Reinventing Public Personnel Management: Ethical Implications for Managers and Public Personnel Systems

Abstract

The need to ensure responsible administration in government is an imperative concern for the field of public management. The interest in administrative responsi bility is crucial because public administrators are the people who place government into action. They manage and direct the operations of federal, state, and local organi zations providing essential services and programs. They issue directives and regula tions, which give meaning to public policy, and in the process, substantive policy choices are made. In addition, in these capacities, government administrators act on behalf of the people. Ultimately, they must be accountable to the public interest. As a consequence, public servants bear important moral and ethical obligations. Indeed, much of the history of public administration in the United States has focused on the question of how those obligations might best be met.At the time of our "bureaucratic begirmir\gs," George Washington, to whom fell the task of ensuring the initial integrity of a nascent civil service, insisted upon high moral standards as a basic qualification for public office.i In addition to competence and loyalty to the new consti tution, Washington stressed "fitness of character" as an important prerequisite for appointment to the government work force. This stan dard for appointment promoted the principled stature of Washington's administration as well as the legitimacy of the new regime. But as time passed, the importance of ethical obligations of public servants was magnified even beyond what it was in the crucial early years, and the problem of discerning proper ethical conduct became more complex.The late nineteenth century civil service reform movement addressed the issue of promoting an ethical public service by pushing for the implementation of merit systems for public employment. This reform, was corisidered necessary by its supporters because the politics of patronage appointments to the public work force had by that time bread cor\siderable corruption and abuse of power. Merit systems represented an effort to overturn that corruption by standing on a fovmdation of selection on the basis of open and competitive examinations; relative security of tenure achieved through employee protection from arbitrary, capricious, or politically motivated removal; and an expecta tion of partisan neutrality on the part of the public employee.

Proceedings of the 2001 Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium

“…Each state controls public employment through their respective civil service organizations, and each lower level of government (county, city) has its own civil service organization. Research suggests that like many government agencies, civil service organizations are subject to political stress (Desai & 393 Hamman, 1994; Kellog, 2000; Kellough, 1999;and West & Durant, 2000). In New York State, for example, prospective employees of recreation positions have responded in interviews (B. Emelson, personal communication, April 3, 2000) that the tests they recently took, for the most part, do not reflect what is being taught in the recreation programs that they received their undergraduate degrees from.…”

Executive Open Selection, What's wrong?

“…[12]. Kellough (2005), defined merit as a set of roles and procedure that use in the job fulfillment in civil servant [13]. And Stahl (1962) define merit wider in modern government, "a personnel system in which comparative merit or achievementgoverns each individual's selection and progress in the service and in which theconditions and rewards of performance contribute to competency and continuity ofthe service."…”

Local Government Human Resource Management Past, Present, and Future: Revisiting Hays and Kearney's Anticipated Changes a Decade Later

“…Debureacraticization, decentralization, and changes in career civil service have been central themes in this reinventing government movement (Coggburn 2000; French 2009; Hays and Sowa 2006; Hou et al . 2000; Kearney and Hays 1998; Kellough 1999; Kellough and Selden 2003). Private sector influence has endeavored to give public sector politicians and managers greater managerial latitude over personnel decisions through decentralization and deregulation (Battaglio and Ledvinka 2009; Llorens and Battaglio 2010).…”

“…Numerous concerns regarding program implementation, job security, work environment, administrative accountability, and performance with civil service reforms are still being debated as to whether these private sector approaches offer significant opportunities for government employers to overcome employee protections under the civil service system and enhance public sector employee responsiveness, productivity, and management (Battaglio and Condrey 2006; Bowman 2002; Bowman et al . 2003; Condrey 2002; Hays and Sowa 2006; Kearney and Hays 1998; Kellough 1999; Nigro and Kellough 2000).…”