This paper examines how the National Park Service's (NPS) deeply rooted organizational culture of self-reliance and institutional pride undermined its ethical decision-making during the Exxon Valdez oil spill response. Drawing on Kurtz (2003) and Cooper's ethical decision model, the paper argues that the NPS's "can-do" culture — built on a legacy of frontier independence — led to a failure to communicate and coordinate with the Incident Command System (ICS) and other response teams. The analysis explores how internal auditing, servant leadership, and a culture of transparency and collaboration could have prevented this failure, and how public administrators can apply structured ethical frameworks to reform organizational conduct and better fulfill public mandates.
The paper demonstrates applied ethical analysis — it moves from descriptive diagnosis (what the NPS did wrong and why) to normative prescription (what it should do differently). By grounding Cooper's model in a real public-sector failure, the author shows how theoretical ethics frameworks translate into organizational reform, a technique central to public administration scholarship.
The paper opens with a thesis-driven introduction that frames both the case and the argument. The body develops in logical sequence: cultural origins of hubris, specific coordination failures during the spill, the role of auditing and external controls, and finally a practical ethical resolution. The conclusion synthesizes core values — honesty, humility, and collaboration — as the foundation for reformed organizational ethics. The structure is tight and argument-driven throughout.
The National Park Service (NPS) is a government agency established in the early twentieth century, built upon the ideas and plans of nineteenth-century frontier and public leaders who sought to conserve parks and lands full of natural wonders like Yellowstone (Kurtz, 2003). The organizational culture that emerged from the ambitious, "can-do" mentality of the NPS's early founders promoted a cultural sense of pride that was not always linked to ability — as the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the NPS's response to it clearly demonstrated. While the NPS's government mandate is to preserve and maintain the ecological environments entrusted to its oversight, it was not the best-prepared organization to handle an oil spill that spread to devastate numerous parks and national treasures (Kurtz, 2003).
By refusing to communicate with the Incident Command System (ICS) then in place to respond to such disasters, and by attempting to lead the response based on an assertiveness of entitlement and institutional pride, the NPS guaranteed that the oil spill's impact would be as severe as possible. The organization failed to coordinate with the groups and teams that could have actually helped stem the flow of oil, thereby demonstrating how its own unethical practice of blocking inter-agency communications obstructed its actual mandate — to preserve the parks. By believing it could act alone without external assistance, the NPS illustrated that an organization's ethical standards and policies should value humility and open communication above pride and self-centeredness.
The organization's culture helped shape its ethical policies by laying a foundation of hubris that led to its inability to effectively manage a situation for which it was not prepared. Its "can-do" culture obscured the fact that it did not know how to handle an oil spill correctly, and rather than accepting assistance it left groups like the ICS "out of the loop" of the response (Kurtz, 2003). The practice of always relying on itself had, in the past, led to successful efforts to fight forest fires — but an oil spill was not a fire and required an entirely different approach.
For the NPS, its "spirit of mission" was rooted in a legacy passed down through generations (Samaan & Verneuil, 2009): it had come to view itself as the fighting front — the first and last line of defense. It regarded other organizations as outsiders that did not share its mandate to protect the nation's environmental treasures. Its cultural tradition was to depend upon itself and promote itself as the sole responsible agent for the nation's parks, yet it lacked the expertise to handle specific emergency situations like the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which resulted in the destruction of several landmarks.
Instead of managing risk through a system of internal controls and external communication protocols, the organization concentrated mainly on asserting its authority across activities connected to park preservation. So long as no danger arose that was beyond its scope, the organization was never exposed as having any deficiencies. A measure of internal auditing by a risk management team could have addressed this vulnerability, but the ethical system in place did not focus on transparency and authenticity — it focused on pride and self-worth. Greater humility, servant leadership, and communication with other organizations could have helped the NPS be better prepared for the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Instead, the organization was concerned that any exposure of a lack of know-how might reduce its funding and undermine its governmental standing and mandate. It was more willing to project authority than to actually be an authority on preservation in every circumstance and situation.
Bradley, J. How to apply Cooper's ethical decision model. Chron. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/apply-coopers-ethical-decision-model-76952.html
Kurtz, R. S. (2003). Organizational culture, decision-making, and integrity: The National Park Service and the Exxon Valdez. Public Integrity, 5(4), 305–317.
Samaan, J., & Verneuil, L. (2009). Civil-military relations in Hurricane Katrina: A case study on crisis management in natural disaster response. Berlin: Global Public Policy Institute.
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