Before the time of 1990’s, ethical consideration was of little importance to the public organizations. Integrity, an important part of ethics was seen as something personal. The focus was more on the technical and managerial efficiencies. However, with the emergence of ethical scandals in the 1990s in private as well as public sector, the organizations gradually start thinking about the importance of integrity and ethics on the whole.
Around the same time, it is evident that academic scholars started working on the orientation and scope of the ethics programs. These programs concluded that the compliance-oriented ethical programs cannot resolve the ethical problems in organizations entirely, but may become a part of the solution. The limitation of the compliance-based programs was that it could not consider all the misbehaviors as illegal. However, the ones which can be considered as illegal were constrained through these programs. Punishing and deterring some misbehavior was not enough for controlling the ethical standards. It is not enough to safeguard against ethical scandals. International organizations like the World Bank, United Nations as well as national organizations and governments by then started noticing the need for promotion of integrity. It has led to the creation and adoption of integrity-based approach.
The integrity and the compliance-based approaches debated the approach of external against the internal controls regarding responsible conduct. However, both approaches were used not until the 1990s in a single framework. The ethical infrastructure of the OECD and Transparency International were built upon the complementarities of both systems. Both these systems have been used to provide a structural foundation for the developing countries for safeguarding against the probability of corruption in public offices. The National integrity system of the Transparency International is based on the ethical infrastructure. This ethical infrastructure is based on three pillars of management, guidance, and control. The framework built by OECD was defined as an activity focused, and organization-based system which is a systematic sum of integrated efforts inclined to promote integrity in a public organization. This system is the one which is the most advocated by the practitioners as well as the academics (Tremblay, Martineau, & Pauchant, 2017).
The framework of the IMF (Integrity management framework) is based on balancing of the integrity-based approach and the compliance-based approach. The compliance-based approach relies on the external controls defining the codes of ethics, monitoring rules, rules, and procedures. Whereas, the integrity-based approach is based on the internal controls which rely on self-regulation. This approach depends on fostering of ethical skills in decision making and its understanding and application through value statements, training, and coaching. Therefore, it can be said, the internal controls promote ethical conduct, whereas external controls prohibit and punish unethical conduct (Tremblay, Martineau, & Pauchant, 2017).
The implementation of the balancing of these both approaches in a public office can be done in many ways consequently providing different results. The challenge with this approach is that the best combination of the two approaches which will yield the best results regarding integrity management is yet unknown. Academics have pointed out that the balancing of these approaches is evidently non-existent. It is particularly because of the reason that one approach gets more attention as compared to other with the passage of time. Furthermore, the implementation of the IMF has been purely on reactions arising from scandals or events rather than being developed as a comprehensive program and implemented in an integrated manner. It does not mean that the authenticity of the framework is ambiguous. The framework authenticity is believed to be valid but is accepted for its limitations (O’Leary, 2017).
These limitations have caused attention towards a new approach for consideration to the attainment of the integrity management. The new theory presented based on the orientation of this program is dependent on the principles of the requisite variety and pluralism. This new theory is based on the IMF framework, but also considers the limitations of this framework. The study conducted by (Tremblay, Martineau, and Pauchant (2017) led to the creation of a framework based on the taxonomy of ethical practices, making the foundations of the pluralistic ethics management framework. As per this framework, ethics practices can be defined as;
“Any rule, method, procedure, process, management tool, structure or institution that presents an essential teleological character aiming at increasing consciousness, reflection and ethical behavior in an organization, at the individual, collective and strategic levels (Tremblay, Martineau, & Pauchant, 2017).”
This framework covers the limitation of IMF by incorporating the term ethics practices rather than controls. This shift has certainly covered some of the main limitations of the integrity management framework. However, what would be said about the ethical practice of a whistleblower or more precisely of a guerilla government?
Guerilla government is a term which is used by Rosemary for the public servants who engages in working against the intentions of the superiors to do what he thinks is right. It is usually done by the public servants who think that their superiors are not taking steps which are right or are taking wrong steps. The steps taken by these individuals can be considered as inspiring as they tend to have the spirit of saving the human lives, but at the same time looks to be going against the norm of ethical standard of a public office. The thinkers have for years discussed the ethical practice of guerilla government under various labels and lenses. Firstly, the bureaucratic political literature looks at the bureaucracy as the ones whose resources, i.e. time, energy, talent, money, and reputation can be used by the public servants to get their way. However, there are sometimes when these bureaucrats can co-opt outside group’s averting threat for the political servants. The other viewpoint is that of a classic’s organization theorist. These consider the fact that public offices are not closed systems and get influenced by the environment outside them. Then the ethical point of view compels the idea that different ethical obligations compel different public servants. It makes the guerrilla governments ambiguous, and their authenticity is challenged by ethical determinants (O’Leary, 2017).
Thus, concluding, it can be said that scholars providing many frameworks discuss the implementation of the ethical practices in public offices. The ambiguous nature of certain events and characters like guerilla governments is however still unknown regarding ethical determinants. However, the implementation of integrity management frameworks cannot be more relevant in the current world.
References
O’Leary, R., 2017. The Ethics of Dissent: Can President Trump Survive Guerrilla Government? Administrative Theory & Praxis, 39(2), pp.63-79.
Tremblay, M., Martineau, J.T. & Pauchant, T.C., 2017. Managing Organizational Ethics in the Public Sector: A Pluralist Contingency Approach as an Alternative to the Integrity Management Framework. Public Integrity, 19(3), pp.219-33.
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