Module 5 Title: Trends in the development of public administration in a global context Introduction and Summary: Comparative public administrations status as subdiscipline of public administration has since been an issue of perennial contestation. Since the early 1970s, developing country administrative research has evolved separately and autonomously from mainstream Ameri can public administration. It is now a popular subfield within other social science disciplines such as political science, sociology, and economics (Jreisat 2005, 234). Perhaps the most prolific of these disciplinary invasions has come from new institutional economics (Clague 1997; North 1995). Here, formal and informal rules and incentive structures are examined at the expense of actual micro level behaviors inside organizations. New institutional economics' disciplinary assumptions of bureaucratic life have misunderstood Waldonian assumptions of dynamics within American public administration, depoliticizing administrative life in the developing world by explaining it in terms of bounded rational actors operating within path-dependent institutional arrangements. Implications for government and public administration are immense: changes in revenue patterns, educational and service needs, information technologies and capabilities, political demands, and so on. Elements of postindustrial society have become an integral part of the fabric of social and economic life, and therefore of the complex forces pressing on business, industry, and government. This paradox is complicated further by an emerging emphasis on global trade and reindustrialization—that is, upgrading and modernizing of our aging physical plant and production capacity to avoid falling further behind other more competitive nations such as, Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and Russia. Furthermore, forces of nationalism still run deep and strong in many parts of the world, though conflicting currents of so-called globalization have arisen and are gaining strength. Globalization has been defined as an acceleration of transcontinental flows of capital, ideas, American culture, and goods and services across national boundaries via the Internet in a networked society. Jagdish Bhagwati, one the leading proponents of global trade, defines globalization as “the integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, direct foreign investment by [various international financial institutions], short-term capital flows, and international flows of technology. In some of the older nation-states, nationalism (identity with a national unit of government, patriotism, observance of duties of citizenship, and pride in one’s country) seems to be in decline. Globalization has eroded the importance of national sovereignty and in- creased the influence of overlapping networks of integrated technology and the power of multinational corporations (MNCs). Postnational cynicism toward patriotism and political symbols such as anthems and flags, and growing alienation from government institutions, all mark this decline. At the same time, economic globalization requires that governments develop policies that address various disaffected groups, such as “outsourced” factory workers in developed nations (including the United States), who are being displaced by this new economic order. Postnationalism combined with increasing globalization could mean one of two things. It could mean an awakening of feeling for a larger “community,” for organizing economic and political arrangements that would eliminate trade barriers and strengthen international bonds of co- operation and respect, such as the European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Postnationalism, however, also could spawn a countertrend toward emphasizing individual group identities within nations at the expense of established political entities. Tribalism in many African nations, the reemergence of National Socialism in Germany, the Quebec separatist movement, language rivalries in Belgium, and ethnic tensions in Iraq, Serbia, Lebanon, Spain, and the former Soviet Union are examples of the latter. A third possibility, perhaps ironically, is a reawakening of nationalism, as a reaction against globalizing forces. And, transcending the forces of nationalism, we have seen the emergence of a global pro-democracy movement among citizens in countries that have long suppressed basic political and economic freedoms. One explanation for this sudden resurgence of protest movements is the spread of Inter- net communications. Whether ICTs have become a significant force in world politics weakening government’s power to control and censor information or an instrument for further repression is being closely monitored. The uprising that began in Egypt in late January of 2011 is instructive regarding the impacts of social media. This revolt was inspired by the relatively bloodless ousting of the government in Tunisia months earlier. Citizens took to the streets to protest high unemployment, corruption, and the thirty-year military rule of pro-American President Hosni Mubarak. The protests were the largest since the 1970s, with Egyptians coming together via the expanded use of social networking. The government responded by attempting to block Twitter, which not only enraged citizens, but brought increased international attention to the uprising. Egypt attempted to block Facebook while riot police took to the streets, arresting and injuring hundreds. When the government learned about a big protest planned References: Beneveniste, Guy. The Twenty-First Century Organi- zation: Analyzing Current Trends— Imagining the Future. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994. Box, Richard C. (ed) Democracy and Public Administra- tion. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007. Box, Richard C. Public Administration and Society: Criti- cal Issues in American Governance. 2nd ed. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2009. Bozeman, Barry. All Organizations Are Public. San Fran- cisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987. DiIulio, John J., Jr., ed. Deregulating the Public Service: Can Government Be Improved? Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1994. Etzioni, Amitai. Public Policy in a New Key. New Bruns- wick, N.J.: Transaction, 1993. Fry, Brian R and Jos C.N. Raadschelders. Mastering Public Administration: From Max Weber to Dwight Wald 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2008. International Public Management Journal ISSN: 1096-7494 (Print) 1559-3169 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/upmj20 Value-Based Integrity Management and Bureaucratic Organizations: Changing the Mix Brian Brewer, Joan Y. H. Leung & Ian Scott To cite this article: Brian Brewer, Joan Y. H. Leung & Ian Scott (2015) Value-Based Integrity Management and Bureaucratic Organizations: Changing the Mix, International Public Management Journal, 18:3, 390-410, DOI: 10.1080/10967494.2015.1030053 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10967494.2015.1030053 Accepted author version posted online: 12 Aug 2015. Published online: 12 Aug 2015. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 506 View Crossmark data Citing articles: 4 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=upmj20 International Public Management Journal VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT AND BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATIONS: CHANGING THE MIX BRIAN BREWER, JOAN Y. H. LEUNG, AND IAN SCOTT CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG ABSTRACT: This article examines integrity management initiatives designed to introduce more value-based elements in public bureaucracies. Incorporating value-based practices, which emphasize the personal ethical responsibilities of individual public servants, into a hierarchical, rule-based system may present difficult organizational problems. A central issue is to determine whether any change has actually occurred or whether the organization is simply functioning as it did previously. In addition, there are problems of implementation: new value-based initiatives may conflict with the pre-existing system; they may not be adequately reflected in training programs; and there may be differential impacts on departments and agencies. We analyze problems in this new organizational mix in a classical Weberian bureaucracy, the Hong Kong civil service. The findings are based on a 2011–2012 administrative ethics survey of 355 senior public servants, a separate survey of 70 Ethics Officers, and semi-structured interviews with 32 senior public servants. INTRODUCTION Over the past two decades, many public bureaucracies have sought to incorporate more value-based elements in their approach to integrity management (OECD 2003; Huberts, Maesschalck, and Jurkiewicz 2008). Following Maesschalck (2004–2005), we distinguish between predominantly compliance–based or rule-based approaches ‘‘emphasizing the importance of external control on the behavior of public servants’’ and integrity or value-based approaches which stress the need for ethical ‘‘self-control exercised by each public servant.’’ Value-based approaches usually aim at ensuring that public servants have a higher degree of personal awareness of ethical issues, such as conflicts of interest, and are less reliant on rules to arrive at morally defensible positions. They reflect concerns that the complexity of issues facing modern governments cannot simply be resolved by creating more rules or by allowing public servants to shelter under the umbrella of organizational International Public Management Journal, 18(3), pages 390–410 DOI: 10.1080/10967494.2015.1030053 Copyright # 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1096-7494 print /1559-3169 online VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 391 protection for their actions. Public servants are increasingly expected to take personal responsibility for their behavior in office. However, introducing value-based systems which involve radical changes and which undermine existing rule-based systems is likely to result in conflict because rules are not only necessary for efficient government but are also usually entrenched in long-established practice (Gilman 1999). The issues raised by these concerns—in particular, the tensions between rule-based and value-based approaches, how that affects organizational change, and what it means for the definition for the role of the public servant—provide the central focus for this article. Our approach is drawn from a literature which sees structural form as a significant determinant of ethical behavior (Victor and Cullen 1988; Wimbush and Shepherd 1994; Martin and Cullen 2006; Arnaud and Schminke 2012).1 In bureaucratic organizations that are characterized by such features as hierarchy, a complex division of labor, collective production, and a heavy reliance on rules (Buchanan 1996; see also Weber 1946), the first point of reference for public servants seeking ethical guidance is almost certain to be the regulations and how these relate to their own role. The question then becomes where duty ends (rule-based) and where discretion begins (value-based), which has been a recurring and important theme in the public administration literature (Finer 1941=1972; Friedrich 1940=1972). The current stress on ethics and integrity norms that go beyond ‘‘corruption’’ means that this question has again become increasingly relevant (Lasthuizen, Huberts, and Heres 2011). If a more value-based system is to be successfully introduced, structures and processes need to change to allow public servants increasing discretion to make ethical decisions, modifying the rules to permit them to do so, and reforming training programs to reflect new expectations. The assumption that such changes are necessary is critical to the subsequent analysis and serves to structure this article around three questions. Do value-based approaches actually increase discretion? What kinds of organizational changes do they entail? What happens to the existing rules when new ethical considerations are introduced? We use two surveys and 32 semi-structured interviews with senior civil servants to consider the effects of three incremental changes to a predominantly rule-based, typically bureaucratic organization, the Hong Kong public service, which has been attempting over the past decade to introduce more value-based elements into its administrative system. We consider, first, the degree of discretion which may be permitted to the individual public servant within the rule-based system to arrive at decisions on value issues. Discretion of this kind may be regarded as the hallmark of a value-based system, an essential component of a professional public service, and an indicator of the degree to which change has taken place (Hoggett 2005). Closely related to discretion are the procedures in place to govern the ways in which ethical dilemmas are handled. Procedures can be changed at this level without threatening a hierarchal bureaucratic system and with the possible advantage of savings in administrative costs since fewer rules need to be devised and administered (Pettigrew 1990). The indicator of change towards a more value-based system in this case is the extent to which ethical issues can be resolved at lower levels in the organization. Finally, introducing a more value-based system implies changes in the content of training programs to increase personal awareness and to provide guidelines on appropriate behavior. The degree to which changes in training programs 392 International Public Management Journal Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015 take place serves as one indicator of the extent to which a government seriously intends to introduce more value-based elements into the administrative system. THE HONG KONG PUBLIC SERVICE AND INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT The Hong Kong public service closely resembles the ideal Weberian bureaucratic organization. Its 168,000 full-time employees, over 20% of whom belong to the Hong Kong Police Force, are organized hierarchically and are well-paid relative to the private sector and public services in other countries (Civil Service Bureau 2012, 18; Scott 2010, 69–93). Most public servants have careers for life. Some 82% are on permanent and pensionable terms with most of the remainder on probation (Civil Service Bureau 2012, 21). Traditionally, the public service was its own master, running the colony with a good deal of autonomy from the British government and without the scrutiny of an elected legislature or political parties. Since the resumption of Chinese sovereignty in 1997, its political direction comes from a Chief Executive who is elected by a ‘‘small circle’’ of 1,200 carefully selected delegates and appointed by the Chinese government. The Chief Executive in turn appoints a varying number of Principal Officials, usually between 12 and 16, who are in charge of policy bureaus and who have often previously served as senior public servants. Coming formally under the policy bureaus, although in practice often exercising considerable autonomy, are approximately 60 government departments. Under this system, the public service retains much of its former power, although there have been some recent attempts to increase political control. The Hong Kong public service is proud of its record of clean government. But it was not always so. Until 1974, the colonial government was so riddled with corruption that there was eventually a public outcry, which resulted in the establishment of an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). The Commission was given wide powers and generous funding and pursued its task with such vigor and success that it has been called the ‘‘gold standard’’ of anti-corruption agencies (Batory 2012). Its fundamental position has been a zero-tolerance approach to corruption, defined as bribery. It has spelled out in great detail what are corrupt offences, what is and is not acceptable behavior, and what consequences will ensue if public servants break the law. The ICAC’s rule-based approach to integrity has been entirely congruent with, and supportive of, the public sector’s rule-based system. Anti-corruption rules have been incorporated and embedded in bureaucratic practice; preventative measures, widely and effectively implemented, have been taken to ensure that corruption cannot occur; and extensive efforts have been made to enlist public support to report corrupt activities. The result has been a very significant drop over the years in the number of public servants convicted of corruption. In 2011, only nine public servants were found guilty of corruption offences which were mostly relatively minor (ICAC 2012, Appendix 9). THE IMPETUS FOR A MORE VALUE-BASED APPROACH Although the overall trend has clearly been towards cleaner government, there were concerns, shortly before the resumption of Chinese sovereignty in 1997, that VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 393 forms of corruption, other than bribery, were increasing. Senior public servants and some Legislative Councilors became alarmed at the rise in the number of corruption complaints to the ICAC, the increasing evidence of cross-border corruption, a high-profile case involving the unethical conduct of a top official, and surveys which showed that youth were becoming more tolerant of corruption (Scott and Leung 2012). There was also a concern that money laundering, deferred advantages, and various other forms of conflicts of interest, which could not as easily be prosecuted under The Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, were also increasing. The government’s immediate response was to provide more resources for the ICAC but, after 1998, it also set in motion an integrity enhancement program which was designed ‘‘to embed the culture of integrity through the leadership and commitment of the senior management in (bureaus and departments) so that a sustaining ethical culture can flourish in the civil service’’ (Legislative Council 2008). The new program was to be run jointly by the ICAC and the Civil Service Bureau, the organization responsible for managing the public service. In 2006, the government also created the new position of Ethics Officer, which was to be held concurrently by a very senior public servant at the directorate level in every bureau and department. The idea was that value-based integrity management programs should be continuous and become embedded as an integral part of the work of any department. Ethics Officers ‘‘are responsible for mapping out the strategy and work plan that suit the individual needs and priorities of their organizations’’ (Legislative Council 2008). The specific tasks assigned to them are: to review the progress of ICAC corruption prevention assignment studies in their departments, to explore the areas that may require a review for corruption prevention, to work out the priority of future corruption prevention assignment studies, to follow up on cases recommended by ICAC for consideration of disciplinary or administrative action, to take steps to prevent recurrence of corruption and malpractice exposed, to review the department’s code on conduct and discipline in accordance with changing needs, to communicate to staff the ethical standards that are required of them, and to review staff’s awareness of corruption and the need to avoid conflict of interest in the discharge of their duties, such as contract management (ICAC and Civil Service Bureau 2008). Only the last two tasks explicitly relate to new forms of corruption; the creation of the role is clearly not only expected to promote value-based integrity management but also to enhance existing checks on possible corruption and the monitoring of weaknesses in the administrative system. The formal aim is to create a hybrid system in which the rule-based system is maintained but which adds value-based elements. THE IMPACT OF THE VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT PROGRAM Methodology To assess the impact of this attempt to introduce a more value-based approach, we surveyed 70 Ethics Officers and Assistant Ethics Officers, conducted semi-structured interviews with a further 32 Ethics Officers and Assistant Ethics Officers and other senior public servants concerned with integrity management, and administered an International Public Management Journal 394 Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015 ethics survey questionnaire to 355 senior civil servants.2 A 20-item questionnaire was distributed to all the Ethics Officers and Assistant Ethics Officers in the Hong Kong government (a total of 157, of whom 81 were Ethics Officers) through two channels. First, it was distributed in person to the 90 Ethics Officers and Assistant Ethics Officers who attended a workshop organized by the Civil Service Bureau and the ICAC in June 2010. A second distribution channel was provided by the government’s internal dispatch system, which sent out questionnaires to all Ethics Officers and Assistant Ethics Officers who could not attend the June workshop. They were asked to return the questionnaire in an attached stamped, addressed envelope to the researchers. By the third week of July, 71 returns were received, a response rate of 45%. Considering that in some bureaus and departments it was likely that either the Ethics Officer or Assistant Ethics Officers returned a single questionnaire on behalf of the department or bureau, the rate of return may be regarded as high. Data generated from the questions were analyzed using the statistical package PASW (Prescriptive Analytics Software). Frequency distributions were produced and a simple two-variable cross-tabulation was completed. We also conducted in-depth, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with 32 senior officers concerned with integrity management programs in 21 departments, which included the seven largest departments listed in Table 1, and 14 smaller departments whose strength in 2012 ranged between 4,404 and 125 (Civil Service Bureau 2012). Taken together, these departments may be regarded as representative of the Hong Kong public service as a whole. Of the officers interviewed, 11 were Ethics Officers, 14 were Assistant Ethics officers, and seven had other responsibilities associated with the integrity management programs. The interviewees were contacted by the Corruption Prevention Department of the ICAC and subsequent interviews were arranged by the researchers. We interviewed in teams of two and, at the request of some officers, supplied the interview questions in advance; in some cases, officers took the time and trouble to respond both orally and in writing to our questions. In assessing the role of the Ethics Officer, we also utilize the findings of an TABLE 1 Strength of the Seven Largest Departments, March 2012 Department Strength Percentage of the Strength of the Whole Civil Service Police Food and Environmental Hygiene Fire Services Leisure and Cultural Services Housing Correctional Services Immigration 32,708 9,981 9,796 7,887 7,624 6,638 6,538 20.9 6.3 6.2 5.0 4.8 4.1 4.1 Source: Civil Service Bureau (2012). Note: The seven largest departments account for 51.4% of the strength of the civil service. VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 395 administrative ethics survey of 355 senior civil servants which we conducted in 2011. The survey examined key values influencing workplace behavior and was able to draw upon the findings of an almost identical survey conducted with a similar sample of senior civil servants in 1994. Impact How did the ICAC and the Civil Service Bureau fare in their attempt to introduce a more value-based approach? We should note, first, that the program had different impacts on the departments and bureaus within the Hong Kong public service in terms of increasing discretion, handling ethical issues, and introducing more value-based training. The Hong Kong public service consists of a relatively small number of large departments (see Table 1) and many smaller ones. We argue that the ways in which ethical issues are addressed and the content of training programs have been significantly affected by the size of the departments concerned. In the smaller departments, the impact of the Civil Service Bureau and the ICAC, and the way in which they view integrity management, has been central to the reform. Larger departments, which have their own training capacity, have to a greater extent developed their own approach to value-based integrity management. DISCRETION IN ETHICAL DECISION MAKING Introducing value-based approaches in bureaucratic organizations faces the problem that, in rule-based systems, the public servant is supposed to be as constrained as possible from exercising discretion. This means, in effect, accepting that the values and norms of the organization override personal values and preferences. According to Weber (1994, 331), unless public servants exercise this ‘‘supremely ethical discipline and self-denial, the whole apparatus would disintegrate.’’ Quill (2009) notes that the implication of this requirement is that ‘‘the ethic of the behaviour of the public servant . . . [must be] one of high commitment to the organization and unquestioned obedience to legitimate political authority.’’ ‘‘Unquestioned obedience’’ is, of course, also reenforced in bureaucratic organizations by the adoption of very detailed administrative procedures which limit discretion, by the absolution of individuals from the moral consequences of collective action and by the assumption that those in authority have ethical, as well as rational, justifications for the decisions which they wish to see implemented. In the Hong Kong case, the ICAC’s Corruption Prevention Department makes many legally binding prescriptions for departments which are designed to prevent corruption and require additional checks and vetoes on the actions of public servants. Value-based approaches stress individual awareness and responsibility and imply an increase in the degree of discretion which a public servant can exercise. Ideally, if the approach is successful, officials can be trusted to make the appropriate moral decisions and elaborate systems of checks and vetoes are not required. In theory, a bureaucracy implementing a successful value-based approach would reduce its administrative costs. It has also been argued that increasing professionalization in 396 International Public Management Journal Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015 modern public administration means that ‘‘the system can only work if actors within it use judgement and discretion’’ (Hoggett 2005; italics in the original). The scholarly arguments tend to take the view that value-based integrity management is an inevitable and necessary consequence of changing times and that it can have distinct efficiency benefits. Although a more value-based approach need not necessarily always be incompatible with the ways in which bureaucratic organizations with a strong rule-based culture actually work, the clash of approaches can result, in some cases, in ‘‘institutional civil war’’ (Gilman 1999). In the Hong Kong case, the government had no intention of dismantling the rule-based system which had been painstakingly put in place over many years and which had been shown to be very effective in preventing corruption defined as bribery. It did recognize, however, that some new forms of corruption or conflicts of interest could not be adequately dealt with under the existing provisions, but it did not see any potential incompatibility between strengthening the rule-based system and introducing more value-based elements. Public servants themselves did not appear to find any such incompatibilities. In the 2011 administrative ethics survey, for example, support among senior public servants for such organizational values as duty to the organization, respect for organizational rules and regulations, and respect for the law, which were already strongly evident when the same survey was conducted in 1994, had actually strengthened over the intervening period (Brewer, Leung, and Scott 2014; Lui and Cooper 1997). Table 2 shows this growing TABLE 2 Organizational Values and Hong Kong Civil Servants, 1994 and 2011 (in percentages) Significance Test Organization Values Duty to the organization Respect for the law Respect for organizational rules and regulations The reputation of the organization Compatibility of personal values with those of the organization 1994 2011 Value df p Significance 44.2 71.4 37.5 59.2 83.7 55.5 24.243 16.472 43.756 4 2 4 .000 .000 .000 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 24.7 41.7 57.587 4 .000 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 8.3 27.6 74.492 6 .000 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Sources: Administrative Ethics Survey, 1994 and 2011–2012. Notes: A more detailed comparison of the survey results is contained in Brewer, Leung, and Scott (2012). For the first four items, the question asked was ‘‘In making decisions regarding how you should conduct yourself in the workplace, how important are the factors listed below?’’ A list of 20 possible factors was provided of which, apart from ‘‘honesty,’’ those cited in the table represented the highest ranking of those factors deemed ‘‘very important.’’ For the fifth item, the statement was, ‘‘My personal convictions are generally compatible with those of the organization.’’ The table records the percentage of respondents who ‘‘strongly agreed’’ with the statement. VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 397 commitment to organizational values, but it is also evident in the relative decline of factors relating to personal discretion. Of the 20 factors listed in the questionnaire affecting conduct in the workplace, ‘‘your conscience’’ was rated second in 1994 but had dropped to sixth place behind a number of organizational values in the 2011 survey. On the statement seeking to assess the congruence between personal and organizational values in Table 2, there is also a very significant rise in the numbers who believe that their personal convictions are compatible with those of the organization (see also Table 3). One of the consequences of the success of corruption prevention measures in Hong Kong has been to strengthen a traditional bureaucratic organization (Brewer, Leung, and Scott 2014). This has been achieved by the continuing creation of very effective checks and rules designed to capture (and to punish) any deviant behavior. The new emphasis on integrity management was thus introduced at a time when commitment to rules and regulations was increasing and when the rules themselves were proliferating. It is perhaps not surprising, given this organizational context, that the focus of attention remained systemic and did not shift to the ethical behavior of the individual public servant as much as might have ideally been intended. The Ethics Officers and Assistant Ethics Officers whom we interviewed were all highly educated and TABLE 3 A Comparison of Personal Values in the Workplace in the Hong Kong Public Service and the Hong Kong Police Force, 2011–2012 (in percentages) Significance Test 2011– 2012 Police 2012 Value df p Significance Fairness 51.5 67.3 10.826 6 .075 Equality 47.3 65.4 29.303 8 .000 Respect for individual freedom and autonomy Honesty 21.4 44.2 42.892 8 .000 61.7 82.7 29.970 6 .000 Respect for individual privacy 31.9 42.3 34.381 8 .000 Respect for human dignity 33.5 48.1 25.581 8 .001 Your own conscience 59.6 63.5 13.305 8 .071 No, p ¼ .075 > .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .001 < .05 No, p ¼ .071 > .05 Value Sources: Administrative Ethics Survey, 1994 and 2011–2012. Notes: The question asked was ‘‘In making decisions regarding how you should conduct yourself in the workplace, how important to you are the factors listed below?’’ The table records only the percentage of those who answered ‘‘very important.’’ 398 International Public Management Journal Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015 experienced civil servants who were near the organizational pinnacle of their respective departments. Although the central institutions, the Civil Service Bureau and the ICAC, might see the creation of their positions as evidence of a shift towards a more value-based approach, Ethics Officers themselves seemed more ambivalent about their role. Many implied that their task was to ensure that existing standards of probity were maintained through the hierarchy. If personal awareness of ethical issues among staff was increased, that was well and good and an ideal long-term goal, but the primary concern was to avoid corrupt acts from taking place, and that meant ensuring that the administrative rule-based sub-systems designed to prevent corruption continued to work effectively. Since these sub-systems mostly do work effectively, the role of the Ethics Officer was not particularly onerous. For all but one officer (in the police), the work consumed less than 10% of their time. As one Ethics Officer remarked, ‘‘the lines of authority are clear and most of the work is delegated.’’ The administrative sub-systems have been refined to match particular departmental needs and responsibilities over many years and, since they were often based on reforms recommended by the ICAC’s Corruption Prevention Department, they have certain features in common. Anti-corruption measures are usually founded on an efficient internal audit system which carefully traces expenditure and any collection of revenue. Personnel in decentralized units are rotated to try to ensure that a culture of corruption cannot easily develop and are subject to multiple cross-checking of their actions on such matters as, for example, the issuing of licenses and the inspection of premises. There are very extensive regulations governing procurement procedures. Some departments have even created their own investigative units, employing former police inspectors, to decide whether any case should be passed on to the ICAC for further investigation. These measures are costly and laborintensive but they have also proven to be highly effective in reducing corruption and maintaining it at low levels When a corrupt act is detected, or even suspected, it can have a seismic effect on the organization. If an individual is offered a bribe and that is reported, it can be seen as evidence that the checks are working effectively. But if any departmental employee is suspected of corrupt behavior, the department as a whole comes under a cloud. As one Ethics Officer pointed out, the impact of an ICAC investigation, whether or not public servants are charged, is detrimental to morale. If charges are laid and the public servant is convicted, the case becomes embedded in the department’s collective memory. In our semi-structured interviews, we did not ask specifically about corruption cases in the department. Nonetheless, in nearly half the departments (10 of 21), the Ethics Officers themselves raised the issue of recent corruption cases or pointed to the absence of such cases as evidence that the integrity management system was working well. In a further four departments, mention was made of conflict of interest cases which had potential corruption implications. When a corruption case involving the department did result in a conviction, the Ethics Officers recalled very clearly the nature of the offence and details of the case. Any sign that the rules have been flouted is cause for concern. Although it was specifically introduced in the context of a shift towards value-based integrity VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 399 management, the Ethics Officer is usually more concerned with ensuring that the rules work than with permitting greater discretion for public servants to make up their minds on ethical issues. Indeed, if anything, the stress on value-based integrity management appears to have prompted demands from public servants themselves for rules on issues which might not be covered by the existing regulations and which might have been left to the good moral judgment of individuals. For example, on matters relating to post-public employment and potential conflicts of interest with private-sector providers of services, the government has been obliged to bring in further regulations to provide public servants with greater certainty about what they may or may not do. The ICAC’s decision, from 1998 onwards, to prosecute under the common law offence of misconduct in public office has also caused concern. The offence is very broadly defined and civil servants at various levels have indicated that they want to know more precisely what constitutes an offence.3 Concerns about whether the rules work, and whether corruption cases might arise, apply in all departments and bureaus. There is a difference, however, in how the departments have implemented value-based changes. Larger departments often have the capacity to implement their own tailor-made approaches. The Police Force, for example, was concerned with value-based integrity management for some years before it became an issue in the wider public sector. In 1994, the Force set up the Service Quality Wing, which soon introduced a ‘‘Living the Values’’ training program which was designed to help move the Force from its traditional paramilitary role under colonialism to community policing. The Police Force has become an exemplar of value-based integrity management in the Hong Kong public service— and uniquely involves junior officers in the design of the ‘‘Living the Values’’ program—but it still maintains a strong commitment to hierarchy. Organization values, in this instance, are compatible with value-based integrity management. The Force recognizes that officers on the beat do necessarily exercise discretion, but it wants to ensure that they do so within a particular value reference frame. The police, and some other large departments, have also had problems with indebtedness and bankruptcy and the possibility that officers might fall into the hands of loan sharks. In the Police Force and the Fire Services Departments, this has led to an emphasis on ‘‘a healthy lifestyle’’ with strong moral disapprobation of gambling and drinking in establishments associated with criminal elements. The responses of senior police officers to the 2011–2012 administrative ethics survey showed that they endorsed organizational values to an even greater degree than their fellow public servants (see Table 4). For senior police officers, however, organizational values do not simply mean obeying the instructions of superiors but appear, as the last item in Table 4 shows, to have significance independent of the hierarchy. They would not, for example, regard it as acceptable to break the law even if a superior told them to do so. At the same time, there is also evidence that personal values are playing a larger role in decision making in the Police Force than they did in the past. Table 3 shows significant differences between senior police officers and the rest of the public service in the extent to which personal values are important to them in decision making. The centrality of values to training within the International Public Management Journal 400 Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015 TABLE 4 A Comparison of Organizational Values in the Hong Kong Public Service and in the Hong Kong Police Force, 2011–2012 (in percentages) Significance Test Value 2011– 2012 Police 2012 Value df p Significance Respect for the law 83.70 90.40 21.346 4 .000 Professional standards of ethics 56.60 80.00 17.311 6 .005 Duty to your organization 59.20 75.00 34.926 8 .000 The reputation of your organization Respect for organizational rules and regulations Opinions of your superiors 41.70 53.80 65.631 8 .000 55.50 57.70 47.222 8 .000 22.30 13.50 46.642 8 .000 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .005 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Sources: Administrative Ethics Survey, 1994 and 2011–2012. Notes: The question asked was ‘‘In making decisions regarding how you should conduct yourself in the workplace, how important to you are the factors listed below?’’ The table records only the percentage of those who answered ‘‘very important.’’ Force appears to have had a considerable impact which has not, however, been experienced to the same degree in other departments. In smaller departments, the influence of the Civil Service Bureau and the ICAC on departmental ethical practices is likely to be more direct, affecting both organizational practices and training programs. The ICAC’s Corruption Prevention Department’s mandate in law ensures that its recommendations are invariably accepted. For smaller departments without much flexibility in resource allocation, this may sometimes mean that the primary core value of clean government overrides other organizational concerns. Since the corruption prevention process is largely based on regular checks on potential weaknesses in the departmental anti-corruption systems, new rules may be introduced or old ones strengthened. The intention is to reduce discretion rather than to encourage more independent decision making founded on a value-based approach. Handling Ethical Issues The effects of limited discretion in decision making are evident in the ways in which ethical issues are actually handled. Despite an increasing emphasis on the importance of public servants’ awareness of potential conflicts of interest, the resolution of such situations is not left to the individual concerned. Common areas of conflict of interest, including nepotism, excessive entertainment from business VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 401 contacts, gambling with subordinates or people with whom the government has official dealings, violations of tendering procedures, dealing with companies in which the public servant holds shares, and providing advice to executive search agencies, are all identified as offences (Civil Service Bureau 2005, 15). But even where there may be less obvious or less important conflicts of interest, the individual is still expected to draw the potential conflict to the attention of his or her superior and to seek permission to take any action which may involve a potential conflict. The Civil Service Code of Conduct, which was promulgated in 2009 and applies across the civil service, specifies that public servants shall ensure that no actual, perceived, or potential conflict of interest between their official duties and private interests arises and ‘‘that they shall declare it to their supervisors so that the latter can determine how best to proceed or escalate the matter for a determination as necessary’’ (Legislative Council Panel on Public Service 2008, Appendix B). Unlike in some other administrative systems, the individual is not permitted to make the decision on the outcome once a potential conflict has been identified; rather, the issue becomes the responsibility of the superior, a process which is likely to encourage moving the issue up the hierarchy for resolution. The task of the Civil Service Bureau and of the ICAC in making public servants aware of consequences of conflicts of interest has probably been made easier by three high-profile cases which all involved senior public servants. In the first case, a former public servant was implicitly alleged to have lobbied her former department in the interests of her private-sector employer (Scott and Leung 2008). She vigorously defended herself against the charge and received a reprimand and a warning not to repeat her activities. In the second case, a former Director of Housing was about to take up a position with a company with whom he had had dealings in his official capacity. In the wake of considerable public criticism, he decided not to take up the position (Scott and Leung 2008). The third case was the most serious of all and involved Hong Kong’s then Chief Executive, who had previously been Head of the Civil Service. He was reported to have accepted excessive entertainment from businessmen, rented an apartment at below-market prices for his retirement, and spent lavishly on accommodation during duty trips outside Hong Kong (Independent Review Committee 2012; Audit Commission 2012). Each of these cases resulted in a subsequent tightening of the rules, but the publicity generated by these incidents also helped to increase awareness of the importance of identifying potential conflicts of interest. Former public servants pointed out, for example, that had a public servant engaged in similar behavior to that of the Chief Executive, he or she would have been charged with an offence under The Prevention of Bribery Ordinance (Rowse 2012; Tam 2012). As our interviews with Ethics Officers revealed, the dangers of conflicts of interest are widely appreciated within the public sector and there is a marked anxiety about the possibility of overstepping the mark. Entertainment, appointments to committees outside the government, promotion boards, and relations with contractors were all cited as areas of concern. In our interviews, we came across a number of cases in which entertainment by government contractors was an issue. One example given was dinners provided by professional associations to which the public servants 402 International Public Management Journal Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015 belonged but which were sometimes funded by government contractors or professional companies. In some cases, in the interests of efficiency, the government is more willing to tolerate conflicts of interest. For example, on promotion boards in small departments, it is often very difficult to appoint members to the Board who are not very familiar with the applicants. In these cases, the rule is that the conflict is tolerated, provided it is declared (Director, ICAC Corruption Prevention Department 2012). When an unreported conflict of interest is discovered, the consequences for the officer can be quite severe and a range of disciplinary measures can be applied, depending on the seriousness of the offence. The following example illustrates what happened in one large department when a conflict of interest was detected. The example is used in the department for training purposes: An officer accepted free lunches one to two times per week for a prolonged period, and free nightclub entertainment on a few occasions, from staff of a contractor whose work came under his supervision. Although ICAC’s investigation did not yield evidence to suggest that the officer had accepted the entertainment in return for rendering lax supervision and connivance at work, his acceptance of free entertainment in an excessive manner over a prolonged period from persons with official dealings was highly improper. The officer had breached Civil Service Regulation 434. Formal disciplinary action was taken against the officer. He was compulsorily retired.4 The civil service regulations are used in such cases because the government is not certain that it can obtain a criminal conviction. On average, over the period 2007–2011, 13 public servants per year were compulsorily retired and fewer than 10 per year were dismissed (Public Service Commission 2007–2011, Appendix VIII). Not all of these, however, were conflict of interest cases. The Civil Service Bureau and the ICAC can be reasonably satisfied that the message concerning conflicts of interest, and the values associated with avoiding such conflicts, are well understood across the public sector. However, largely because no individual discretion in resolving the issue is permitted once the conflict has been identified, there are consequences which can have effects throughout the organization. First, the measures taken to avoid or permit a conflict of interest come at an administrative cost for officers at all levels. The advantage of allowing the officer to determine what to do about a conflict of interest in some cases is lost, and this inevitably consumes time in reporting and determining appropriate responses. Second, if an issue cannot be resolved at the point where a conflict is determined, then this may represent administrative time for higher-level administrators or other organizations. Relatively trivial matters can find their way up through the departmental hierarchy to seek final determination from the Civil Service Bureau or the ICAC. Thus, for example, the issue of whether an individual on a duty visit could keep the discount on a smart card used for transportation and be refunded the full normal fare found its way up through a department to be finally resolved by the ICAC. VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 403 In assessing how the shift towards a more value-based approach affects the climate for handling ethical issues, there is little evidence that the hierarchical determination of outcomes has been seriously modified. What has occurred, however, and which does represent a shift in perception, is that unethical behavior is now widely understood as something more than not taking a bribe. Avoiding conflicts of interests has become a central concern for civil servants in the workplace. In that respect, there has been an important change of attitude from one in which everything which was not proscribed in the rules was permitted to one in which there is much greater sensitivity about value issues. TRAINING Changing ethical climates towards a more value-based approach must surely also involve changing the content of civil service training programs. Traditionally, the focus in the Hong Kong government has been on comprehensive explanations of the rules preventing corrupt practices and warnings of the consequences of violating those rules. The new approach—at least theoretically—seeks to place more emphasis on the importance of the core civil service values of the rule of law, honesty and integrity, objectivity and impartiality, political neutrality, and accountability and professionalism. The issue then becomes how particular departments and bureaus will adjust the mix between the stress on rules and the introduction of value-based elements in training. We must again distinguish between the large departments identified in Table 1 and smaller departments. Larger departments have their own, often extensive, training capacity and will seek to use that capacity to enhance the productivity and performance of their own organizations. Smaller departments are much more reliant on the Civil Service Bureau, the Civil Service Training and Development Institute, and the ICAC both for their training materials and for lectures and workshops given by staff from those institutions. Table 5 shows the result of a question in the survey of Ethics Officers which asked how much of the training material came from central institutions and how much of it was generated by the departments (Brewer, Leung, and Scott 2010, 53). We are reasonably confident, on the basis of the survey as well as with our face-to-face interviews with Ethics Officers in large departments, that the seven departments which claim to prepare more than 60% of their own material are the same seven departments that are listed in Table 1. Conversely, the table shows dependency of smaller departments and bureaus on the material provided by the Civil Service Bureau, the Civil Service Training and Development Institute, and the ICAC. Yet, even within the larger departments, there are still considerable variations in the time devoted to a discussion of values and the methods used to try to communicate them. The Police Force has adopted a full-blown approach to value-based integrity management. The principal objective of the ‘‘Living the Values’’ program is to try to ensure that the personal values of the police are aligned with Force values. There is a conscious effort to promote desired values, make certain that they are 404 International Public Management Journal Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015 TABLE 5 Use of Instructional Material on Integrity Management in Bureaus and Departments Below 20% 21%–40% 41%–60% 61%–80% Over 80% Total Materials Prepared by the Civil Service Bureau=Civil Service Training Development Institute=ICAC Materials Prepared by Bureaus and Departments 7 (10%) 7 (10%) 10 (14.29%) 20 (28.57%) 26 (37.14%) 70 (100%) 37 (52.86%) 16 (22.86%) 10 (14.29%) 3 (4.29%) 4 (5.71%) 70 (100%) Source: Survey of Ethics Officers, 2010. Note: The question asked was ‘‘What percentage (roughly) of the information and training materials, lectures and seminars in your bureau=department was provided by the CSB, CSTDI and =or ICAC?’’ understood, and that they are, as far as possible, put into practice. The ‘‘Living the Values’’ program takes a particular value, which is decided periodically after discussion within the Force, and develops its implications for policing through workshops, competitions, and videos which are used to encourage feedback and ideas for implementation. To date, there have been seven ‘‘waves’’ dealing sequentially with the Force’s vision, honesty and integrity, enhancing honesty and integrity, enhancing police professionalism, building a caring workforce, fairness in all dealings, and professionalism in the changing world. The Force attributes, at least in part, its rehabilitation from the ‘‘bad old days’’ of syndicated corruption and its emergence as a community police force to integrity management programs, such as the ‘‘Living the Values’’ program, although other factors, such as the recruitment of more educated personnel at all levels, have also been important. Those concerned with value-based integrity management programs in the Civil Service Bureau and the ICAC often cite the police as an example of where they would like to take the civil service as a whole. However, the underlying condition for its apparent success—the desire to create a community police force and therefore the need to change values—is not a motivational force in other departments that may nonetheless be equally interested in relating training to departmental objectives. In the Correctional Services Department, for example, which is probably less concerned about community relations than the Police Force, a major problem in the past has been the number of its officers who are in debt or bankrupt, leaving them potentially in the grips of loan sharks. The Department has made major and successful efforts to reduce the number of its officers who are in financial trouble. A video which is shown to all new recruits tells the story of an officer who fell into the hands of loan sharks and was asked to smuggle a mobile phone into the prison for the use of one of the inmates. The video, which was professionally produced, combines two of the major concerns of the Department and seeks to promote desired values while warning of the consequences of transgressing the rules. VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 405 Other large departments likewise seek to relate their integrity management programs to their practical needs and are perhaps less concerned with abstract value issues than with effective resource allocation. One Ethics Officer in a large department stressed that the department’s priority was to teach new recruits how to do the job. Another said that there was little point in teaching the large number of junior staff in the department about values because it would only ‘‘confuse’’ them. What was needed, he thought, was for junior staff to have a proper understanding of the rules which was necessary if they were to work efficiently. Nonetheless, all the large departments spend some time on core civil service values; the extent to which they do so, however, appears to vary considerably. Smaller departments are much more reliant on the central institutions for teaching materials and lectures. Occasionally, the Civil Service Training and Development Institute will second an officer to help the department and this appears to make a difference, because the material can then be tailored more towards specific departmental needs. The problem is that the more dependent the department is on outside assistance, the more likely it is that a generic message is communicated. An exception to this situation, however, is in departments—often small departments—which have responsibility for managing large contracts with outside companies. In these cases, the ICAC does have detailed training programs which not only specify what departmental officers should and should not be doing but which also involve training programs with the employees of the contractors themselves. Practice across the civil service consequently varies very considerably depending on the nature of the tasks which the department performs. If there is a general rule, it is that, if the ICAC suspects that there is any prospect of corruption, it will become continuously more involved in the work of the department and the behavior of its employees. It is difficult to evaluate the impact that value-based ethical training has had on the public service. The survey of Ethics Officers did elicit responses on the assessment of training programs (Brewer, Leung, and Scott 2010, 26–45). However, most Ethics Officers either said that no assessment had been undertaken or simply regarded the absence, or a low number, of corruption cases or a reduced number of disciplinary cases as evidence that their integrity management programs were working well. There is, of course, no necessary correlation between a lower number of corruption cases and more value-based training, although a recent study finds that corruption is worse in countries where the quality of ethics training is poor (OECD 2013). Most Hong Kong Ethics Officers (some 82%) thought that their programs were successful, but only 4% thought that they were very successful. There were complaints about insufficient resources, the need to make the program more ‘‘lively,’’ and calls for more public (rather than only internal) assessment of whether the values were being translated into workplace practices (Brewer, Leung, and Scott 2010, 41–47). At the senior levels of the civil service, as Table 6 shows, there is an indication of increased congruence between personal and organizational values. On the other statements listed in Table 6, senior civil servants did seem to show more awareness of organizational awareness of values and a greater willingness to translate ethical conflicts with their superiors into action outside the organization. They were less 406 44 106 16 5 8 5 9 7 9 20 15 19 1994 2011–2012 28 125 10 20 1994 2011–2012 1994 2011–2012 1994 2011–2012 1994 2011–2012 1994 2011–2012 1994 2011–2012 1994 2011–2012 23 98 (5.4%) (5.4%) (15.9%) (30%) (5.8%) (1.4%) (2.9%) (1.4%) (3.3%) (2.0%) (3.2%) (5.6%) (10.1%) (35.3%) (3.6%) (5.6%) (8.3%) (27.6%) Strongly Agree 1994 2011–2012 Sources: Administrative Ethics Survey, 1994 and 2012. a. My personal convictions are generally compatible with the values of my organization b. My organization seems to be guided by high standards of morality c. I find that sometimes I must compromise my personal moral convictions to conform to my organization’s expectations d. I am confident that I understand my organization’s values e. My superiors seem to be less concerned about ethics and morality than I am f. My co-workers seem to be less concerned about ethics and morality than I am g. My subordinates seem to be less concerned about ethics and morality than I am h. I would resign if my boss insisted that I carry out some action that I strongly felt was wrong i. I would tell people outside my organization if my boss insisted that I carry out some action that I strongly felt was wrong Statement 45 80 152 210 54 28 50 34 44 39 40 37 93 157 110 94 132 187 (16.3%) (22.6%) (54.9%) (59.5%) (19.5%) (7.9%) (18.1%) (9.6%) (16.1%) (11.2%) (14.4%) 10.5%) (33.7%) (44.4%) (39.9%) (26.5%) (47.7%) (52.7%) Agree Responses: n (%) TABLE 6 Personal Values and the Organization 13 31 0 0 17 63 7 39 7 37 26 60 6 1 7 46 2 1 (4.7%) (8.8%) (0%) (0%) (6.1%) (17.8%) (2.5%) (11.0%) (2.6%) (10.6%) (9.4%) 16.9%) (2.2%) (0.3%) (2.5%) (13.0%) (0.7%) (0.3%) Strongly Disagree 6 6 6 54.592 34.580 21.431 6 6 80.959 24.886 5 6 47.948 45.810 6 6 df 111.740 74.492 Value .000 .002 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 p Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .002 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Yes, p ¼ .000 < .05 Significance Significance Test VALUE-BASED INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT 407 prepared to resign over ethical conflicts, however. These findings seem to illustrate the tendency over the period 1994 to 2011 for the rule-based system to be strengthened, while at the same time awareness of value issues in the workplace has become more prevalent. CONCLUSIONS The issue of whether valued-based elements can be successfully incorporated into a strongly rule-based organization revolves around questions of whether public servants can be permitted to exercise greater discretion in deciding on value issues; how conflicts of interest, which represent the critical feature of a changed environment in which rules are no longer considered to be sufficient to deal with problems, are to be handled; and whether a more value-based approach to training is adopted and reflected in workplace practices. In the 1940s, Friedrich (1940=1972) argued that the complexities of modern government required public servants to exercise discretion, a consideration that surely extends to those ethical issues which cannot be covered by more rules. More recently, scholars have noted that the full financial and efficiency benefits of a value-based system will not be achieved unless public servants are permitted to exercise some discretion and integrity violations that do occur are subject to a more nuanced interpretation (Hoggett 2005; Lasthuizen, Hubert, and Heres 2011). In the Hong Kong case, substantial conflict between the new value-based and the pre-existing rule-based system is not evident; rather, value-based elements have been added onto an existing bureaucratic organization without modifying the rules. Public servants are not required to make moral judgments except at the point where they determine that they may have a conflict of interest. Immediately after that determination has been made, the issue becomes a matter for the organization, not the individual, to decide. There have also been differential impacts within the public service in the attempts to increase the ethical awareness and to ensure that public servants take more personal responsibility for their actions. Larger departments have greater autonomy from central direction than smaller departments on the measures and programs that are chosen to implement value-based management. There is, in consequence, some diversity in the programs, although a common outcome has been that the rule-based system in all departments has remained relatively unaffected. Indeed, one paradoxical research finding is that the rule-based system for dealing with integrity matters has actually been slightly strengthened by attempts to introduce more value-based elements. The creation of the position of Ethics Officer has not been seen as an opportunity to revise procedures to provide greater discretion. The Ethics Officers themselves, in most cases, do not see their role as new and separate from their existing responsibilities but simply as another line management function. Such officers have little incentive to reform procedures to allow greater latitude to their subordinates and most Ethics Officers seem content simply to take on the new function and ensure the implementation of integrity management programs through delegated authority 408 International Public Management Journal Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015 within their own organizations. Where there has been change is in awareness of ethical issues throughout the organization. The meaning of the core values of the public service is now taught in the training programs of most departments. There is also a greater sensitivity to conflicts of interest, in particular, and some appreciation, particularly in the Police Force, of the importance of transmitting values throughout the organization. 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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Brian Brewer (sabrian@cityu.edu.hk) is an Associate Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Public Policy at the City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on public management and policy in Hong Kong. Joan Y. H. Leung (sajoan@cityu.edu.hk) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Policy at the City University of Hong Kong. She teaches and researches on public administration, integrity management, and policy issues in Hong Kong. Ian Scott (Ian.scott.cityu.edu.hk) is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Public Policy at the City University of Hong Kong. His most recent books are Gaming, Governance and Public Policy in Macao (edited with Newman M.K. Lam) (2011) and The Public Sector in Hong Kong (2010), both published by Hong Kong University Press. Globalizing Public Administration: Today's Research and Tomorrow's Agenda Author(s): Nilima Gulrajani and Kim Moloney Source: Public Administration Review, Vol. 72, No. 1 (JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012), pp. 7886 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public Administration Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41433145 Accessed: 04-02-2019 04:38 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41433145?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Society for Public Administration, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Public Administration Review This content downloaded from 208.95.50.183 on Mon, 04 Feb 2019 04:38:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Nilima Gulrajani London School of Economics Kim Moloney University of the West Indies Globalizing Public Administration: Todays Research and Tomorrow s Agenda of predicaments facing non-Western administration Nilima Gulrajani is assistant professor What is the relationship between public administration in the Departments of Government and scholarship and the study of developing countries ? research. In doing so, we create a platform for articu- This article answers this question by presenting the lating and advancing a vision for public administra- intellectual history of administrative studies of the global tion as a global social science. Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests lie at the intersection of public management and development policy South and by examining recent empirical studies of and include the organizational determinants of foreign aid effectiveness and the influ- The first section briefly traces the intellectual evolution of third-world administrative research across developing country administration. The results suggest that administrative research on the developing world ence of managerial thought in international development. E-mail: n.gulrajani@lse.ac.uk published in leading international publications has comparative public administration, development become a small-scale, disparate , descriptive , qualitative, administration, and international public management. and noncomparative subfield dominated by researchers Our second section examines articles on develop- Kim Moloney is lecturer in public sector from the global North. This empirical finding provides ing country administrative systems published in 1 0 management in the Department of Govern- a platform to end a false North- South administrative leading journals that span these three subdisciplines. Jamaica. She researches international and dichotomy and advance a vision for public This analysis reveals that administrative studies of the regional organizations, the intellectual administration as a global social science. global South have fractured into a small-scale, dispa- ment at the University of the West Indies, rate, noncumulative, descriptive, and noncomparative history of development and comparative administration, local nongovernmental field dominated by researchers with Northern insti- organization-developing country relations, collaborative governance, and multilevel the American Society for Public Administra- tutional affiliations. The third section considers why In tion thetiona American (ASPA) hinted 2008 (thatASPA)publicPA administrations hinted Times Society article, that for public Public the president administrations Administra- of the study of developing country administration finds E-mail: kimberly.moloney@uwimona. future was bound to be a global one as commonplace itself in this weakened state, arguing that its current edu.jm distinctions between foreign and domestic public condition hampers theoretical and methodological administration collapsed under global challenges, communication innovations, and cross-national development of American, developing country, and international administrative science. governance. She holds a PhD in public administration from American University. interdependencies (White 2008). Meanwhile, in his first address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress in From this analysis, we recommend turning public February 2009, President Barack Obama identified administration into a globally inclusive endeavor in convergences between American and international interests because "we know that which developing country administrative research America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, [and] the world cannot meet them with- [W]e recommend turning public administration into a out America."1 To what extent globally inclusive endeavor are claims of interdependency in which developing country administrative research can such as these actually breaking down barriers between public administration scholarship and the study of third-world public administration? can strengthen both American and international administra- tive science. A global public administration that moves beyond a North-South administrative dichotomy can build knowledge cumulatively through collaborative strengthen both American and international administrative arrangements that collapse science. This article begins by analyzing research on develop- geographic, methodological, and disciplinary boundaries. It can inform some of the most intractable and disconcerting global challenges that ing country administrative systems by considering its we face today. Ultimately, global public administraPublic Administration Review, Vol.72, Iss. 1, pp. 78-86. ©2011 by The American Society for Public Administration. DO 1: 10.1 1 1/j.1 540-62 1 0.201 1 .02489.x. status within public administration and by reviewing tion flourishes to the benefit of American public articles published in leading social science journals.2 administration in the United States, the global South, and the world at large. Through a content analysis, we identify a number 78 Public Administration Review • January| February 2012 This content downloaded from 208.95.50.183 on Mon, 04 Feb 2019 04:38:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Scholarship of Developing Countries and Their Administration (Jreisat 2005; Otenyo and Lind 2006a); its predilection for grand abstract theories with little bearing on or relevance in reality (Heady, Perlman, and Rivera 2007); and conceptual fragmentation and disThe intellectual history of public administration science in the global South crosses both epochs and disciplines. It begins in the earlypersion relating to levels, units of analysis, and dependent variables days of the postindependence era, when fledgling governments in (Jreisat 1991, 2005; Peters 1994). All of this resulted in the "bubble" of interest in comparative public administration "burst [ing] as Asia and Africa restructured newly sovereign administrative environments. Against this backdrop, comparative public administration rapidly as it had formed" (Van Wart and Cayer 1990, 239). established itself as a sizable, identifiable, and complex contemporary movement, a branch of public administration focused on the Comparative public administrations status as subdiscipline of public comparative analysis of administrative processes and institutions administration has since been an issue of perennial contestation. (Guess and Gabrielyan 2007; Heady, Perlman, and Rivera 2007; Since the early 1970s, developing country administrative research has evolved separately and autonomously from mainstream AmeriOtenyo and Lind 2006b; Raphaeli 1967). The establishment of the Comparative Administration Group within ASPA in 1960 had as can its public administration. It is now a popular subfield within other "overriding interest" the "administrative problems of the 'develop-social science disciplines such as political science, sociology, and ing countries" (Riggs 1970). Financial assistance provided by the economics (Jreisat 2005, 234). Perhaps the most prolific of these disciplinary invasions has come from new institutional economics Ford Foundation to the Comparative Administration Group further cemented an association between comparative public administra- (Clague 1997; North 1995). Here, formal and informal rules and incentive structures are examined at the expense of actual microtion and developing country administration (Jreisat 2005; Otenyo level behaviors inside organizations. New institutional economics' and Lind 2006b; Van Wart and Cayer 1990). In parallel, the other branches of public administration scholarship retained their focusdisciplinary assumptions of bureaucratic life have misunderstood on American problems for which American solutions were sought Waldonian assumptions of dynamics within American public (Heady, Perlman, and Rivera 2007, 607; Otenyo and Lind 2006a, administration, depoliticizing administrative life in the developing world by explaining it in terms of bounded rational actors operating 2). In a sense, the late 1960s and early 1970s marked the pinnacle within path-dependent institutional arrangements. for comparative public administration as the field grew in numbers, funding, and academic prestige (Van Wart and Cayer, 1990, 239). Nevertheless, there is a new wave of optimism about the state Extending the traditional bureaucratic model of public administra-of comparative public administration, and particularly develoption in the United States to other nations became an early purposeing country administrative research. For better or for worse, this of development administration (Hughes 2003, 225; Turner and Hulme 1997, 12). reemergence almost certainly is tied to the Fred W. Riggs offered two early meanings for development administration: (1) the adminis- tration ^development programs and methods to implement policies and plans to meet development objectives and (2) the development ^/administration as strengthening [T]here is a new wave of influence of a "new" public management optimism about the state 1991; Kaboolian 1998; Kettl 1997). New of comparative public administration, and agenda within public administration (Hood Public Management has thrown up analytical and interdisciplinary issues relating to interparticularly developing country national administration by fostering interest in new subjects such as governance, outadministrative research. administrative capabilities (Riggs 1970). From sourcing, contracting, performance manage- an early date, development administration ment, and accountability (Brinkerhoff 2008; Brinkerhoff and Coston 1999; Heady, Perlman, and Rivera 2007). was largely an applied offshoot of comparative public administration (Brinkerhoff 2008). In Great Britain, initial suspicions of develop- Meanwhile, international actors such as the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development seek ment administration as a veiled attack on the colonial record gradugreater analytical clarity on ways to enhance the capabilities of the ally gave way to an applied vision of training overseas administrators third-world administrative state (Grindle 1997; Sahlin-Andersson through pragmatic, experience-based curricula (Clarke 1999; Schaf- 2001; World Bank 1997). fer 1969). Development administration gradually carved a distinct identity from comparative public administration, for example, as a The influence of public management on administrative systems in valued subject in British development studies programs and faculties and a task for applied policy research institutes.3 the global South also is witnessed in a changing vocabulary. The term "development administration" has been replaced with the label The mediocre economic success of developing states, the failure to "international development management" or simply "development management." Development management understands the state analytically predict administrative reform outcomes, and the rise of authoritarian regimes in many parts of Africa and Latin America in the context of its relationships to nonstate actors, including the contributed to a general disillusionment with the study of public private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and hybrid organiadministration in developing countries (Hirschmann 1981; Schaf-zations such as social enterprises (Brinkerhoff 2008; Guess and fer 1969; Van Wart and Cayer 1990). This poor performance in Gabrielyan 2007, 571; Hughes 2003; Turner and Hulme 1997). developing countries was partly to blame for the growing uncer- For many European scholars, however, the shift in terminology is tainty around comparative public administrations viability as a indicative of the colonization of managerial logics in administra- tive reform processes in developing countries (Cooke 2004; Cooke subdiscipline from the mid-1970s onward (Otenyo and Lind 2006a; Peters 1994; Sigelman 1976). Other contributing factors includedand Dar 2008; Hughes 2003). The field of development manageits ambiguous identity as both an applied and academic science ment is divided between those who would "radically" reject the Today's Research and Tomorrow's Agenda 79 This content downloaded from 208.95.50.183 on Mon, 04 Feb 2019 04:38:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms neocolonialism and neoliberalism of development management deductive theorizing that resulted in a vicious cycle of academic and those who would "reform" it to improve its theoretical and underdevelopment. A subsequent review by Van Wart and Cayer practical contributions to improved living standards and liveli- (1990) involved a content analysis covering 20 journals spanning hoods (Gulrajani 2010, 2011). Interestingly, such debates occur comparative and development administration articles published outside the comparative public administration community, perhaps between 1982 and 1986. Their results also suggested that compara- because development management has found new territories of tive administration research was a discipline that largely relied on inquiry beyond the administrative systems of developing countries description and avoided theory testing. Interestingly, the findings of as it moves to the study of international aid actors, the relationship both surveys echoed the conclusions of content analyses conducted between global and local political economies, and new administra- of public administration more generally (Houston and Delevan 1990; Lan and Anders 2000). tive instruments for achieving development. Development management is now a subject commonly found in the interdisciplinary curricula of master's programs in public policy, security studies, and In the analysis here, 10 journals representing key publication outlets international development rather than a feature of public adminis- for third-world administration were selected. Given that existing tration and public management programs. citation databases do not rank journals on the basis of the subdisciplinary categories of interest here, and, given that, to the best of our The implications of these trajectories for the study of administra- knowledge, no similar study of developing country administration tion in the global South remain uninvestigated. What has been the has been undertaken, the sample of journals was selected in two nature of recent research exploring developing country administra- main ways. First, we drew on the journals used in Van Wart and tive systems given these shifts and trends? If we believe that public Cayer (1990) that had high international content and represented administration scholarship can and should improve the lives of comparative and development administration. Second, we drew those in poor nations and advance the twin aims of security and on journals that are informally recognized as providing important peace (Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff 2008), there is value in know- contemporary outlets for administrative studies of developing coun- ing, rather than simply presuming, that a robust and rich science of tries in all three subdisciplines. For the comparative public admin- developing country administration actually exists. istration journals, we chose the journals that Van Wart and Cayer Examining Administrative Studies of Developing Countries: A Content Analysis tive public administration research {Public Administration Review, International Review of Administrative Sciences , Public Administra- An exploration of the contemporary status of developing country tion , International Journal of Public Administration). In international (1990) identified as publishing the highest frequency of compara- public administration requires empirical study of its published development, four development journals were selected; two drawn outputs. Nevertheless, the evolution of administrative studies of from Van Wart and Cayer s original sample {Development and the global South suggests that any endeavor to understand the state Change and Journal of Developing Areas) and two highly reputed of play in developing country administration must, by definition, outlets for developing country research excluded from their study look beyond the subfield of comparative public administration. {Public Administration and Development and World Development) . As such, we conducted a content analysis of leading social science Finally, we examined two public management journals {Governance publications representing the three subdisciplines associated with and International Public Management Journal ), limiting our choice administration in the global South: comparative public administra- to only two because of their explicit international orientation. tion, development administration, and public management. A key assumption for this study is that the highest-quality research on Our nonprobabilistic sample of developing country administrative developing country administrations is published in top-rated jour- articles was selected from every third volume of the 10 journals nals representing these three social science subfields. While acknowl- starting in 1996.5 All full-length research articles6 journal issues edging that drawing from leading journals limits the sample to Eng- published in 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2008 were inspected.7 lish-language publications published mainly in North America and Unlike the two earlier surveys of comparative public administration, Europe, this also represents the developing country administrative we chose a periodic rather than a continuous longitudinal exami- research that is achieving some of the highest standards of research nation of our selected journals in order to capture a time interval excellence. We recognize that by drawing the circle tightly, we do exceeding five years. To be chosen, articles had to deal with the not include an assessment of many national journals published in realities of administrative systems in a developing country or a set languages other than English in which studies of developing country of countries. The term "administrative systems" was understood as administrations are likely to feature prominently. Surveying these any arena of public sector decision making, including bureaucracies, journals would have also been problematic because of access and legislatures, political parties, public corporations, and courts (Riggs 1970, 21). We then selected articles that substantially focused on an language difficulties. embedded setting of public administration, excluding conceptual We undertake this empirical analysis by modeling our literature and/or commentary-based pieces. To qualify as a developing coun- review on previous surveys of comparative public administration try, the countries examined had to be one of the 142 eligible recipi- published in Public Administration Review (Sigelman 1976; Van ents of World Bank concessional and nonconcessional financing.8 Wart and Cayer 1990). 4 Sigelman (1976) undertook a content analysis of full-length articles appearing in the Journal of Compara- tive Administration between 1969 and 1974 and concluded that Using these criteria, our sample included 295 articles relating to public administration in developing countries out of a total the field of comparative public administration had not benefited population of 2,049 journal articles (see table 1). Articles concerning from the interaction of theory and data, opting instead for abstract the administrative systems of developing countries thus made up 80 Public Administration Review • January | February 2012 This content downloaded from 208.95.50.183 on Mon, 04 Feb 2019 04:38:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Table 1 Frequency of Third-World Administration Articles in Sample (1996-2008) Percent of Published Articles Subdiscipline Journal Number of Articles in Sample Total Population on Third-World Administration Comparative Public Administration International Review of Administrative Sciences 39 157 24.8 International Journal of Public Administration 25 107 23.3 Public Administration Public Review Administration 12 1 314 203 3.8 0.5 Development Administration Public Administra tion and Developmen t 100 175 57.1 Public Development and Change 28 176 15.9 World Development 63 654 9.6 Journal of Developing Areas 8 87 9.2 Management Governance 14 105 13.3 International Public Management Journal 5 71 7.0 only geo oping stu in the to devel sif lic Ad sam const tw exami dev just 1 sta the a g t key o stu ing co cou of parati may vas b of sch AS by th the intern dev eig kn Six qu wo questi dev admin bas parat dev erally geogr To the t cou was s of condu the these gro de of deg these lic to any revie Van W Tab infor Country Number of Articles articl China 31 suffic South Africa 1 7 India 17 articl Brazil 13 gating Tanzania Indonesia 1 1 1 1 Is Re Philippines 10 Ghana 9 and T Malaysia 8 Sigelm Mexico 8 focus Today's This content downloaded from 208.95.50.183 on Mon, 04 Feb 2019 04:38:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms validity problems, this is no less the case in previous attempts to identity code articles by subject areas (e.g., Lan and Anders 2000). If more both geo than one thematic area applied to an article, the dominant theme was coded. If no code seemed applicable, we indicated as much (see table 3). What Kinds of Theories Are Used? Many reviews of comparative public administration have pointed out that a shift from ideographic (distinct cases) to nomothetic Our results show that the topics treated by third-world administra- approaches (studies that seek explicitly to formulate and test propo- tion research do not fit neatly within standard thematic areas of sitions) is one way to improve comparativist scholarship (Jreisat American public administration scholarship, as 30 percent of all 2005, 237; Riggs 1991, 473). To determine whether a rigorous articles could not be classified using the ASPA section categoriza- theoretical-conceptual standard in our sample is utilized, each article tions. Instead, examined topics often dealt with issues specific was coded as having one of three "styles," per Van Wart and Cayer to problems in the developing world, for example, food policy, (1990). One category included a "descriptive" style of a particular postconflict themes, human rights administration, studies of empirical reality. A "thesis assertion" category offered a well-articu- authoritarian transitions, and so on. While we cannot necessarily lated statement or proposition around which data and arguments conclude that developing country administrative research is more were structured, while a "hypothesis or model testing" category or less diverse than public administration at large, we can state that required hypotheses or relationships to be identified prior to data relevant topics and themes for third-world administrative study do seem to be distinct. gathering in order to test theoretical assertions. Our results also suggest that there may be no single prioritized within the "descriptive" category, with "thesis assertion" not too Our results in table 4 indicate that 53.9 percent of the sample fell "sector" in third-world administration, with perhaps the exception far behind at 34.9 percent. Hypothesis testing only made up 1 1.2 of environmental and natural resource management (in the area of percent of all articles. This suggests that there is more description water resources and forest management especially). In World Devel- and less thesis assertion than in the case of comparative public opment and Journal of Developing Areas in particular, the state most administration two decades earlier (Van Wart and Cayer 1990). It often is discussed in the context of its public budgeting and finan- also parallels the findings of those who claim that public admin- cial management functions. This is natural given that those journals istration research is engaged in little theory testing (Houston and orient themselves to economic topics such as public expenditure Delevan 1990). It appears the third- world administrative studies management, liberalization, industrial policy, and growth. We also have not sufficiently developed explanatory theories or even worked found that public law and administration (in the context of corrup- toward developing such theories that can account for changing tion and postconflict reconstruction) remain recurrent themes. The properties and problems in administration. The comparison with variety of themes and the lack of topical concentration is suggestive comparative public administration and public administration more of significant width, but limited depth within third-world admin- generally may be relevant here, as the slow scientific development of istration research. Overall, these results tentatively indicate that the both fields is attributed to their practical orientations and concerns Table 3 Research Areas Examined in Sample Houston and Delevan 1990, 679). The same practical orientation also may be hindering the advancement of administrative scholar- (Guess and Gabrielyan 2007; Heady, Perlman, and Rivera 2007; Total Number of ASPA Categories Articles Percent of Total _ _ 30.17 Environmental and natural resources 34 1 1 .53 What Methods Are Used? Following Sigelman (1976) and Van Wart and Cayer (1990), administration Intergovernmental administration and 23 7.80 management Personnel administration and labor 23 7.80 relations Public budgeting and financial 23 7.80 managemen...
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