Ethical Aspects of Case Stillman and Media Presentation for the Columbia Disaster - Essay Example

ETHICAL ORGANIZATIONS Ethical Organizations Thesis ment “An analysis of the case Stillman and media presentation for the Columbia disaster, what the case tells about honor, ethics, and accountability in relation to the theories outlined including emerging issues subject to change.” Introduction The case study by Shafritz addresses Public Administration and gives emphasis on honor, ethics and accountability. The theories that define honor are dated back to the ancient Greece and Rome. The virtue is known to have developed from the honor within the military for the sake of serving the public.

Honor, Ethics and accountability are the major issues that affect the functioning of the public offices. Honor is a virtue that the military officers would die to uphold and this has made it to remain a mark that affects human behavior. Honor in public administration defines whether the organization will instill ethics in its officers to administer duties. It was paramount that a public officer had honor so that they could be trusted with public duties (Shafritz & Russell 2013). Case for Honor, Ethics and Accountability The case stresses further that public officers ought to have morality and reinforce on the people they serve and to the system in which they operate, ethics laws guides ethics as a prerequisite of honor, such laws guide the principles acceptable for practice since they relay a sense of common behavior.

Ethics laws guide actions though at times they conflict with other interests specifically the financial interests (Singer 2004). Stillmans casebook combines both concepts and cases to help in the introduction of students to the roots of public administration. They go to an extent of proving to the students how relevant it is using the theories and fundamentals developed to aid in getting the solutions of high-level problems that are normally major characteristics in the management of public institutions.

Characteristics of public management are highlighted by showing the elements that exists in public administration in the America (Shafritz & Russell 2013). Columbia Disaster The Columbia disaster was as a result the turbulence in the NASA according to Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB). This turbulence was right from the leadership of the Aerospace agency to the employees and the general citizenry. The government did not provide enough funding for the program in its annual budget, at the same time it kept changing the leadership of the Agency.

The leaders they placed were politically handpicked. The accident resulted into a great disappointment to a majority of the Americans. Many people lost their loved ones and the relationship between the population and the agency deteriorated. To raise the image of the Agency enough funding has to be provided, good leadership should also be put in place to steer the agency. Recommendations and Conclusion Workforce has to be transformed, appropriate safety measures and upgrading of the space shuttle programs ought to be undertaken.

In addition, NASA activities must be extensively streamlined and restructured. This is for overall safety and quality provision of the services. All the recommendations above are geared to avert the possibilities of future Aerospace accidents. References Caiden, G. E. (2007). Public administration in transition: a fifty-year trajectory worldwide : essays in honor of Gerald E. Caiden. London: Vallentine Mitchell. Choong, G. K. (2011). Counter-cultural paradigmatic leadership: ethical use of power in Confucian societies.

Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock. Shafritz, J. M., & Russell, E. W. (2013). Introducing public administration (8th ed.). Boston: Pearson. Singer, B. (2004). The ABCs of building a business team that wins: the invisble code of honor that takes ordinary people and turns them into a championship team. New York: Warner Business Books.