The Roll of Ethics In Public Administration Research Paper

The Roll of Ethics In Public Administration - Research Paper Example This paper declares that from the case of Enron to the case of Lehman Brothers, corporate ethics, namely the disregard for them, have been a pervasive theme of the past several years. However, in all of the discussion of insider trading or purposefully ignoring standards for the financial sector, little attention is paid toward the public sector and the means through which high ethical standards must necessarily be engaged. As such, this brief analysis will focus upon the public sector and the need for ethics that it necessarily engenders. Recent cases of poor ethics within the public sector have resulted in a great loss of efficiency and/or public trust; which thereby correlates to a decrease in the functions or usefulness of these public entities. As a result of all of these reasons, regaining public trust through demonstrating high ethical standards is a core requirement that all publicly administered organizations must engage. It is the hope of this author that the discussion tha t will be forthcoming will underscore this need and seek to provide solutions and proscriptive change for the way in which this might be handled. As the paper highlights that the history of public trust dates as far back as public institutions themselves. Sadly, for much of this history, public organizations have been seen as corrupt and inefficient; at least as compared to their private counterparts. Beyond merely an unfair level of characterization, the underlying rational for this has traditionally been the fact that publicly administered organizations have a seemingly endless supply of resources. Due to this characterization, individuals incorrectly attribute this to mean that public administered organizations are inherently unethical and become wasteful and unscrupulous with the resources that they are charged with. Regardless of the standards that might exists, this is still a pervasive view that is held by many stakeholders; and likely one that is not set to change anytime in the very near future.