Higher Standards for Public Servants

Ethics & Responsibility The author of this report has been asked to do an article review regarding ethics and responsibility. To that end, the author of this report found an article by Agheorghiesei as written earlier this year. The article is about ethics and responsibility in the public sector and in public management. Indeed, the public sector is a world unto its own and the management of public agencies is not nearly the same as it would be for a private sector employer or situation.

While there are similarities between the ethical and responsibility standards of the public and private sectors, the public sector will always be its own proverbial animal according to Agheorghiesei. The article starts out by saying that "ensuring the ethical behavior in the public sector requires a permanent reflection on the decisions taken and their impact from a moral point-of-view on citizens" (Agheorghiesei, 2015). Agheorghiesei continues by saying that "it represents an increasing preoccupation in the life of the societies from all over the world" (Agheorghiesei, 2015).

Agheorghiesei then points to the fact that the research of Garofalo and Geuras identify several aspects which "confer to the public organizations and the public administrator a specific 'moral status', compared to the requirements of the private sector" (Agheorghiesei, 2015). Agheorghiesei then has a section about the ethics and theories of public management and the starting point from which that material should flow and work. Agheorghiesei notes that there are three basic points of theory and analysis that are pervasive and common when it comes to public sector management.

The first is the principle/agent theory that suggests that politicians play a key role as they decide upon the public policies that will be applied to the managers at public agencies. The second theory is known as the New Public Management theory. It emphasizes the pursuit of technical efficiency. However, Agheorghiesei notes that this theory is not the most popular one out there because efficiency is demanded and craved at the expense of democratic processes and/or social values.

This can often lead to negative consequences, for obvious reasons (Agheorghiesei, 2015). After some more general theory that is similar and alike as compared to what was just said, there is talk about the similarities between ethics and responsibility as defined and explained by Melvin Dubnick. Before getting into that, it is stated that York Willbern identifies six levels of public morality (also known as public ethics) that are to be addressed by public officials.

Those levels are basic honesty and compliance with the law, avoiding conflicts of interest, service orientation and procedural fairness, ethics of democratic responsibility, ethics of public policy determination and ethics of the compromise and social integration. One major observation by Dubnick is that "the individual is in.