for how the organization is judged by the public.
“The disapproval or approval of [employee] conduct is concurrently an indirect judgment of the organization. Dysfunctional conduct of one employee may damage the trustworthiness of the whole organization. It is necessary for the organization to take care that personnel properly carry out their responsibilities,” (Kaptein 1998)[1].
In support of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Executive Directive, Los Angeles World Airports(LAWA)/OntarioAirport implemented ethics awareness training for all employees in order to develop and assure ethical behavior throughout the organization. In fall of 2007 Dr. Bennett Monye, an administrator at LAWA/Ontario shared the training program with the MPA 600 class which developed an employee survey to assess the impact of the training. In winter of 2008 the MPA 504 class compiled the data and completed the statistical analysis.
Specific information about the development of the questions, the pre-testing of the survey instrument may be found on-line:The Los Angeles World Airports/Ontario Ethics Program Survey Questionnaire: Interim Report at
This report addresses the scholarly and practitioner literature on ethics in organizations, describes the methodology used to develop the instrument and describes the analysis of the data from 311 returned surveys. Based on the data and analysis provided, this paper provides tentative conclusions and recommendations regarding employees ethical values/behaviors and opportunities for future growth.
Literature Review: LAWA/OntarioProject
The Masters in Public Administration Program (MPA) is assessing an ethics training program at LAWA/Ontario Airport that was implemented in the summer of 2007. This section discusses how ethics is defined, the assumptions about the relationship between ethics and outcomes, ethical standards in the public sector and the debate between ethics training and other means for assuring appropriate behavior from public employees. In addition we explore whether or not there is a difference in ethical standards between the public and private sectors and what approaches organizations take in fostering ethical decision making. Finally, how are ethics programs being evaluated and what is known about these programs and their consequences? This report has eight contributors who are noted for each topic.
What is ethics? (Pedro Carrillo)
There is no single definition of ethics. There are four generally accepted frameworks used in discussing ethical standards for organizations and communities: Ethical Relativism, Teleology, Deontology, and Virtue Theory.
Ethical Relativism is a perspective that assumes cultures, societies, and individuals have their own set of ethical standards and no one ethical standard exists that applies to everyone at all times (Geuras & Garofalo, 2005). While this approach could work when discussing the mores of other cultures, what about people who reside within the same culture and society? One of the criticisms of Relativism is that it validates individual ethical standards regardless of the content and offers no mechanism or criteria for consistency of ethical standards.
An approach that has a consistent standard is Teleology which suggests that ethical behavior is acting for the attainment of happiness (Geuras & Garofalo, 2005). One of the most cited discussions of Teleology is Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism as later refined by John Stuart Mill. The core concept of Utilitarianism is thatwhen one acts to provide the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of persons, he/she is acting ethically. (Geuras & Garofalo, 2005) The problem with this approach is that happiness or utility can be a very vague concept to define or measure. Utilitarianism mayplace an enormous burden on the individual if the need of the larger community demands it, which may harm the autonomy of individuals. It is said that there is no universal greatest good or ultimate ethical standard; rather there is an evolving ethical standard (Hobbes, 1994).Based on Hobbe’s observation there would need to be a more consistent ethical standard than Utilitarianism. Deontology provides a possible answer.
Deontology sometimes referred to as “Kantian Ethics”, looks at the principal of actions and why they are carried out as opposed to what is the outcome of actions. It considers the consequences of consistently applying a standard over time (Geuras & Garofalo, 2005). Emmanuel Kant’s theories are not without their flaws, as he himself is keen to point out. Kant’s ethics are not meant to present a code of ethics or a code of law as much as they are a useful start in how we evaluate ethical standards.
Finally there is Virtue Theory, which is one of the oldest approaches to ethics dating back to Aristotle. When speaking of ethical actions, Virtue Theory looks at the action in regards to how righteous it is (Geuras & Garofalo, 2005). As with the other approaches noted above, this too has problems and critiques. If there is no universal ethic then there can be few universal virtues with regards to actions. Without understanding the context of an action, such as in Kantian Ethics, a seemingly virtuous action could have egotistical, self-serving undertones.
All ethical frameworks have flaws. Ultimately, human beings are flawed. That doesn’t mean people can’t be moral creatures to the best of their abilities, as Kantian ethics suggests. Where does this leave the organization and its employees? It may be unrealistic to think that an organization can always act morally much like it may be unrealistic to think human beings will always act morally. However, organizations should consider the positive aspects of a given framework of ethical standards and decide what provides the best fit for the needs of employees and the goals of the organization. (Kaptein, 1998)
Approaches to Ethics in Organizations (Hector Solis)
Ethical approaches in government institutions may be broken down into two: the primitive, reactive and negative low road approach or a positive, humanistic high road approach where ethical behavior is encouraged (Blake, 1998). The low road approach is where organizations set up a reactive legalistic, blame-punishment approach focused on discouraging and detecting unethical behavior, whereby institutions using the high road approach develop a proactive system in which the focus is human-development and problem solving strategies that encourage ethical behavior (Bowman, 1997). This discussion looks at a number of options available to public organizations such as codes of ethics, whistle-blowing policies and ethics committees to support ethical decisions by employees.
A study by James Bowman found that 24.7% of respondents believed most organizations have a reactive low road approach, compared to 10.5% who believed organizations are using a high road approach. This indicates that of the two approaches, most institutions use a low road approach. Blake, et al, found similar results in their study, although this study is somewhat different in that they set out to analyze information from each of the US States using Rohr’s highroad-low-road dimensions. Blake’s findings showed that government codes of ethics are dramatically skewed in the low road direction (Blake et al, 1998).
Bowman’s most significant finding is that 57.8% of those polled believed that most organizations have no consistent approach to ethics (Bowman, 1997). Blake and Bowman’s findings that organizations preferred low road approach to ethics may provide a theoretical framework for others to study. In other words, more study is needed to determine whether this more popular low road approach is the best way to achieve an ethical organizational culture.
Another approach to ethics is the creation and use of ethic’s committees. These committees have become essential in some fields, as in the case of the healthcare industry (Hoffmann, 1993). In this industry, there are prospective ethical situations where patients, doctors and family are making life and death decisions. Therefore, the support of an ethics committee can be a powerful tool in helping people determine the most ethical choices in matters ranging from --how to treat a patient or when to abstain from medical care--to issues of cost effectiveness. Hoffmann illustrates that these committees are not without criticism and raise some questions as to their effectiveness, accountability and potential conflicts of interest. However, they are set up to empower people with the tools needed to act on ethical choices.
Organizations and agencies have struggled with employees/agents reporting on wrong-doing by the agency, co-workers or officials: whistle-blowing. This tactic has provided a venue for dissenting employees to act when they are confronted with or witness illegal, dangerous, or unethical activity in their organization. The reasons for employees to blow the ‘whistle’ are varied but nonetheless can result in career suicide because of the negative repercussions and alienation these agents are exposed to from co-workers, agency officials and sometimes prospective employers. Under Rohr’s dimensions, whistle-blowing would fall into the low road approach. This begs the question, how effective is the whistle-blowing approach to encouraging ethical behavior? Johnson and Kraft set out to test to see whether whistle-blowing affected policy making by analyzing two cases; one dealing with the EPA and toxic waste and the other case dealing with AIDS discrimination or the perception of AIDS at the Office of Civil Rights in the late 1980’s. They reviewed the cases by breaking them down into a set of three variables tested against policy effectiveness. These variables were: 1) the characteristics of the whistleblower (status, credibility, and political skills) 2) the characteristics of the issue (saliency, specificity, and feasibility of corrective action), and 3) the political environment (public opinion, group activity, media coverage, and legislative receptivity to change) (Johnson, 1990). Allowing for confounding variables, they found that a significant intervening variable was political climate and determined that these variables were interactive and; therefore important, in understanding the relationship between whistle-blowing and policy making. Johnson argues that the more supportive the political environment is the greater the probability of political impact the whistle blower will have.
Whistle-blowing is not an easy task, O’Leary (2006) citing Waldo (1988) explains that there are many competing ethical obligations for the public servant, and asks among other questions, “What if the laws are unclear? What if they conflict? Hence, employees may find no other alternative but to blow the whistle. The public servant needs to understand the issues associated with whistle-blowing and the way public organizations operate (O’Leary, 2006).
Yet another approach to ethics is the development of Codes of Conduct, or Ethics. These codes vary from organization to organization and are required of many public agencies by the legislature. In effect, forcing public organizations to develop and implement a more stringent code can sometimes be unnecessary for ethical agencies/agents and just more of a procedure step for those which are not ethical. Perhaps a code of ethical behavior is only as good as the directors and officers responsible for implementing it are. However, a code of ethics may empower employees who want to do the right thing to do so and may prevent questionable wrongdoing by others. The larger issue is that top officials need to be held accountable to set the tone for an ethical work environment.
Ethical behavior can be influenced and even legislated as in the case of instituting the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This act sets out to increase transparency, integrity, and accountability in public companies. This act by far is the strongest and most comprehensive act since the Securities and Exchange Acts of 1933 and 1934 (Harvard, 2003) and it was legislated in direct response to the recent corporate ethical and legal wrongdoing by Enron, whose ethical code of behavior didn’t prevent unethical behavior. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires corporations to disclose whether they have adopted a code of ethics for specified officers, disclose any waivers of a code provision and to disclose the ethics code to the public. Section 406details how disclosure requirements are to be met by public organizations. The disclosure requirements are meant to deter top executives from carelessly granting waivers (permissions to deviate from the ethical code) to officials (Harvard, 2003). These requirements also aim to provide a more transparent ethical environment.
Codes of Ethic in the Public Sector (Katherine Sharifi)
What are scholars and practitioners doing with regard to developing greater transparency and ethical practices in public agencies? This section examines ethics codes authorized by the two leading public sector associations: the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). It describes how these standards differ and how they are similar (Van Wart, 1996).
John Locke made one of the first contributions to ethics codes for the public sector many years ago when he proclaimed that the government was about working for the best interests of the people. Today, the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) provide guidelines for acting ethically in the public realm. ICMA and ASPA offer ethics guidelines as a service to their members.
ICMA established formal ethics codes in 1942. ASPA followed suit in 1984. In 1994, after numerous member complaints, ASPA streamlined their codes in the spirit of improved member service and user friendliness (Van Wart, 1996). The organization separated the code into five categories related to types of interests: public interests, legal interests, professional interests, organizational interests, and personal interests (Van Wart, 1996). Each of these categories includes a set of guidelines to be followed. ASPA ethics codes stipulate that members should be good public servants and to act in good faith at all times. Additionally, the standard included integrity asexhibiting a positive attitude. The public should be included in decision-making when appropriate and should be treated kindly. For legal interests, laws should be followed and legitimacy must be practiced and/or maintained at all times. Personal interests address the importance of not being selfish and recognizing the good work of subordinates and associates alike. Professional interests are related to supporting the promotion of colleagues and mentoring students with interests in the public sector. Organization interests stipulate that one should do what is best for the organization - act for the group and not yourself. Moreover, ASPA's code touches upon the basics (Huddleston, 1995).