Topic– Public/Civil service values and Ethics in Public administration: Status and problems; ethical concerns and dilemmas in government and private institutions
7) There is a growing conflict on how public organizations try to balance competing or conflicting values: classical governmental or bureaucratic values vs the businesslike values. Comment.(250 words)
Directive word
Comment- here we have to express our knowledge and understanding of the issue and form an overall opinion thereupon.
Key demand of the question.
The question wants us to express our knowledge and understanding on the conflicting values of the public organizations and how this conflicts manifest themselves in the public administration.
Structure of the answer’
Introduction- mention the increasing stress on the importance of being pro-business for the governments as well as the increasing need for regulation and control over the complex economic activities etc.
Body-
- Discuss what are the conflicting values involved. Classical government/ Democratic values like integrity, neutrality, legality and impartiality on the one hand and ‘businesslike’ values such as efficiency, innovation, responsiveness and effectiveness on the other.
- Discuss the three approaches to deal with such conflicts- universal approach, stakeholder approach, institutional perspective.
- Mention the Stewart’s six strategies to manage tensions between competing public values: (1) ‘Cyclical’: attention to different values is distributed during the process; (2) ‘Firewalls’: in which the safeguarding of different values is distributed between different institutions; (3) Casuistry: gathering and consulting a taxonomy of specific cases where similar conflicts arose; (4) Hybridization: policies and practices, derived from different values, can coexist; (5) Incrementalism: conflicts are ‘softened’ through small, minor changes; (6) Bias: in which, dependent on the dominant discourse, preference is given to certain values.
Conclusion– Conclusion- Based on your discussion, form a fair and a balanced conclusion on the given issue.
