In Search of Ethics Infrastructure in U.S. Local Governments: Building Blocks or Dead End?

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231190571
• Author: Tansu Demir,Christopher G. Reddick,Bruce J. Perlman
• Date: 01 November 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231190571

Administration & Society

2023, Vol. 55(10) 1866 –1892

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997231190571

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Article

In Search of Ethics

Infrastructure in U.S.

Local Governments:

Building Blocks or

Dead End?

Tansu Demir1, Christopher G. Reddick1,

and Bruce J. Perlman2

Abstract

The literature in public administration has advanced various propositions

to promote ethical behavior. Local governments have undertaken various

efforts in that direction. Those efforts are considered critical for building

ethical leadership and culture in the long run. Based on a literature review

and use of Social Learning Theory, we identify four building blocks of an

ethics infrastructure for public organizations. Employing a comprehensive

survey of local governments, this paper shows that displaying awareness

and knowledge of ethics, enforcing rules and norms, demonstrating policy

support for ethical behavior, and incentivizing the right behaviors are key

building blocks of ethics infrastructure that still need improvement in local

governments. The reality of ethics infrastructure revealed by the survey is

far from the idealism promoted in the literature. We discuss the results and

offer several insights and remedies.

1The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA

2University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA

Corresponding Author:

Tansu Demir, Department of Public Administration, College for Health, Community, and

Policy, The University of Texas at San Antonio, 501 W. Cesar E. Chavez Blvd., San Antonio,

TX 78207, USA.

Email: Tansu.Demir@utsa.edu

1190571AAS0010.1177/00953997231190571Administration & SocietyDemir et al.

research-article2023

Demir et al. 1867

Keywords

ethics, ethics infrastructure, local governments, survey research

Introduction

Contrary to what may be thought, the U.S. public sector still suffers from a

high risk of misbehavior and corruption by officials in public agencies. For

example, the national Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Public Integrity section

compiles data regarding public corruption convictions in each state, and its

report shows that high rates of misconduct continue to be an issue in govern-

ment that needs to be addressed. Despite increasing awareness and targeted

efforts such as comprehensive ethics legislation and training at all levels of

government, researchers still note that problems such as reactive approaches,

an overly legalistic focus on ethics training and programs, and a lack of con-

sistency across governments continue to plague the effectiveness of these

initiatives (Bowman & Knox, 2008).

Our study analyzes a comprehensive dataset of local governments’ ethics

initiatives in the United States. Our review of the literature suggests four

building blocks that make up an ethics infrastructure. We explore survey data

to see how the reality of an ethics infrastructure corresponds to the ideal pre-

scriptions promoted in the literature.

The paper is organized into five main sections. The first section is a brief

introduction to the notion of organizational infrastructure. The second section

is a review of literature that presents and clarifies the key concepts of ethics

culture, ethical leadership, ethical programs, and social learning theory on

which our model is based. In the third section, we articulate and derive the four

building blocks of ethics infrastructure tested in our survey. In section four, we

present our data analysis to compare the ideal of an ethics infrastructure from

the literature with the reality of local governments as reported in the survey. In

the fifth section, we discuss the findings from our analysis and offer additional

insights and suggestions.

An Ethics Infrastructure for Local Government?

An organization’s infrastructure is the structure and systems – such as

finance, compensation, measurement, reporting, and knowledge creation

and accumulation–that enable it to carry out its initiatives (Dixon & Lokus,

2013). It has been suggested that organizational infrastructure is the foun-

dation for organizational effectiveness and adaptation (Lev, 2002). Some

organizational capabilities (for example, continuous improvement) have