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Can a high-performance public organization be highly ethical
as well?
Authors:
Ismo Lumijärvi
Department of Management Studies,
University of Tampere, Finland
Telephone: +358-50-4372637
email: [email protected]
Klaus af Ursin
Department of Management Studies
University of Tampere, Finland
Telephone + 358-40-0562520
email: [email protected]
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1. New managerialism as a challenge to public values and the ethics
It has become common to require public agencies to act like high-performance business
firms. The prevailing idea of managerialism rests on the belief in the supremacy of
markets and competition as ways to organize and manage efficiently. Productivity is
prioritized. All public organizations are more or less harnessed to produce greater
governmental efficiency. Traditionally, the government used to have a different point of
view on performance. Performance was understood as much in the same way as acting in
accordance with the laws of civil service. Loyalty was linked to the norms and to the
ideal of fair and honest government. Ethics in traditional public service involved the
codes of conduct and transparency. The formal educational background of public servants
was seen as a guarantee for ethical behavior.
While managerialism tends to highlight efficiency orientation in the behavior of civil
servants, are the traditional values and ethical behavior still prevailing? The general
attitude towards corruptive behavior or taking bribes is very denying, at least. The
modern administrative law still emphasizes the highly ethical behavior of civil servants,
as well the fair and equal treatment of citizens.
Caiden (2001, 449-450) refers to the new ‘entrepreneurial public management’ there
managers have greater freedom of action, greater independence to make public
management more businesslike. He says that although managers now have wider latitude
in conducting their business, exempt from the normal civil service controls and
restrictions, they have not always used their freedom virtuously. Some of them have
conducted their public units as if they were their own personal fiefdoms without any
connections to public accountability. Caiden continues: “The enhanced tendency to
corruption may be offset by cost saving and more productive public agencies but it may
also involve wiping one hands of public responsibility”.
Frederickson (1999) has pointed out that “the new managerial hegemony tends to leave
those of us interested in ethics in the position there we must accept its almost universal
support without knowing exactly how to make government ethical under these new
circumstances.” Ethics is situational while the new managerialism itself seems to be
inherently less ethical. Hart (2001, 131) refers to the current ignorance of the most
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important element of effective management: the good character (‘virtue’, ‘ethical
conduct’) of the managers: “Systems are important but good character is more
important.” According to Hart (2001, 146) the management orthodoxy views ethics as an
instrument to organizational success and easily reduces it to platitudes. Instead of that
Hart argues that virtue should place the quality of human lives above organizational
success.
Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1998) note that organizational culture (including values) in itself
does not predestine organizational performance. The correlation depends on the systemic
fit between the organization and its environment. However, in many cases high-
performance organizations are values-holistic and values-driven. They prefer group
values instead of individual values. (see Grosenick & Gibson 2001, 246-248).
Menzel (2001, 356-357) mentions that productive, high performing units are value
driven, ethical values scoring high in their value hierarchy. However, he also refers to
some other studies where organizational ethics and productivity did not seem to have a
strong connection with each other. In his own study (Menzel 1993) among the public
managers in the local governments of Florida and Texas, he asks if ethical climates of
public organizations reinforce or detract from the organizational values such as
efficiency, effectiveness, excellence, quality, and teamwork. The findings led him to
accept the hypothesis that an organization’s ethical climate has a positive influence on an
organization’s performance.
2. Aim of the paper
The relation between integrity and high-performance seems to be an issue not yet
extensively studied. This paper aims to give more understanding about this complicated
question: How is ethics related to the high-performance orientation in the management
models? Is highly ethical behavior seen somehow as an obstacle to high-performance or
vice versa; is it more likely a precondition to it?
We first try to clarify the concepts of ethics, public values and high integrity. The term
‘integrity leadership’ is introduced as well. Chapter 6 gives an overview of the models of
high-performance. What elements of leadership are prioritized when striving for high-
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performance? In the final chapters, high integrity and high-performance are put together,
compared and discussed. Some empirical data from the study of the Finnish local police
units (Lumijärvi & Vesterinen 2006) are introduced, as well some comparative data from
EU countries.
In the end, some concluding remarks are made concerning the basic question: Are high-
performance and high integrity ‘friends or foes’? Is it possible for a public manager to
enhance or maintain similarly both high-integrity and high-performance orientation? The
analysis here is primarily theory driven and tentative.
3. Ethical behavior of civil servants
Frederickson (1999, 302) states that the key to the ethics of public officials is
selflessness: “Selfless officials can be trusted to exercise judgment without suspicion that
they have been swayed by those who will be benefited by the sacrifices of the rest of us.”
Prospects for high ethical government decline when public officials are more selfish.
Vartola and af Ursin (1987) refer to behavior that is in line with the idea of public
administration. Ethical behavior is labeled by confidence, loyalty, impartiality, and
independence. A highly ethical civil servant is fair, equitable and the acts are based on
common interest. Ethical civil servants do not have tight relations with business firms
because these relations tend to weaken their impartiality. According to Newburn (1999,
4-6) highly ethical behavior is characterized by the absence of bribery, falsification or
wiping out of proofs, favoritism, nepotism, abuse of duty and racism. Dwivedi (1978, 2-
3) defines ethics by referring to the right use of power. A public servant’s behavior is
ethical if he/she uses his/her power in a way that does not question public trust, and if
he/she does not selfishly try to get benefit at the expense of common good or citizens’
welfare. Unethical behavior does not mean only pure criminal actions, like taking bribes
or the abuse of public resources. It also means interest conflicts, flattery, cronyism,
gossiping, favoritism and misuse of information. Corruptive action is perhaps the most
significant and damaging form of unethical behavior. It often means intention to gain
personal interest at the expense of public interest.
The often mentioned features of ethical behavior can be summed up in the following list
(Caiden 2001, 17-22):
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• to put common good before one’s own advantage at work
• to resist bribery and diminish selfish behaving
• to resist favoritism in any form
• to enhance the responsibility of one’s own work
• to resist gender discrimination and any kind of racist behavior towards minority groups at the workplace
• to resist nepotism/cronyism
• to enhance the fair use of confidential information
• to enhance obeying orders
• to use working hours only for the purposes of the duty
• to enhance the fair use of equipment
What kinds of factors are contributing unethical behavior? According to Caiden (2001,
21-26) the factors can be classified into psychological, ideological, external, economic,
political, socio cultural or technological. It is not possible here to go deeper in the
reasons for corruption. (see more Caiden etc. 2001 or Johnston 2005)
Hejka-Ekins (2001, 82-83) makes the difference between ‘compliance’ and ‘integrity’
ethics. ‘Compliance ethics’ refers to pertinent legal norms and agency rules in order to
gain their adherence. As an ethical discourse, it spurs obedience towards norms. It tells
what civil servants should not do (e.g. take briberies or use gender discrimination). In
compliance or ‘low road ethics’ the main duty of public managers is to oversight and
control. ‘Integrity ethics’ refers to the deeper awareness of a public sector ethos, higher
ethical standards and values. It highlights personal moral reasoning and inspires
exemplary actions and ethical conduct. The emphasis is in moral character, moral
autonomy and self-responsibility of each person. It deals with internal, positive, proactive
and voluntary efforts – not external penalties or controls. Integrity ethics refers to ‘high
road ethics’, where the role of a manager is in giving a good example and spurring moral
decision making by one’s own behavior. Compliance ethics is needed to ensure the
formal accountability of civil servants and to avoid abusing and corruption, whereas
integrity ethics is necessary in encouraging a high level of ethical conduct.
Hart (2001, 136-137) refers to the dual nature of ethics and notes that moral thought is
essential to the development of good character, and goodness is a result of internal
imperatives to do right (‘virtue’), rather than conformity to the external rewards and
sanctions of moral rules. Hart highlights the ethics of virtue and sets out four cardinal
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elements of the virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. Virtue must be
voluntary, without the exercise of any degree of compulsion. Hart highlights the
importance of trust: “..in complex organizations there will always be too many issues
and relationships to individuals to comprehend. Therefore, there must be a profound trust
among all members – leaders, colleagues, followers – that none of them will use their
expertise to take advantage of the others.”
Ethics is always present in organizations and in human reasoning. People cannot act or
think without making moral judgments of some kind (e.g. Farmer 2002). However, the
importance of ethically sound behavior depends on situational and environmental factors.
The organizations giving priority to ethics typically also prefer wide internal discussion
of ethics.
4. Organizational values and public integrity
The concepts of ethics and values are so near to each other that they are sometimes used
as synonyms. They are inextricably intertwined as Gortner (2001, 509) states, but do not
exactly refer to the same phenomenon (see Huberts et. al. 2007). Ethical (or ethically
sound) behavior (e.g. fairness, honesty, confidence, equity, and equality) refers to the
moral judgment between good and bad, right and wrong. Ethical principles or moral
norms can be regarded as values, but they constitute only one part of a larger set of
values. Integrity ethics deals with ethical values.
There are several other categories of values, that do not inherently include assumptions
about good or bad in a moral sense (Kernaghan 2003, 711). Such values may be
economic (e.g. efficiency, productivity, performance and profitability orientation),
service-like (e.g. customer orientation, flexibility, openness and transparency), co-
operative (e.g. pluralism, tolerance, social functioning, partnership, teamwork and open
communication), environmental or developmental (innovativeness, creativity, personal
growth, education and learning optimism, readiness for change). We may also talk about
aesthetic, scientific, and professional values (af Ursin 2007, 120; Lundquist 1988, 74).
Gortner (2001, 520) divides values into five sub-groups: social values, bureaucratic
values, economic values, democratic values and professional values. In considering a
person’s accountability to whatever interest group, clarification of values as a part of
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ethical argumentation is a necessity (af Ursin 2007, 130). In the view of Gortner (2001,
522-524) the basic value for business is profit and for public management it is public
interest.
Huberts, Kaptein and Lasthuizen (2007) define integrity “as the quality of acting in
accordance with relevant moral values, norms and rules accepted by society. Integrity is a
quality of individuals as well as organizations.” Following this definition, in this
connection we talk about public integrity when referring to public organizations.
Organizational values are relatively stable principles of an organization, regarded as
being worth striving for. Ethical values are at the core of personal moral choices for
people who act in the given context.. The functioning of every organization is based on
some values - either consciously or unconsciously. Explicit values are expected to direct
the functioning of each person, groups and the whole organization. They are expected to
guide actions and rational choices that are made in the ‘relativistic world of values’
(Burns 1978). In ethical behavior, ethical values and norms are primarily internally
generated and satisfied at the level of moral self-actualization. Individuals may turn
inwards and develop their own set of moral values. However, these are permanently
influenced by the organization where the internalization of values takes place. According
to Gortner, values are influencing on the choices in (1) decision making, (2) directions of
interest, (3) verbalization of avowing/disavowing and (4) social sanctions. Value choices
clarify many of the issues related to ethics (Gortner 2001, 509), for example, ethical
dilemmas where public managers are forced to make choices between competing and
mutually exclusive values.
Although an organization has power to decide which values are to guide the actions of its
personnel, many institutional factors are influencing on the selection and priority of
values. The values are linked with the responsibilities of civil servants and the legitimacy
of public organizations. The mission and vision of an organization are important. The
hierarchy of ultimate ends perhaps gives the most significant starting point to the values.
Public interest means the allocation of different kinds of welfare services. Public agencies
always have some higher good to pursue.
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Ethical and value-based behavior has close links to public accountability. The
accountability of civil servants can be achieved by laws, rules, public opinion, virtue,
professional norms, competition and comparison (Van Wart & Denhardt 2001, 228-231).
Public organizations usually allow room for discretionary actions of individual official.
The ethical behavior of a separate official is guided by one’s own values and motivations.
Together they affect the decisions one makes and contributes to. The situation is
unproblematic if a public organization has the strict system of administrative
responsiveness and it highlights the opinions, expectations and needs of the voters
through a hierarchical chain of command. Problems may arise if the responsiveness is
called for not only in regard to elected officials and citizens but also to market forces.
This combination may involve maladministration, corruption and various types of
administrative abuse and ignorance.
Hejka-Ekins (2001, 100) refers to the problem of ‘double standards’ that may exist between public and private realms and values. There is a kind of ‘a moral dualism’ between high ideals of public honor and service and the ethos of a marketplace. “In the private domain, we live in a culture of ‘civic commercialism’ based on an ethic of competitive individualism, but in the public domain, we extol a culture of ‘civic virtue’ where we expect government officials to practice high ideals of selfless commitment to the public interest, social equity, and citizen advocacy.” Hejka-Ekins mentions especially some American public managers who seem to have had troubles in applying public value statements because of “a pervasive attitude of ‘privatism’ combined with ‘the exaggerated importance of self-interest’”. According to Hejka-Ekins (2001, 100) “a shift from a culture of civic commercialism to a culture of civic virtue is the most critical direction for ethics education to take in the society”. He sees that the very future of governance in the United States rests on a more involved and active citizenry that has its center the nurturance of citizenship. Van Wart and Denhardt (2001, 239) also remind us of the dilemma of a value ambiguity. Market and customer orientation and entrepreneurialism may shake the traditional chain of command from voters via elected officials to the civil service. The managers may give them too much emphasis on their discretion. Without the clear understanding of public interest, the traditional and new values can be seen as competing.
Farmer (2002) notes that public values are very much situational in time and in place.
The development of values is also closely linked to the growth of a set of beliefs about
the world and how individuals fit into that world. Different times and societies mean
differences. It is risky to claim that a public official always has an inherent obligation to
respect the core values of his/her society. As Farmer (2002, 74) modifies it: “(A) societal
grip is not necessarily an ethical grip.” This being so, it is necessary to make a difference
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between public values and ethics. Gortner (2001, 513-514) states that “social and cultural
factors have the greatest chance of influencing values while one is seeking affiliation and
esteem”.
Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1998) give views about how different environments tend to
effect on the choice of values. They label their model the ‘competing values approach’.
They formulate the typology of organizational environments. First axis is an
environment, especially the degree of the dynamics of it. An environment can be stabile
and easily controllable or flexible and hard to control. Second axis involves conditions
calling for an internal versus external focus. Quinn and Rohrbaugh note that a certain
combination of environment and conditions may suit better ‘conservative’ values and
leadership styles and the other environmental combination prefer more a flexible
management model like project management or team orientation styles. Accordingly, the
values may highlight regulations, security and technical expertise or, on the other hand,
competition, adaptability and risk-orientation.
Van Wart and Denhardt (2001, 239) point out the close connection between
organizational structures and values. Value changes cannot occur without similar
structural changes, and conversely. Structural changes affect the rules about unacceptable
behavior and our notions of ideal behavior, which is much the same as the fundamental
sense of values.
Gortner (2001, 517) states that values of public managers develop through a combination
or an interaction of self, society and situation. Values are changing within the society
over time and challenging regularly if a public manager is going to operate “in the public
interest”. At the same time, values are deeply rooted to the concept of representative
government and democracy.
In recent years, many public and private organizations have used to document their
values. In the Finnish public organizations, the number of values documented is typically
between five and ten. In the Finnish local police units, typical documented values have
been:
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• Legality, honesty and loyalty: acting in accordance with laws, regulations and instructions and not taking bribes or other inappropriate services in return
• Accountability, accuracy: taking responsibility of one’s own faults
• Pluralism, tolerance and equality: respecting the diversity and different views of human beings and accepting different opinions
• Impartiality, equity and justice: treating everyone with justice regardless of gender, background etc. and acting independently without outside influence
• Openness in communication inside and outside of the organization
• Trust and keeping promises
• Humanity and fairness
• Sensitivity and politeness
• Innovativeness: positive attitude to the development and taking care of changing conditions
• Service principle and customer orientation: to produce high quality services
• Efficiency and performance orientation: enhancing positive competition between employees
• Social thinking and ability to co-operate
The documented forms of ethical behavior reflect the basic role of policing as the
defender of law and order. On the other hand, they reflect general changes and reforms in
the public sector (e.g. openness, a service principle, innovativeness and efficiency), actual
societal discussions (e.g. pluralism and tolerance to minorities) and democratic values
(e.g. impartiality and equity).
5. The role of public managers in enhancing integrity
Leadership can be defined as “the process of persuasion or example by which an
individual leader (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by a
leader or shared by a leader and his or her followers.” (Gardner 1990). From the point of
view of management, both ethics and values belong to leadership area, having tight links
to human resource management. Leadership always has its origin in some kind of a moral
purpose (Burns 1978). However, we can also agree with the statement of Stillman (2006)
that ethics and leadership are two words that do not inherently belong together: “Ethics
and leadership draw upon substantially different intellectual literatures, scholarly
methodologies, traditional assumptions, and disciplinary perspectives.”
Anyway, it is a manager’s task to act as a role model and example in ethical behavior.
The manager has a power to influence ethical issues. It is his or her task to control ethical
behavior in an agency. In this task, a manager can get support from the legislation of civil
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service and the acts that are guiding administrative procedures. Although ethics tends to
set legal boundaries and restrictions to leadership, it probably does not actually dictate the
choice of leadership style. Leadership styles may be participatory, empowering, quality-
oriented or transformative styles.
Huberts et al. (2007) examined the features of integrity and their links to leadership style.
They were interested in how violations of public integrity are related to the differences in
leadership style. Some former studies had shown correlation between high integrity and
other organizational phenomena. Huberts et al. found in their study that a) the strictness
of managers and b) sanctioning the misbehavior of employees and c) the openness of
managers tends to decrease integrity violations. High integrity seems to be an important
precondition for the smooth functioning of organizations. High integrity also strengthens
stakeholder confidence in an organization.
McConkie and Boss (2002, 272) outline the features of a high integrity leader. A high
integrity leader is a person who “believes truth exists and that it is knowable.” High
integrity leaders “cultivate multiple virtues, seek goals nobler than profit-making or
accomplishing organizational goals, are governed by inner controls such as conscience,
and see integrity as “oneness, wholeness,” and not divisible into a public and private
self.” Their core virtues are humanity, honesty and personnel courage. Some link
integrity to the quest for excellence but in a certain way: “While one might obtain short-
term business or organizational success if acting without integrity, integrity is central to
long-term business success where relationships are interdependent or where long-term
relationships are deemed desirable.” There are no particular differences between leaders
from private, public or non-profit organizations.
Top managers should take an active role in creating an ethical climate and giving their
commitment to ethical principles because they set the tone and form the culture of the
organization. In staffing policy, reduction of cronyism is important. Spoils appointments
or nepotism may weaken the overall ethical climate of an organization and a strategy for
personnel selection should focus on democratic values, openness, merits, seniority and
equality of opportunities. Both staffing and accountability are powerful in affecting the
values to which organizations adhere. It can be said that organizational recruiting forms
already implicitly include a set of values (Van Wart & Denhardt 2001, 230-235).
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Menzel (2001, 356) refers to the ethics-induced stress as a form of cognitive dissonance
between an employee’s personal ethics and the ethics climate found in the employee’s
workplace. In his study he found that the stress tends to impair organizational
performance.
Ethics can also be linked to the appraisal system. Menzel (2001, 358) points out that
performance evaluations can and should include an ethics dimension. Ethical conducts of
civil servants can be evaluated by periodic audits and surveys made by an ethical
committee or by full or part-time ethics officials. Ethical issues may also need the
training program. Ethical sensitivity can be enhanced by discussing the agency
expectations to ethics from both a compliance and integrity point of view. Creation of
ethically sensitive climate can be helped by the use of some kind of organizational
development (OD) or a human relations management approach, where the increase of
organizational effectiveness and ethical principles are tightly linked together (Hejka-
Ekins 2001, 86-87).
6. Elements of high-performance
What are then the characteristics of high-performance organizations? We approach the
question here by introducing the models of high-performance. In management literature,
especially the strategic human resource management approach (SHRM) has been famous
for modeling leadership principles of high-performance. The ‘SHRM School’ in itself
has been divided into many sub-approaches. We present some of the core models, using
them as examples of high-performance criteria and studying their relation to ethics and
values. SHRM highlights the close connection between human resources and general
strategy of an organization, regarding the capacities of personnel as the most important
potential resource. The elements of high-performance leadership are introduced here by
the models of Guest (1997), Pfeffer (1994; 1998), Boxall and Purcell (2003) and Becker,
Huselid and Ulrich (2001).
Guest (1997, p. 269-271) defines three core elements of high-performance: 1) leadership
functions directed to the improvement of the quality of work force such as the selection
of personnel, socialization, training and personnel growth, 2) functions directed to the
commitment and motivation of workers such as functions in respect, work safety, and 3)
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functions emphasizing internal career markets and performance-based rewards.
According to Guest, it is possible to build a human resource strategy directed at high-
performance as a synthesis of those elements. The elements have both evidence based
linkage to high-performance and specific linkage to the general strategies and visions of
organizations. Each organization selects those elements to take into consideration: the
knowledge of universalistic best practices but also combines them together into the most
suitable combination (best fit). The elements ought to be ideally combined and fitted to
the strategy and the environment.
Pfeffer (1994; 1998) defines a more detailed list of best practices in his model of high-
performance. He puts forth:
1. selective recruitment, 2. caretaking of safe working relations, 3. autonomous teams and team work, 4. performance-based rewarding and rewarding excellence (paying at above-
market rates), 5. extensive (inside) training system, 6. the deduction of status differences (increasing loyalty and commitment), 7. information openness
In the descriptions of Boxall and Purcell (2003, 20) high-performance is composed of
capability, motivation, trust and the opportunities to influence (this is also called CMO-
or AMO-model). The personnel works with the highest intensity when it is 1) competent
in the work roles, 2) well motivated and committed and 3) the work environment
supports trust and the efforts of the personnel and give them opportunities to be heard.
The commitment of an individual depends on his/her personal values. If these values are
congruent with the values of the organization, it creates commitment. Trust is important
because people act on the basis experiences and perceptions of trust. Opportunities mean
that enough resources are available and the personnel are allowed to use them.
In a book by Becker et al (2001, 141) high-performance is a function of the abilities,
motivation and the strategic division of work. Human capacity is in optimal use when all
the workers can think that they have competence enough to perform their work roles. The
eagerness of the personnel to exploit their skills reflects good motivation. Focusing
strategically means that the workers understand how their own work roles support the
targets of the organization. They have a feeling that they really have opportunities to use
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their expertise in favor of their organization. These characteristics correlate strongly with
the significance of the personnel as a strategic resource.
As a summary, we can figure out the following list of the core leadership elements of
high-performance mentioned in the SHRM- models:
• selective recruitment and socialization
• the emphasis on career systems
• flexible work roles
• the emphasis on internal labor market
• high rewarding and work productivity
• competence orientation
• motivation highlighted
• commitment very important, like
• trust and loyalty
• the creation of ‘enabling’ organizational environment.
7. Ethics, values and high-performance
High-performance models speak about leadership determinants or drivers of high-
performance. Many of the determinants refer to the ways of acting and they are
reminiscent of the notions of values and ethical behavior. The short review of SHRM-
models indicates that ethical issues are not very largely or clearly presented in the
models. The models seem to include some value-like determinants of leadership such as
loyalty and trust but they do not highlight ethical aspects.
Table 1. Highly ethical behavior, typical values of public organizations, and features of
high-performance organizations.
Features of highly ethical public organizations
Typical values of public organizations
Features of high-performance organizations
• Putting common good before one’s own advantage in work
• Resisting bribery
• Resisting gender discrimination and racist
• Humanity and fairness
• Sensitivity and politeness
• Legality, honesty and loyalty
• Pluralism, tolerance and equality
• Selective recruitment and socialization
• Emphasis on career systems, flexible work roles and internal labor market
15
behavior
• Resisting nepotism/ cronyism and bribery
• Enhancing the fair use of confidential information
• Enhancing obeying orders
• Using working hours only for the purposes of the duty
• Enhancing the fair use of equipment
• Resisting favoritism in any form
• Resisting flattery by employees
• Diminishing selfish behavior
• Taking the responsibility of one’s own work
• Diminishing gossiping at the workplace
• Impartiality, equity and justice
• Social thinking and ability to co-operate
• Openness in communication
• Trust and keeping promises
• Innovativeness
• Service principle and customer orientation
• Accountability, accuracy
• Efficiency and performance orientation
• High rewarding and work productivity
• Competence
• Motivation
• Commitment and increasing loyalty
• Creating trust and the environment of giving opportunities
High-performance models use to put emphasis on such forms of values and ethics that
have straight links to efficiency, high-performance and added value. They also highlight
competence, motivation, loyalty and trust and see them as essential steps for high-
performance action.
This situation may be harmful for practical HR-work. Many ethical problems are left
outside of leadership. Leaders may not see all ethical behavior as a necessary element in
achieving high-performance. The obvious risk here is to see the efficiency of public
organizations too narrowly and simultaneously jeopardize ethical principles of civil
service.
In the models of SHRM, high-performance is typically operationalized by the concept of
productivity or by using other economic measures. It means that only success in
efficiency or productivity (measured by output/input -ratio) is taken into consideration.
The core elements of high-performance can also be defined widely. In the wide meaning,
performance also includes the quality of services, the welfare of the workers, the
allocation and the due delivery of social and common services and the cost effectiveness
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of services. The wide definition of high performance might give us a totally different
view of the correlation of values, ethics and performance.
8. Combining integrity and performance at a work place: some empirical
remarks from the Finnish Police Units
Our first empirical case describes the correlation of integrity and efficiency in the Finnish
Police Units. We studied empirically (Lumijärvi & Vesterinen 2006) the importance of
different forms of ethical behavior in the Finnish police units. The questionnaire was sent
to ten police units in the Western district of Finland. The total amount of respondents was
177 with the response rate of 42 %. The questionnaires were handed to senior police
officers and policemen. The questionnaire included questions concerning management
practices and values and the appearance and frequency of unethical behavior. Opinions of
ethics were asked by the question: “how often do unethical forms of behavior exist at
your work place?” The question was divided into 23 sub-forms of unethical behavior.
Questions concerned both the respondent’s own work place and the Finnish police in
general.
The results indicated that ethics is in general at a very high level in the behavior of the
Finnish police. Bribery or taking or accepting economic benefits in duty, discrimination
or racist behavior happen very seldom if at all. However, to some extent there exist ‘soft’
forms of unethical behavior as flattery by employees, favoritism by the manager, getting
other people to do one’s work, putting one’s own advantage before the common good in
work and using working hours for private purposes.
The respondents were then asked to evaluate how strongly the values were at present at
their work place and how the values should be prioritized in the future (the scale: 1 very
little .., 5 very much). The respondents saw very high actual realization of the values
legality (90%), honesty (78%), impartiality (66%) and accuracy (66%). Least realized
were openness (27%), pluralism (27%) and equity (29%). Tolerance was not very much
realized (37%) either. In the future, the respondents would like to emphasize more the
values like legality (93%) and openness (93%). Much desired values were also trust,
responsibility and service-orientation (all 91%). Efficiency (39%), performance-
orientation (59%) and pluralism (64%) were among the least desired. The difference
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between actual and desired values was at its most among the values like openness,
pluralism, equity and tolerance and least among the values impartiality, honesty and
legality. From the point of view of organizational integrity both the realization of values
and unethical behavior referred to similar developing needs in the local police units: more
openness, trust and equity.
On the whole it can be said that the integrity of local police units seems to be at a very
high level. There were no signs of polarity between the ethical and economic values
(Lumijärvi & Vesterinen 2006). The striving for higher efficiency was recognized but
also the ethical values were seen as highly important. However, quite many respondents
saw that efficiency could be emphasized less in the future and saw that efficiency as a
value is overemphasized in the current policing.
Also other documental evidence of the ethical behavior of the Finnish policing is
indicating that, in spite of increased demands for productivity in the police forces, legal
cases of corruption and other unethical forms of behavior of the police have not increased
(the annual reports of Parliamentary Ombudsman of Finland 2006, 2007). The
complaints concerning the conduct of police are addressed to the Parliamentary
Ombudsman. In addition, the Ombudsman takes up a number of police-related cases for
investigation each year. There is no evidence that the complaints concerning the
corruption of the police have increased. The overwhelming majority of complaints
against the police concern criminal investigations and the use of coercive measures.
Typical complaints express the opinion that (1) errors have been made in the conduct of a
criminal investigation or that (2) an official decision not to conduct an investigation has
been wrong or (3) the length of time taken to complete investigations has been too long.
Most complaints concerning the use of coercive measures relate to house searches or
various forms of loss of liberty. It is however noted that the recent structural reforms that
tend to increase cost-efficiency thinking may weaken the possibilities of police to give
fair services in the long run.
18
9 Combining integrity and performance at the national level
Our second empirical case comes from the national level. The appearance of integrity and
performance can be also viewed at the national level by the statistics of the World Bank
(Kaufman etc. 2007). The World Bank uses to publish statistics concerning the control of
corruption (=ethics) and Governmental Effectiveness (=performance) of different
countries. The following data is from Europe and indicators are from the year 2008
(Governance Matters 2009). If we look at those European countries that are managing
well in governmental effectiveness and those countries that have no remarkable problems
in controlling corruption, we can see that the order of the countries is almost the same.
The correlation is remarkably high, 0,92.
Table 2. The control of corruption (=ethics) and Governmental Effectiveness
(=performance) in the different EU-countries.
European countries (year 2008) in
Governmental Effectiveness Controlling Corruption
Denmark 99.5 Finland 100.0
Switzerland 99.1 Denmark 99.0
Sweden 98.6 Iceland 98.6
Finland 98.1 Sweden 97.6
Norway 97.6 Netherlands 97.1
Lichetnstein 96.2 Switzerlad 96.6
Netherlands 95.7 Luxembourg 95.2
United Kingdom 94.3 Norway 94.7
Austria 93.8 Austria 93.7
Germany 93.4 Germany 93.2
Luxembourg 92.4 United Kingdom 92.8
Ireland 91.9 Ireland 92.3
Iceland 91.5 France 91.3
Andorra 90.5 Belgium 90.3
France 90.0 Andorra 87.4
Belgium 88.6 Lichtenstein 86.0
Cyprus 85.3 Spain 84.5
Czech Rep. 82.5 Portugal 83.1
Portugal 82.0 Cyprus 82.6
Spain 80.1 Hungary 72.5
Slovakia 77.3 Slovakia 68.6
Hungary 73.0 Poland 67.6
Greece 70.6 Czech Rep. 66.7
Poland 68.2 Italy 62.3
Italy 66.4 Greece 60.9
As Johnston (2009, 37) states it, “ in well-institutionalized systems the state, political
organizations and civil society both moderate political demands and aid in their
expression, enhancing government’s capacity to respond through sound policy… A state
that can not guarantee property rights and basic liberties, collect taxes, enforce contracts
and provide legitimate channels for the expression of interests will be ineffective and
19
unresponsive, and will invite private efforts to perform those functions, often by the way
of corruption or violence.”
10. Discussion about the interaction of integrity and performance
This paper has tried to increase our understanding about the interaction of integrity and
performance: what is the role of ethics in the organizations that are efficiency and
productivity oriented? How does fairness fit into the logic of high-performance? Are high
integrity and high-performance parallel or contradictory targets?
On the basis of our conceptual analysis and the overview of two empirical cases, it
seems that a highly ethical leadership and working behavior is not an obstacle when
aiming or highlighting efficiency. It is tempting to state that the ethical and due
behavior of public managers are an absolute precondition for achieving sustainable
high-performance. In order to be efficient an organization must highlight ethical
behavior as well. Both sides are needed. Corruption, bribery, racism, discrimination,
favoritism, selfish behavior and negative forms of bureaucracy, all have a great
propensity to decrease performance. Huberts et al. (2007) note that integrity violations
such as fraud and corruption may produce enormous financial losses. Obsolete rules
and pointless paperwork also reduce efficiency but in this case the reason lies more in
the system than in the behavior of separate officials. In the long run, it seems quite
impossible to maintain high-performance while behaving unethically. On the other
hand, there are hardly any reasons to argue that just striving for high-performance give
rise or tension to added corruption or other unethical forms of behavior. (See Figure 1;
also Hart 2001, 144)
20
Figure 1. Combining integrity and performance orientation.
very probable and
recommended
possible but not
recommended
possible in the
short run but not
recommended
very probable but not
recommended
INT
EG
RIT
Y
PERFORMANCE ORIENTATIONH
igh
Low
Low High
It is to be noted that a low or high integrity are of course not the only reasons for a low or
high performance orientation. Van Wart and Denhardt (2001, 238) listed at least five
categories behind the low level of organizational effectiveness. The first one is ethical
reasons: ‘ethical lapses’. It leads to the losses in effectiveness, for example, as the
consequence of corruption. The other four categories are ‘motivation-psychological’
problems, ‘capacity-capability’ problems, ‘structure-systems’ problems and
‘accountability’ problems. The last type of problems often has close links to ethical
lapses. Especially, too little accountability typically gives room for ethical problems
whereas too much accountability tends to lead to administrative red tapes. Menzel (2001,
357) puts this in his way: “Although ethics is only a means to an end, it is a necessary
means”. You cannot suppose that “effective public organizations are achievable in an
ethical vacuum”.
When thinking about the educational background of public leaders, it is tempting to argue
that ethical issues should be well combined with other leadership expertise already during
21
the training of public officials. This is supposedly a challenge for the training systems in
many countries. Also, the way to transfer ethics into education is challenging. Farmer
(2002) points out that the teaching of ethics may be dysfunctional without a philosophical
framework. The focus should not be only on administrative ethics or role morality. Ethics
should be more penetrating than just a matter of technique.
A big question is, too, how to take public values into account aiming high-performance.
High-performance models are typically constructed in the context of private firms. This
means that they are market driven. They are modified to enhance the financial targets of a
firm. In delivering public services the infusion of public interest may give rise to
complications. High integrity and public values are tightly linked to good and democratic
government (Frederickson 1999). Ethical principles and public values are also highly
important from the point of view of effectiveness and citizenship. Public environment
means that ethical and democratic principles should be always at present despite the fact
that some other values may give support to high-performance as well. The pursuit of
high-performance may produce some tradeoffs between the values like equality and
efficiency but as shown above, the values themselves are not counterparts.
Plant (2001,319) has examined the Codes of Ethics prepared for City/County managers
in the USA. The Codes give clear signs of the seeking of synthesis between
effectiveness and ethics. The first of the Codes states: “Be dedicated to the concepts of
effective and democratic local government.”. The third of Codes states: “Be dedicated
to the highest ideals of honor and integrity in all public and personal relationships..”
Also in the Codes of Ethics published by ASPA (American Society for Public
Administration) performance orientation is referred to but not as clearly (Bowman
2001, 342). These Codes point out the serving of public interest, the respect of laws,
the demonstration of personal integrity, promotion of ethical organization but also the
striving for professional excellence.
Campbell (2000) characterizes efficient public leaders as people who have wisdom,
courage and benevolence. Honesty, fairness, caring and pursuit of excellence are among
the core ethical principles. Denhardt (2000, 129-142) presents an interesting model of
New Public Service. He emphasizes missions and visions as starting points for
managerial success (high-performance) in public organizations. Accountability,
22
commitment to values, participation and involvement, empowerment, shared leadership
and integrity are important determinants of public leadership as well. The idea of New
Public Service gives hope that ethical and value elements can be seen as an integral part
of strategic management in the public sector in the future. Modern ‘bureaucracies’ will be
characterized by high integrity but also hard striving for higher performance.
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