Teaching Ethics and Values in Public Administration

Goals of a Public Administrator The implementation of the policies devised by the government is referred to as public administration. Moreover, public administration is also a discipline that is taught in many higher education institutions. This discipline is based on the studies that revolve around the aforementioned implementation and therefore it prepares the civil servants that would be working for the public service in the future (Frederickson, 1997).

The fundamental goal behind the layout of the curriculum of this discipline and the training in this field is to advance the policies and management in order for the government to function effectively (Frederickson, 1997).

There are various definitions that have been used to describe this term; "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day"; "the management of public programs" and "the study of the process of decision making by the government, the analysis of the devised policies, the different inputs that led to the production of these policies, and the inputs that are required for the production of the alternative policies" (Frederickson, 1997).

The central concern of public administration is the organization of the policies of the government and its programs along with the attitude of the officials, who are normally non-elected, that are formally responsible for how they behave (Hood, 1995). Many public servants that are non-elected officials can be considered as public administrators. These also includes the heads of federal, state, regional, country or city departments including human resource administrators, municipal budget directors, census managers, city managers, cabinet secretaries and state mental health directors.

These administrators are in fact public servants that work in public agencies and departments and at all aforementioned levels of the government. In the United States, academics and civil servants like Woodrow Wilson propagated for the promotion of American civil service reform during the 1880s, which meant the shifting of public administration to academia.

Nonetheless, until the mid of the 20th century and the distribution of the theory of the German sociologist Max Weber pertaining to bureaucracy, there was not a great deal of interest in the theories pertaining to public administration. It will be wrong to say that the field of public administration is multidisciplinary when it comes to character. There are various proposals of public administration, and one of these proposals has set out subfields, which are the six pillars of public administration.

These pillars include organizational theory, human resources, policy analysis, budgeting, statistics and ethics. As being a practitioner of public administration, in other words as being a civil servants, there are certain goals that I would like to achieve. It should be noted here that these goals shall primarily revolve around the five pillars of public administration that have been stated above. Therefore, in this paper we shall bring into limelight these five pillars of public administration.

The purpose of this paper would be to briefly explain what comes under each of these five pillars one by one. Human Resource Management Human resource management when considered as a part of public administration is basically concerned with its application especially to the field of public administration.

The purpose of this field is to make sure that unbiased treatment is being given to the employees, the ethical standards are met in terms of public administration and a structure is laid out that would promote a system based on values (JONES et al., 2004). There are many functions of this department as being a part of public administration. It should be noted here that this field of public administration is considered to be one of the most important ones.

The primary function of human resource management within public administration is the provision of the capabilities that would help the employees to manage their work. These capabilities include record keeping, healthcare, benefits, promotion and advancement, compensation etc.

when specifically considering the function of human resource management with respect to the benefit of the employees, it should be noted here that its main purpose is the creation of a management system in order to achieve the long-term plans and goals that have been laid out by the government and that are in accordance with the government and public policy. The management makes it possible for the companies to research, target and then implement their long-term employment goals that they have planned.

In order for any company to have a productive ability to expand and prosper, an effective human resource management is the key to go. It comes under the department of human resource management to manage the benefits of the employees, to insure the healthcare provisions to the employees, to insure that compensations are being made on time and when need to the employees. The department also manages the annual, personal and sick leaves requested by the employees as well as the sick banks.

It is also the duty of the human resource management to insure discipline in any department, to keep an updated record of the tax information and personal files of the employees. The recruitment as well as the employee retention strategies also needs to be devised by the human resource management team (JONES et al., 2004). Being a practitioner of public administration, I would make sure that all the aspects that need to be covered by the human resource management department are being managed in an effective way.

It is one of the most important goals to be achieved being in the public sector since nothing is possible without the effective participation of the employees and it is only possible when the employees are managed effectively. Organizational Theory in Public Administration The fundamental building block of a large scale administration is structure. Hierarchy is concentrated on when the structural approach towards large institutions is adopted.

Hierarchy would mean that there is a tendency to concentrate upon the delegation of authorities starting from top to the bottom, which means starting from officials posted on the higher positions to the lower ones. The classical model of Luther Gulick as well as the bureaucratic model of Max Weber is the two examples of the aforementioned approach.

Even though the former theorist emphasized on the classical model that revolves around shift of power from top to bottom with a greater value pertaining efficiency, the creation of Weber of the aforementioned model revolves around the three models of legal authority. These models are charismatic, traditional and rational-legal. Another alternative theory to the hierarchical approach is the systems theory, which perceives an organization as being a black box that interprets inputs into outputs.

It is considered to be the most sincere attempt to generalize all organizations, private and public, small and large, closed and open (Alvarez & Stupak, 1993). The systems theory and the structural approach, which mainly focus on the fundamental structure of an organization as well as on the association between their elements, are confronted by four other theories. The humanist approach mainly challenges bureaucracy, which focuses on the lifestyle and working behavior of the individual workers within a specific organization.

The emphasis of the pluralist approach is on the ability of the politically active interest groups of the society that are thought to be responsible for shaping the behavior of bureaucracy. The third party approach proposes that the dependence of government administration is inversely proportional to the third party tools and therefore the innovational ways of integrating and combining third parties is an important task to be performed. Lastly, formal models perceive bureaucracy as being an interconnection of contracts that are constructed around systems based on author and hierarchy.

The authors have concluded that in spite of all the theoretical challenges that are present between the different theories, each approach adopts a significant truth pertaining to the organizations of the government (Harrison & Stupak, 2005). Therefore, in order to maintain the large organizations of the government, it is important to keep into consideration the aforementioned approaches and theories. It will not be wrong to say that authorities and the system of hierarchy have to be respected irrespective of the approach being used.

Ethics in Public Administration Before we go on to discuss ethics in the field of public administration it should be noted here that ethics form one of the most important aspects of any field. Without ethics, an organization or a department does not stand anywhere. Ethics and the working code of conduct are essential towards the productivity of any department as well as it smooth functioning. In this part of the paper, we shall briefly discuss the role and important of ethics in the field of public administration.

The discussion of ethics in the sector of public administration is very vast since it is a very broad and general topic. Speaking in general terms, ethics is in fact a fundamental branch of philosophy that looks out to address the issues of morality. When speaking in terms of the public sector, ethics is the term that is used to address the basic boundaries of the duties of a public administrator as being an agent or a representative of the public.

In other words, it will not be wrong to say that ethics are the moral justification and the moral consideration that is brought into discussion when making decisions and taking any action that are taken while the daily duties are being completed when an employee is working to provide the general services of the nonprofit organizations as well the government (Menzel, 1997).

The accountability standard that is used by the public so that it can scrutinize and the judge the workings of the members of the organizations of the government and the nonprofit ones is in fact termed as ethics (Hallunovi, Osmani & Basha, n.d.). Another important role that ethics and ethical principles have to play is in decision making and taking by the individuals that are the authority. Any decisions that are accepted by the general public after being considered to be correct can be said to be ethically sound.

Being aware of this distinction that lies between right and wrong guarantees that the public administrators are working on their own or personal set of ethical principles without first considering that whether or not these particular principles would be subjected to public scrutiny. Apart from that, additional responsibility has also been placed on the practitioners of public administration pertaining to their conduct and behavior in their personal lives.

The main purpose behind the emphasis that is laid on ethics in public sector is the creation of a more open environment within the operations of the government (Hallunovi, Osmani & Basha, n.d.).

Considering the importance of ethics when it comes to the delivery of work in the public sector, one of my main goals while working as a practitioner of public administration would to ensure that none of the workers in the government or other organizations are taking any decisions or going for any actions that are against the ethical code of conduct.

Apart from that, as a public service person myself I would make sure that all my goals are met in accordance with the ethical considerations and all the decisions taken by me are within the ethical premise. Policy Analysis The determination of the various alternative policies in order to achieve a specific set of goals with respect to the relations between the goals and the policies is referred to as policy analysis (Geva-May & Kfir, 2000). However, this department can be divided into two main fields.

These two fields are analytical and descriptive. This implies that policy can be analyzed either descriptively or analytically. This implies that the analysis of policy basically attempts to explain the development of the policies and the policies themselves. On the other hand, the analysis for policy is supposed to be prescriptive, which means that it involves the formulation of proposals and policies, for example the improvisation of social welfare.

The determination of the type of analysis that is to be conducted mainly depends on the purpose of the analysis and the area of interest. When program evaluation is combined with the policy analysis, it is referred to as Policy studies. Policy analysis is important with respect to the public sector since it is often deployed in this department. However, it can equally be applied to other organizations as well.

The roots of policy analysis can be traced back to the systems analysis as it was instituted by Robert McNamara, the United States Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. Now we shall discuss some of the approaches that can be used by the public administration practitioners for the process of policy analysis. Even though there are several approaches that can be used for this purpose, the three general approaches that we shall be discussing here are the policy process, analycentric and the meta-policy approach (Geva-May & Kfir, 2000).

The policy process approach basically places its main emphasis on the involved stakeholders as well as the political processes. The scope of this approach is measured through the meso-scale and the problem interpretation of this approach is normally seen to be political in nature. The main aim of this approach is the determination of the processes as well as the means that are used. This approach also makes an attempt at explaining the influence and role of stakeholders within the process of policy making.

Through consultation and enhancing the public participation, as well as taking other steps to change the influence and relative power of some groups, identification of solutions of different problems becomes possible through this approach. Although outdated, one of the ways of doing so is the following of the model called the policy cycle (Geva-May & Kfir, 2000). The second approach is the analycentric approach. This approach mainly focuses on the individual problems and the finding of their solutions. The scope of this approach is defined as being micro-scale.

The problem interpretation of this approach is thought to be technical in nature. The main aim of this approach is the identification of the most efficient and effective solutions in terms for economy and technicalities, for instance the most effective allocation of the available resources. The last and third approach is the meta-policy approach. This approach basically a context approach and a systems approach, which implies that the scope of this approach is macro-scale and the problem interpretation is perceived to be structural in nature.

The main aims of this approach is the explanation of the contextual factors involved in the process of policy making, that is the explanation of the economic, political and socio-cultural factors that influence it. Since some problems might the result of the structural factors that would include certain political institution or economic system, the solution may lie in altering the structure itself. Public Budgeting This pillar is yet again one of the most important pillars of public administration.

The reason behind this is that this pillar has a direct influence on the public, the stakeholder for which the entire department is being run. People are always keen on the budget document since they want to know what relief has been given to them and where more taxes have been levied. It is not an easy task and therefore this is the main reason why one of my primary goals is working towards an effective and efficient public budget.

Public budgeting is one of the fields of public administration as well as it is one of the disciplines in the academic studies. The characterization of this field is done through its approaches, its formation, functions and its type. According to authors including Thomas D. Lynch and Robert W. Smith, public budgeting is described by making use of four different perspectives. The budget process is seen by the politicians as a political event in the political premise that is being conducted for political advantage (Lynch, 1979).

On the other hand, the same process of budgeting is viewed by the economist as being an issue that revolves around the allocation of resources with respect to opportunity cist when it comes to giving the resources to one consumer and taking away of the resources from other consumers. Therefore the role of the economist is to equip the decision makes with the best available and possible information.

The perspective of the accountant focuses on the value of accountability in budgeting that makes an analysis of the budgeted amount to the real expenditures and therefore they describe the "wisdom of the original policy" (Lynch, 1979). There are three values that are used by financial analysts to discuss the literature of public budgeting. These three values are accountability, efficiency and efficacy. We shall now discuss each one of these three values.

The first of these values is accountability, which is to do with the figures and statistics (inputs) being entered into the accounting system or the software in use for any particular recording of transactions. The line-item budgeting approach best describes and utilizes the value of accountability and this certain aspect is the ideal method of monitoring and regulating how a budget is being put to use. Another value endorsed by financial analysts in their efforts is that of efficiency.

Efficiency, unlike accountability, focuses not on the inputs but rather the software or system and its process of converting those inputs into outputs. The inputs, in this case, are the resources available for use and the outputs are the policies that are created, keeping the resources in consideration.

This value is ideally utilized in performance budgets because of its focus on the process of conversion of inputs to outputs, and is extremely important where the administration of a budget and the direction of the desired effect of a proposed policy are concerned. The third value to be kept in mind is efficacy and this value.