Ethical Behavior of Employee - Essay Example

When is a Deal a Deal?Laws and regulations, institutional mission and values, and personal attitude and ethos determine ethical standards for individuals. In the given case, the city manager, who is drawing a salary of $109,000 from a community, has verbally agreed to accept the offer of $125,000 from a neighboring community. Meanwhile, his current employer has made a counter-offer of $156,000. Obviously, there is an ethical issue here for the city manager to go back on his word with the neighboring community, but the seriousness of it depends on his conviction and ethos.

To a certain extent, Menzel’s models of ethical behavior assist us to understand whether the city manager has a deal with the neighboring community, in the context of public administration. But these models do not necessarily tell us how the city manager feels in his guts that could be an important determinant of his behavior.Menzel’s compliance model suggests that the employee’s conduct is regulated to spur obedience to minimum standards and legal prohibitions; what the law says, what the rules mean, and what one needs to do (Ethical Moments in Government page number).

Employees must abide by the applicable rules and practices to stay out of trouble. If they break the rules, they will be subject to punishment. Punishment would be harsh to those who break the rules with willful intention and less harsh if the rules are broken due to ignorance (Menzel, “PM Plus”). In sharp contrast, Menzel’s integrity-based model is value driven, not rules driven. It combines the awareness of public service ethos, ethical standards and legal prohibitions, as well as the process of moral reasoning to inspire exemplary actions and ethical conduct (Menzel, Ethical Moments in Government page number).

Values may differ depending on the mission, leadership, incentives, awareness, education and training, aspirations and culture (Menzel, “PM Plus”). The employee must choose what is right and what is wrong depending on these considerations. Let us take the city manager’s ethical dilemma here. From a strictly compliance point of view, the city manager has no deal with the neighboring community. A verbal agreement is not enforceable under law or under contract in such a situation. As there is no compliance-based ethical issue here, he could go back on his word with the neighboring community and accept the higher offer from his own community without violating professional ethics.

From the standpoint of Menzel’s integrity model, the city manager has, as Henry Mercy rightly suggests, a deal but no contract, which raises an ethical problem (Qtd. in Menzel, Ethical Moments in Government 46). But there is no ground to believe that he would violate the profession’s ethics if he broke his pledge and refused to join the neighboring community. Yet, it would reflect on the city manager’s shaky ethical standards as a person. In a large number of ethical issues, what counts most is personal attitude and ethos.

This makes the city manager’s ethical dilemma more complex and his decision more unpredictable. The individual’s inclination and upbringing within a cultural context, particularly in the micro-culture of family and close-knit community, shape his attitude and ethos. Moses has said, man should not break his word and do what he has spoken (Qtd. in “Men and Vows” Number 30:2). If the city manager believed in Moses, he would feel he has a deal and a contract of honor with the neighboring community, which he must keep.

I would have certainly done that. To conclude, in the context of public administration, the city manager has no contract and no serious ethical issue in going back on his word, under Menzel’s compliance model. Under the integrity model, he has no contract but an ethical issue if he were to dishonor his verbal agreement. However, many ethical issues are personal. Depending on his personal conviction and ethos, the city manager may agree with one of these two models or believe that he has an ethical obligation and an unwritten contract of honor to keep with the neighboring community.

Works Cited“Men and Vows.” Holy Bible. Web. 14 November 2011. .Menzel, Donald. Ethics Moments in Government: Cases and Controversies. Boca Raton, Fl: Taylor & Francis Group, 2010. Print.---. “PM Plus.” PM Magazine. Volume 90, Number 9. Web. 14 November 2011. .