What Determines Ethical Behavior in Public Organizations: Is It Rules or Leadership?

• Author: Richard Cowell,Karen Morgan,James Downe
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12562
• Published date: 01 November 2016
• Date: 01 November 2016

898

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 76, Iss. 6, pp. 898–909. © 2016

The Authors. Public Administration Review

published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on

behalf of The American Society for Public

Administration. DOI: 10.1111/puar.12562.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

and is not used for commercial purposes.

Karen Morgan is a research fellow

in the School of Social and Community

Medicine, University of Bristol, United

Kingdom. She is currently working on a

project piloting and evaluating interventions

for male perpetrators of domestic abuse,

and also on a project exploring experiences

of female survivors of abuse. Previous work

has included looking at the service needs

of homeless women, and at the ethical

framework governing local councillors in

England.

E-mail: karen.morgan@bristol.ac.uk

Richard Cowell is a reader in

environmental planning in the School of

Geography and Planning, Cardiff University,

United Kingdom. His research interests

cover theoretical and political aspects of

the relationship between public policy and

sustainable development. He has written

widely on issues of governance, knowledge

and decision making, policy integration,

public participation, and trust, with a

particular interest in ethics regulation.

E-mail: cowellrj@cardiff.ac.uk

James Downe is a reader in public

management and director of the Centre for

Local and Regional Government Research,

Cardiff Business School, United Kingdom.

His current research interests include local

government performance regimes, political

accountability, public trust, and the ethical

behavior of local politicians. He has more

than 10 years of experience conducting

evaluations on local government policy

and has published widely in international

journals.

E-mail: downej@cardiff.ac.uk

Abstract : Leadership is widely seen as having an important role in fostering ethical conduct in organizations, but

the ways in which the actions of leaders intersect with formal ethics regulation in shaping conduct have been little

researched. This article examines this issue through a qualitative study of the operation of the “ethical framework”

for English local government, which entailed all councils adopting a code of conduct to regulate the behavior of local

politicians. Studying local government provides an opportunity to examine how personal and managerial factors

combine to influence ethical conduct and to analyze the ways in which ethical leadership is exercised through multiple

people in leadership roles (politicians and managers). The article finds that organizations that exhibit consistently good

conduct have multiple leaders who demonstrate good conduct but also act to preempt the escalation of problems and

thereby minimize the explicit use of ethics regulation.

Practitioner Points

• The actions of leaders are important in promoting good conduct and fostering an ethical culture.

• The promotion of good conduct within complex organizations can be enhanced when different categories of

leaders work in concert.

• Leaders need to be willing to intervene informally to steer behavior in their organizations and resolve

emerging problems rather than relying on formal regulatory mechanisms.

• The personal moral credibility of leaders can be very important in enhancing the effectiveness of formal

ethics regulation.

James Downe

Richard Cowell

Cardiff University , United Kingdom

Karen Morgan

University of Bristol, United Kingdom

What Determines Ethical Behavior in Public Organizations:

Is It Rules or Leadership?

E thics is a key component of good governance

(Perry et al. 2014 ) and has significant potential

to affect public trust in all forms of government

(Joyce 2014 ). Previous research has identified a number

of factors that can shape standards of conduct within

an organization, among which the role of leadership

has attracted significant attention (Grojean et al. 2004;

Steinbauer et al. 2014 ). Indeed, the ethical behavior

of leaders has come to assume global importance, with

leaders being implicated in high-profile ethical scandals

and integrity violations (Hassan, Wright, and Yukl

2014 ; Tonge, Greer, and Lawton 2003 ).

Researchers are identifying an array of beneficial

outcomes arising from “ethical leadership,” including

increased willingness of employees to use voice to

improve their organization, greater employee job

satisfaction and sense of well-being, and increased

trust in organization leaders, both from employees and

the public (see, e.g., Bedi, Alpaslan, and Green 2015 ;

Hassan 2015 ; Wang and Van Wart 2007 ). Much

effort has also been applied to delineate the actions

and behaviors that leaders can undertake to enhance

ethics, including aspects of leadership style that

create a culture in which good conduct is maintained

(Huberts 2014 ; Lasthuizen 2008 ). Nevertheless,

analysis of the impact of leadership and its role in

fostering ethical behavior remains underdeveloped

(Menzel 2015 ), especially in the public sector (Heres

and Lasthuizen 2012 ; Van Wart 2003; Weinberg

2014 ), with insufficient testing of theory against

empirical research compared with business ethics

(Lawton and Doig 2005 ; Mayer et al. 2012 ; Perry

2015 ; notable exceptions are Hassan 2015 ; Hassan,

Wright, and Yukl 2014 ). Moreover, while it is widely

recognized that leaders can exert influence through

their character and personal conduct as well as by

taking managerial actions to regulate the conduct

of others (through issuing guidance or processes of

sanctions and rewards), there is relatively little research

that considers the causal relationships between leaders,

systems of ethics regulation, and resulting standards of

behavior. Indeed, Six and Lawton ( 2013 ) suggest there

is little theory about the best combination of value-

based and compliance-based policies.

This ar ticle responds to these gaps by examining

the roles played by leaders in shaping the ethical