The characterisation of the values of public ethics: application to territorial public management in the province of Guangxi (China)
| Author | Laurent Mériade |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852316648224 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Review of
Administrative
Article
Sciences
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2018, Vol. 84(3) 558–578
The characterisation of the values
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of public ethics: application to
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852316648224
territorial public management in
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the province of Guangxi (China)
Laurent Me´riade
University of Auvergne, France
Abstract
Today, the legitimacy of politicians and public confidence in public decision-making and
administration are increasingly dependent on the way in which their ethics are appraised
(Kolthoff et al., 2013). The ‘moral pluralism and cultural diversity’ of contemporary
society (Boisvert, 2008) make public ethics a new theoretical framework to be explored
from the point of view of the compromises it makes between various, often conflicting,
values. Yet, in practice, this compromise seems to limit the values of public ethics to
principles of good governance formalised around codes of conduct or managerial pro-
cedures (Rochet, 2011). Our research question sets out to question the variety of these
values; the research objective being to develop a categorisation of the values of public
ethics by supplementing the conceptual framework of New Public Value (Moore, 1995;
Nabatchi, 2011), in particular, by characterising the values of the ethics of interaction
not yet illustrated in the literature.
Points for practitioners
In practical terms, the aim of this article is to identify and characterise more precisely
the variety of ethical values mobilised by public managers. To do so, we conducted a
survey in two stages among public managers in Guangxi province in China, a country
where the expression of personal or cultural ethics in the workplace is described in the
literature as relatively natural. Our first results suggest a fairly clear distinction between
the ethical values governing the performance of public action, which are relatively well
formalised, and the ethical values governing public interaction, which are more informal
and closer to cultural and social rituals.
Keywords
China, ethics, neo-institutionalism, public management, public values
Corresponding author:
Laurent Me´riade, CRCGM – University of Auvergne – IUT GEA, 100 rue de l’Egalite´, 15000 Aurillac, France.
Email: meriadelaurent@gmail.com
Me´riade
559
Introduction
While its relationship with public management may not be particularly new
(Pauchant, 2009), the recent haul of public scandals demonstrates the extent to
which there is a need for ethics in contemporary public administration (Boisvert,
2008). In a more lucid and more educated society, the recognition of the ethics of
public players seems to be increasingly self-evident (Rosanvallon, 2008).
In Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle, 2002), Aristotle recalls the foundations of
ethics, which are based on reflections on human behaviour and their implicit
value systems, especially in their interactions with others. Ethics are usually defined
by a set of standards and rules of conduct that are reflexive, which sets them apart
from morality, which refers more to the reflections and facts related to the religious
domain and the sense of obligation (Schumacher, 2006).
In public organisations, Bozeman (2007) speaks of value to characterise an
individual or collective appraisal of an object or set of objects that is based on
cognitive and emotional elements. ‘Public value’ is a polysemic term depending on
whether it is used in the singular or plural (Chanut et al., 2015). For Moore (1995),
used in the singular, public value is created by the action of public officials. In the
plural, it refers to a much wider set of values corresponding to the deep-seated
beliefs and orientations that guide the choices of individuals in and around organ-
isations (Galland and Lemel, 2006).
Public values remain a ‘disputed’ concept given the multiple definitions and
shifting boundaries (Van der Wal et al., 2008). To advance the study of public
values, it is necessary move beyond the traditional boundaries of the administra-
tion and public management (Van der Wal et al., 2008: 3).
The response to the public’s demand for public management ethics in the
legal and bureaucratic field is to implement ethical codes of conduct, control
procedures or accounting standards incorporating ethical dimensions (Kolthoff
et al., 2013). In this kind of context, the place afforded to ethical values in
public values is still described as being largely frustrated (Frederickson, 1999).
Ethical values refer to values held by an individual, while public values are defined
collectively by the organisation. In the public sphere, these two types of values
converge around the values of public ethics, which reconcile individual values and
collective values.
Many studies (Nabatchi, 2010, 2011; Pre´fontaine et al., 2009; Van der Wal et al.,
2008) base their categorisations of public values around two main paradigms: a
bureaucratic ethos and a democratic ethos (Goss, 1996). They suggest the existence
of a public administration ethics (Goss, 1996) but few studies that have come to our
knowledge have attempted to categorise ethical values in a public context.
Nabatchi (2011) speaks of itinerant values to describe public values that have
both a common meaning and different meanings depending on the categories to
which they belong. An analysis of his work reveals that individuals are the ones
who are behind the itinerant nature of the values and their reconciliation between
the different categories of public values defined by the organisation. Through their
560
International Review of Administrative Sciences 84(3)
ability to reconcile individual and collective behaviour (Larat, 2013), the values of
public ethics have a strong similarity with these itinerant values.
By building a neo-institutional approach on the basis of the institutional frame-
work proposed by Nabatchi (2011), our research question sets out to characterise
the ethical values that public managers mobilise when performing their missions;
the research objective being to propose a categorisation of public ethical values
from categorisations already proposed by the conceptual framework of the New
Public Value (Nabatchi, 2011). As such, China provides us with an insight into a
society that culturally sees public and private spaces as nested and recursive. On the
other hand, the Chinese context has obvious limitations, consubstantial with its
political system, which could consider ethics as a social control instrument in the
service of the power in place. As we are unable to comment on this type of bias
within the framework of a managerial article, we make use of this context due to its
ability to present a framework of public interactions that places ethics at the centre
of cultural and ritual values that are less visible in Western societies.
To address our research question, our article is organised into three parts. In the
first part, we conduct a review of the literature in order to explore the place of
ethics in public values. Second, this allows us to justify the relevance of our con-
ceptual framework to grasp the ethical dimension of public values.
In the third part, we identify, in two stages, the results of a survey into the values
of public ethics among a sample of Chinese local government managers in order to
highlight the diverse origins of these values. Our first results suggest a distinction
between a public ethics governing performance that is formalised in governance
procedures and rules, and an ethics of interaction with strong cultural dimensions.
Public values in the literature and their ethical approach
For Jorgensen (2007), public values need to be classified and analysed as the hybrid
environment in which they emerge has its origins in multiple axiological registers
(economic, political, legal, cultural, managerial, etc.). Three main research perspec-
tives (see Table 1) address the management of public values (Davis and West,
2009).
The generative perspective
A first or generative or intentional perspective offers a description of the process of
creating and developing public value. It attempts to provide normative prescrip-
tions and guidelines for public managers (Smith, 2004). The common denominator
of these studies is their focus on the importance of organisational and institutional
capacities in the production of public value (Stoker, 2006). Also adopting this
perspective, Hood (1995) pools public values into three families (rectitude, resili-
ence, frugality) and raises the question of the contradictions they generate and the
ways to overcome them. In this quest, Bozeman (2007) has proposed an investiga-
tion of public values through publicness, which makes it possible to describe values
Me´riade
561
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