The Institutionalization of Integrity Policies and the Management of a Growing Ethics Bureaucracy

Abstract

Studying the ethical dimension of institutions, the relationship between organizations and morals, and ultimately the management of ethics policies are elusive undertakings. What is the relationship between institutions, organizational design, ethics, and workplace behavior? And, vice versa, how do ethics policies influence the workways, capacities, and resources of organizations and institutions? Overall, examining the management of an emerging ethics bureaucracy is “a black box” in the field of public service ethics.

Instead, for a long time, the focus has been on the input and adoption of ethics policies and the perception that not enough is done and more and stricter standards are needed. Differently than in other policies, it is unwise to call for a deregulation of ethics policies and the need for reducing administrative burdens in the field. Consequently, the focus of attention has been less on the management and institutionalization of policies. It is still rare to discuss the emerging ethics bureaucracy from a critical point of view. However, as we will claim, almost all countries are in a process of developing ethics bureaucracies.

As such, current forms of regulating, institutionalizing, and monitoring ethics policies are highly ambivalent. Frequently, experts applaud if more and tougher (transparent) disclosure requirements are discussed. However, there is very little discussion about dilemmas and, for example, the need for monitoring highly personal and private interests. Overall, emerging ethics bureaucracies are costly, time-consuming, technical, formalistic, and—often—focus on the individual, not the organizational causes for wrongdoing. Managing ethics policies is also a highly dynamic and “fluid” task, which constantly causes new emerging organizational challenges. As we will claim, what matters most is that ethics policies can only be effective if they are integrated into other management and governance logics. Otherwise, the management of ethics policies becomes more bureaucratic but not necessarily more effective. As such, the relationship between organizations and integrity is highly complex.