Changing Ethical Climates: Value-based Integrity Management and Bureaucratic Organizations

In this paper, we examine the effects on the Hong Kong public service of integrity management initiatives designed to introduce more value-based elements into its approach to ethical issues. Bureaucratic organizations, such as the Hong Kong public service, face particular problems in effecting such a shift and changing the ethical climate may take the form of only marginal adjustments to the rule-based system. Even so, there are problems in preventing the new initiatives from becoming submerged or diluted in the pre-existing ethical climate; in ensuring that the new approach is adequately reflected in training programmes; and in implementing the measures so that their impact is equally felt across the entire organization. The paper is based on a survey of Ethics Officers, in depth interviews with 32 Ethics Officers and other senior officials concerned with integrity management, and an administrative ethics survey of 355 senior civil servants.