Ethical leadership and program to reduce unethical behaviour among public employees

ABSTRACT

Ethical leadership has been considered the central source of ethical guidance for employees in the workplace. Our study tested the effects of ethical leadership on unethical behaviour of public employees through ethics programsbased on social learning theory and reinforcement theory. Using survey data obtained from U.S. federal agencies, we found that ethical leadership reduced unethical behaviour among public employees. Furthermore, the use of ethics programs mediated the positive relationship between ethical leadership and the ethical behaviour of public employees. These results indicated the importance of ethical leadership and effective ethics programs in reducing unethical behaviour by public employees.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethical leadership
• ethics program
• unethical behaviour

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2021.2015185

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Merit Principles Survey 2016 (MSPB 2017) was implemented to assess the health of federal merit systems. It focused on the principles of merit systems and government-wide civil service issues and is administered every few years. Even though agency participation in the MPS is mandatory, individual participation is voluntary. MPS2016 included three distinct surveys: Path 1, Path 2, and Path L. We used Path 2 to investigate our hypotheses, as it contained items on ethics. The items we used were developed by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (Merit Systems Protection Board 2017).

2. The 24 participating federal agencies were Air Force, Agriculture, Army, Department of Commerce, Department of Defence, Department of Justice, Department of Labour, Department of Energy, Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Interior, NASA, Navy, Office of Personnel Management, Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of State, Social Security Administration, Department of Transportation, Department of Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. The Department of Health and Human Services could not be surveyed for technical reasons.

3. The terms ethics and ethical issue included acting impartially when executing employees’ official duties and not using their public office for private gain. However, the terms did not include sexual harassment, non-sexual harassment, discrimination, or favouritism (Merit Systems Protection Board 2017).

4. Indicate your level of agreement or disagreement with the following statements. 1) Senior leaders at my agency communicate the importance of ethical behaviour. 2) Senior leaders at my agency demonstrate ethical behaviour. 3) Supervisors at my agency demonstrate ethical behaviour.

5. To what extent do you believe each of the following items focuses on your agency’s ethics program? 1) To answer employee questions about ethics. 2) To prevent violations of ethics policies. 3) To educate employees regarding the ethical standards expected of them. 4) To educate employees about ethical standards in general. 5) To ensure fair and impartial treatment of the public and outside organizations in dealings with your agency. 6) To detect and resolve potential conflicts of interest. 7) To discipline/prosecute violations.

6. In your opinion, how often do these types of conduct occur at your agency? 1) Agency employees are improperly accepting gifts given to them because of where they work or what they do in their federal positions. 2) Agency employees are improperly benefiting financially from the work they do in their federal positions. 3) Agency employees are improperly using their federal position to assist friends or family.

7. Air Force: 2.3%, Agriculture: 4.7%, Army: 4.5%, Commerce: 4.5%, Defence: 6.6%, Justice: 8.2%, Labour: 4.8%, Energy: 2.8%, Education: 0.6%, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): 2.7%, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): 3.1%, General Services Administration (GSA): 3.0%, Homeland Security: 10.7%, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): 2.4%, Interior: 5.3%, NASA: 2.8%, Navy: 2.9%, Office of Personnel Management (OPM): 2.0%, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): 2.4%, State: 2.9%, Social Security Administration (SSA): 4.3%, Transportation: 3.8%, Treasury: 5.4%, and Veterans Affairs (VA): 7.3%.

8. To fix the effects of organizations, we used the reference category when dummy coding (See Supplementary/Appendix 1). Additionally, we tested the hypothesized models at the agency level, aggregating ethical leadership, ethics program operation, and unethical behaviour to the agency level. However, the model at the agency level did not fit well due to the small sample size of 24 agencies. Most of all, since ethical leadership was highly correlated with ethics program operation at the agency level (r = 0.81, p < .01), the hypothesized models at the agency levels were inappropriate (See Supplementary/Appendix 2).

9. In addition, the public employees in the Department of Energy rated others as the most unethical, while those in the Department of Labour rated others as the most ethical.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jungin Kim

Jungin Kim is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration of The University of Suwon, the South Korea. She is interested in human resource management, organizational behaviours, and local governance. She has published in journals including the Public Administration Review, Local Government Studies, and Public Personnel Management.