The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role

Based on your reading for the book (The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role), Imagine that you are an administrator in your own country. You are the Assistant Director of an agency or ministry. You report to the head of the agency or ministry. You have 6 subordinates. Your Director reports to an elected or appointed official who is a politician. You are having both inner-inner and inner-outer role conflicts, as well as authority conflicts. In the agency you notice that there are several instances of conflict of interest of which the people around you are guilty.
1. What is your title?

2. What are three different roles that you play in that position? (Three internal roles.)

3. What are two roles you play outside your job?

4. What are the duties of the first role?

5. What are the duties of the second role?

6. What are the duties of the third role?

7. What are two other roles that you play in addition to being a public servant?

8. In this particular agency/ministry, what is your objective responsibility to the politician(s) and the law?

9. In this particular agency/ministry, what is your objective responsibility to your superiors?

10. In this particular agency/ministry, what is your objective responsibility to your subordinates?

11. In this particular agency/ministry, what is your objective responsibility to the citizens?

12. Describe your subjective responsibility in this position.

13. INNER-OUTER CONFLICT: Describe the conflict, naming the two roles and stating why they are in conflict.

14. INNER-INNER CONFLICT: Describe the conflict, naming the two internal roles you play and how they are in conflict.

15. What two kinds of conflict of interest did you choose? Give the specific name of each conflict of interest.
a.

b.

16. In this agency/ministry, what did the first conflict of interest (conflict a) look like?

17. In this agency/ministry, what did the second conflict of interest (conflict b) look like?

18. What two superiors are creating a conflict of authority for you? What are the details of the conflict?

19. What principles are at stake in the situation you find yourself in?

20. Describe the external controls that exist in this particular situation?

21. Describe the internal controls that you possess?

22. Assume that you and everyone in your department are members of the ASPA: Take at least 3 codes in the ASPA Code of Ethics and show how they can guide you in this situation. List each code and explain how it can affect the situation you are in.

23. Given these facts, what is the ethical problem you wish to solve?

What are two solutions you would pick?
24. SOLUTION A:

25. SOLUTION B:

26. What moral codes are behind SOLUTION A?
27. What principles are behind SOLUTION A?

28. How would you defend SOLUTION A to others?

29. What feelings would you experience if you chose SOLUTION A to implement?

30. What moral codes are behind SOLUTION B?

31. What principles are behind SOLUTION B?

32. How would you defend SOLUTION B to others?

33. What feelings would you experience if you chose SOLUTION B to implement?

34. Which solution would you pick: Solution A or Solution B? Why would you choose that one?

How could organizational structure make it difficult for this solution to work? What would you do to fix that?
35. HOW STRUCTURE COULD INTERFERE:

36. WHAT I COULD DO ABOUT IT:

How could organizational culture make it difficult for this solution to work? What would you do to fix that?
37. HOW CULTURE COULD INTERFERE:

38. WHAT I COULD DO ABOUT IT: