Can Integrity Be Taught in Public Organizations?

Abstract

Integrity-training programs for civil servants are assumed to be useful, but there is little or no empirical proof for this claim. The effectiveness of two Dutch training programs was examined through a study conducted with several hundred municipal officials. One of the two programs was found to be effective only in the short term, and neither appears to be effective in the long term. The article concludes with some recommendations for further research. keywords: experimental research design, integrity-training programs, long-term effectiveness, municipal officials, short-term effectiveness Integrity-training programs are often considered to be a promising instrument to promote the integrity of employees of governmental or private organizations (Bolten and van Rossem

The Rationalization of Political Corruption

“…This would target specific rationalizations to which public officials would be more susceptible, such as the denial of individual responsibility, rather than rationalizations to which they would not, such as the metaphor of the ledger. Anti-corruption efforts implemented in business settings have been applied to the public sector, but the results have been mixed at best (Craft, 2010;Rosenson, 2009;van Montfort, Beck, & Twijnstra, 2013). One study found that mandated ethics programs are ineffective when the values they embody do not match the local moral culture (Fording, Miller, & Patton, 2003).…”

Teaching integrity in the public sector: Evaluating and reporting anti-corruption commissions’ education function

“…Collaborative approaches among agencies and jurisdictions and the public reporting of experiences with, and outcomes of, new methods can greatly enrich knowledge within the field. Further, as Van Montfort and colleagues (2013: 118) highlight, more studies that seek to empirically identify the specific factors that contribute to positive or negative outcomes in educational approaches, among particular participants, or in different learning contexts, are needed to inform both the design of evaluations and the implementation of integrity education itself.…”

“…Integrity in public administration is increasingly in the spotlight. Broadly, behaving with integrity encompasses three aspects—moral awareness, reasoning, and behavior (Van Montfort et al, 2013: 118)—but the application of standards remains contentious, while precisely measuring the dimensions of problems involving contrary behavior is difficult (see, for example, Cochrane, 2018; Sampford et al, 2006). Nevertheless, with evidence of declining public trust in government institutions (see, for example, Appleby et al, 2016; Hetherington and Rudolph, 2008), the demands on the public sector to meet the highest possible integrity standards have never been greater.…”

“…However, more recently academic studies have begun to examine this assumption (see, for example, Steele et al, 2016) with the findings of some studies raising concerns due to their mixed results. For example, a study of two Dutch municipal integrity training programs demonstrated a positive short-term impact resulting from one program but not the other, while neither produced longer-term benefits (Van Montfort et al, 2013). Similarly, a study of a public ethics and integrity training program for civil servants in Hungary produced moderate outcomes overall, but about a quarter of participants declined in their commitment to fighting corruption during the one- or three-day training courses (Pallai and Gregor, 2016).…”

“…Integrity requires knowledge of requirements and expectations; an affective disposition, particularly attitude, conducive to meeting requirements and expectations, skills to fulfil requirements and expectations, and, consequently, behavior according to requirements and expectations. Education for these ends is influenced by three main variables: the characteristics of the participants, the organizational or situational context, and the characteristics of the education program (Van Montfort et al, 2013: 119; see also Leberman et al, 2006: 99-108;Smith and Sadler-Smith, 2006). As such, short ad hoc exposures to information may create superficial awareness, but are unlikely to produce measurable changes in affective attitudes and behaviors (Krathwohl et al, 1964: 80; see also Callerstig, 2016: 119-120).…”