Research on Ethics and Integrity in Public Administration: Moving Forward, Looking Back

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A special note of thanks to James S. Bowman, Stuart C. Gilman, and William L. Richter for constructive comments on an earlier version of this article. The author is grateful to the four anonymous reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments.

Notes

Examples of commentaries are Feeney and Kingsley (2008), Gawthrop (2005), Pasquerella and Killilea (2005), and Stanton (2009–2010). Examples of conceptual essays are Dobel (2006), Donaldson (2006), McCurdy (2006), and Witt (2011).

Previous reviews published in Public Integrity by the author included more journals and a shorter time span (five years). Consequently, it should be emphasized that the results of the present Public Integrity/Public Administration Review combined review are not necessarily generalizable to all ethics/public administration research in American and/or international journals. That being said, the author did survey other relevant American journals to identify articles with “ethics” in their title. These journals, with the number of “ethics” articles in parentheses, were Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory (2), State & Local Government Review (0), Administration & Society (11), American Political Science Review (2), Public Administration Quarterly (1), and American Review of Public Administration (2).

ASPA is the owner of Public Integrity and describes it as “the touchstone journal on ethics and leadership for public service.” Public Integrity is affiliated with ASPA’s Ethics Section and co-sponsored by the International City/County Management Association, the Council of State Governments, and the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws.

While Public Integrity publishes articles clearly designated as “research,” it also publishes commentary, case studies, symposia, exemplar profiles, field reports, and an occasional “point/counter-point.” The journal lists 115 research articles, 45 commentaries, seven cases, four exemplar profiles, three field reports, one point/counter-point, and 21 concept papers (primarily in symposia) for the 2005–2014 period. Among the total of 37 issues of Public Integrity, 11 are symposia that contain a mix of research articles, concept papers, and commentary.

A related but different approach taken to examine religion and spirituality in the public workplace is Stephen M. King’s (2007) study of court cases and normative models that integrate religion and spirituality.

I am indebted to Stuart Gilman for bringing this to my attention.