ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITY

The basics of accountability and ethics

ASSUMPTIONS

• You likely already know something about administrative ethics.
• The first series of lectures offer a way of organizing our thinking about
administrative ethics
• Not what to do and not to do
• There is no “right” answer or choice but there are “better” answers or choices

THE SETTING OF ADMINISTRATIVE ETHICS

Administrative ethics applies to people who work in government
and in nonprofit organizations.
• In a “new governance” perspective, public needs are addressed by
organizations in both the public and nonprofit worlds

DEFINITION OF ETHICS

“Administrative ethics refers to well-based standards of
right and wrong that prescribe what public administrators
ought to do, in terms of duty to public service, principles,
virtues, and benefits to society.”
(Svara 2022, 20)

Ought: refers to a moral obligation
• If you can act morally, then you must

Duties

behaviors expected of people in certain roles

Virtues

qualities that define a “good” person

• Qualities that define what a “good” person is
• Associated with “moral excellence” – character traits that incline
us towards ethical behavior
• Virtue and duty can conflict
• Organizational norms may not be moral

Principles

truths that form the basis for behavior

• Fundamental truths that form the foundation for how to
behave
• Guide action
• Action required to fulfill

Benefits to society:

actions that produce the greatest good for
the greatest number
• Utilitarian in this sense

DUTY

• Duty implies obligations and responsibilities derived from their
public role independent of—but reinforced by—other ethical
considerations.
• Both external expectations and internalized norms provide the
foundation for accountability.

STATEMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH DUTY

• Serve the public.
• Avoid conflict of interest or personal gain.
• Promote the public interest.
• Will complicate later
• Act as a steward of public resources.
• Share or disclose information to the public.
• Report wrongdoing.

STATEMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH VIRTUES

• Display honesty.
• Show integrity.
• Be respectful.
• Be consistent.

STATEMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH PRINCIPLES

• Follow the laws, policies, or regulations.
• Act with fairness.
• Treat all equally.
• Protect confidential information.
• Do not lie.

VALUES AND PRINCIPLES

• Values and principles may not seem distinct
• How to clarify:
• Take any value and turn it into a statement of principle
• Virtue: Honesty
• Principle: Tell the truth

SOURCE OF ETHICS: QUESTIONS TO ASK

• What are the expectations of persons holding public office?
(duty)
• What are the qualities of a good person? (virtue)
• What is the right thing to do? (principle)
• What is the most beneficial action to take? (consequences)

virtue-based approach

looks inward at the qualities of an
exemplary person

principle-based approach (deontological)

examines external standards of behavior

consequentialist approach (teleological)

finds the best outcome as a justification for ethical action.

Morality:

sense of right and wrong based on personal
upbringing and commitment to the values of a variety of groups

Ethics:

standards of right and wrong behavior accepted by
members of a professional group.
• Voluntarily accepted; not universal

Legality:

falling within the province of the law; permitted or not
forbidden by law

WHAT IS GUERRILLA GOVERNMENT?

“Guerrilla government is my term for the actions taken by public servants
who work against the wishes---either implicitly or explicitly communicated--
-of their superiors” (O’Leary xi)
• Based in dissent
• Dissatisfied with actions of public organizations, programs, or people

Guerrillas usually

• Carry out their actions within their organization
• Maintain connections to outside groups
• Rarely “go public”

Guerrilla government activities include:

• Holding secret meetings to coordinate a unified strategy among staff
• Fail to implement orders perceived as unfair
• Obeying superiors in public but disobeying in private
• Ghost-writing letters, testimony, and studies for supportive stakeholders
• Letting superiors make mistakes
• Stall policies and directives you disagree with
• Contact elected officials and cultivate them as allies
• Build relationships with private industry, interest groups, nongovernmental
organizations, concerned citizens

WHAT IS NOT GUERRILLA GOVERNMENT?

Guerrilla government does not apply to cases where public
servants are undermining those who are not legitimate
superiors (i.e., managers, elected officials, political appointees,
the public); resistance without a goal
• Undermining a colleague (horizontal)
• Shirking with no purpose (just a bad employee)
• Private citizen lobbying on behalf of a public organization

O’Leary gives us three lenses to view guerrilla government

• Bureaucratic politics
• Management and organization
• Ethics
• Lessons from these social science literatures are found in the
characteristics and operations of guerrillas

BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS

Key lessons
• Bureaucrats exercise discretion that simultaneously allows them to
cope with their job and creates policy
• All policy is implementation
• Bureaucracies and bureaucrats have their own values, interests, and
cultures
• Bureaucrats have policy expertise and job continuity
• Outlast politicians
• Act as policy entrepreneurs
• Politics of expertise

ORGANIZATIONS AND MANAGEMENT

Key lessons
• “open systems”: organizations shape and are shaped by their
environment
• Bureaucrats and bureaucracies develop networks
• Less formal
• Blend private, public, and nonprofit actors
• Difficult to oversee
• Foundation of trust and not authority

ETHICS (O’leary)

• O’Leary emphasizes “doing right, not wrong”
• Key lessons:
• Bureaucrats are motivated by a multitude of ethical obligations
• Defining the obligations helps explain why guerrillas act
• Difficult to prioritize

ANALYZING GUERRILLAS

• What is each guerilla’s obligation hierarchy?
• What should it be?
• Are guerrillas working against the state?
• Are they subverting the mandates of elected officials?
• Are they following the law but breaking the spirit of the law?
• Are they “doing the right thing”?
• Are they advancing the public interest?

WHO GOES GUERRILLA?

• Overall, there is little systematic evidence that says “this situation” or “this
individual” will give rise to guerrilla government
• There are, however, common patterns
• Policy
• Person
• Personal ethics

POLICY (GG)

• Guerrilla government is usually based around policy
disagreements
• More likely to engage in guerrilla activities if
• Personally see the policy as unwise or bad
• See policy as creating some sort of a harm

PERSON (GG)

• Guerrilla activity less likely when
• Directive comes from a political appointee or executive
• Higher status, decreased defection
• Compliance is greater with higher-level officials

PERSONAL ETHICS (GG)

• O’Leary reminds us that personal ethics are the primary foundation for
understanding guerrilla government
• Guerrilla activity is more likely when
• Policy or directive violates personal view of ethics
• Expect actions to harm the public interest
• Guerrillas can be seen as utilitarian
• “greatest good” is personally defined
• Focused on the ends rather than the means

CONTRACTING OUT

• Contractors are not “public servants” per se but are in a position
that fosters guerrilla government
• Dispersed monitoring
• Access to private information without the same loyalty to organization
• Little intrinsic loyalty to government
• More than 500,000 private contracts have top secret clearance in the US
• Shielded from some blowback for guerrilla activity
• Work is temporary

SHOULD I BE A GUERRILLA?

• Have you exhausted other avenues?
• Keeping in mind that some could cost you your job
• Is the feared damage immediate, permanent, and irreversible? Are safety
and health issues involved? Or is there time for a longer view and a more
open strategy?
• Am I adhering to the rule of law?

• Is there a legitimate conflict of laws?
• Is this an area that is purely and legitimately discretionary?
• Would it be more ethical to promote transparency rather than working
secretly?
• Would it be more ethical to work with sympathetic legislators before turning
to media and outside groups?
• Am I correct?

GUERRILLA PLAYBOOK

• There is no manual for engaging in guerrilla activity
• The activity can be risky: cost you your job, relationships, end up in jail
• But the payoffs can be a “net gain” for the public

GUERRILLA GOVERNMENT AND TECH

• Technology and social media platforms permit relatively “underground”
guerrillas to reach the mass public
• Organization stories become public stories
• Barrier to entry is low
• There is no vetting or verifying stories
• Allows guerrillas to cultivate their own image
• Government data is now “big” and easy to access
• Finding problems with an agency is easy
• “minor” leaks can be big

O’LEARY’S LESSONS

• Harsh Reality #1: Guerrilla government is here to stay.
• Nature of bureaucracies, bureaucrats, the policy expertise will always cultivate guerrillas
• There are no cogs
• Harsh Reality #2: Guerrillas can do it to you in ways you’ll never know.
• Tactics are numerous and some are difficult or impossible to detect

• Harsh Reality #3: All guerrilla activity is not created equal.
• Some are canaries in the coal mine and others are delusional single-issue fanatics.
• Deciding which guerrilla is “ethical” can be a matter of perspective
• Problem of multiple “publics” and multiple “principals”
• Harsh Reality #4: The combination of big data, hyper social media, and contracting is likely to increase the incidents of guerrilla government.
• Low barrier to entry
• Captive public

• Harsh Reality #5: Most public organizations are inadequately equipped to deal effectively with guerrilla government.
• Few options for dissent
• Tendency to search for agreement rather than hear dissenting voices
• Harsh Reality #6: The tensions inherent in guerrilla government will never be resolved.
• There is a need for accountability and control in government organizations, but that same accountability and control can stifle innovation and positive change.

MANAGING GUERILLA GOVERNMENT

• Create an organizational culture that accepts, welcomes and encourages
candid dialogue and debate.
• Listen to employees and contractors.
• Understand both the formal and informal organization.
• Separate the individuals from the problem itself.
• Create multiple channels for people to voice dissent.
• Create dissent boundaries and know when to stop.

ETHICAL OR INSUBORDINATE?

• Remember, not all guerrillas are created equal
• Administrators have many ethical obligations
• Which one is the best?
• Finding “right” or “just” guerrillas might just be a matter of perspective
• Do we tolerate guerrilla government, or do we snuff out those likely to
dissent?
• Are their actions ethical or do they undermine the public interest?

INTRODUCTION (Em)

• Emergencies disrupt communities and individuals,
making it difficult to function once an emergency
occurs.
• Emergencies and crises have increased in terms of
scale and frequency over the last decade.
• Proper emergency planning is necessary to reduce
harm.

DEFINITION (Emergency)

• “An unexpected event which places life and/or property in danger and requires an immediate response through the use of routine community resources and procedures.“ (Drabek, 1996)
• “Any incident, whether natural or manmade, that requires responsive action to protect life or property.” (FEMA, 2008)
• “Any occasion that requires action to save lives and to
protect property, and the public's health, and safety.”
(CDC, 2025).

ETHICAL CRISIS DECISIONS

• According to FEMA (2005), ethics is “a set of standards that guides our behavior, both as individuals and as members of organizations”
• Ulmer et al. (2007) suggest that we make ethical judgments every day in our lives, we cannot avoid them, and we apply some set of standards or values regarding what we think to be appropriate behavior” (p. 168).
• According to this view, ethical judgments inform behavior and choices.

Emergencies are ethically challenging in at least three ways:

• (1) the high stakes that arise because of the large number of people affected;
• (2) time pressure, which may complicate accurate deliberation; and
• (3) incapacitated infrastructure and essential resources

MEMORIAL HOSPITAL DURING HURRICANE
KATRINA

• Some patients could not be evacuated or continued to cared for (hospital power not reliable, slow evacuation, state police no longer guarding hospital)
• Doctors had to decide whether to abandon sickest patients or euthanize patients
• Tragic consequences

THE CRITICAL ROLE OF DECISION MAKING IN
EMERGENCY AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT

• When leaders lack effective decision making competency, emergency and crisis management is worsened
• Leaders need to comprehend the situation quickly, make decisions, and communicate those decisions to design an effective and coordinated response under time constraints
• Rational decision making and problem-solving approaches do not work under the dynamic and uncertain environments of disasters

• Good decision making relies on scientific evidence, data, information, expertise, and competence
• However, information and data availability might be limited because of damaged infrastructure and communication systems
• Flexibility in decision making, collecting available data as quickly as possible, and deciding to partner with other stakeholders in the response system are crucial for effective emergency and crisis management

FACTORS AFFECTING DECISION MAKING

• Uncertainty
• Time pressure
• Risk
• Stress
• Information
• Previous experience and training
• Decision-support systems
• Shared mental models

COMPOUNDED CRISES

• Disasters require ethical leadership
• Compounded crises can make ethical leadership more difficult
• Ethical leadership should
• Include benevolence and justice
• Protect the health of individuals, minimize suffering, and fairly share the benefits and burdens of the disasters
• Be open and transparent
• Be honest

DECISION MAKING STYLES

• Group-based or collaborative decision making is commonly considered to be
more successful than an individual approach
• According to FEMA, effective decision makers have the following attributes:
• knowledge,
• initiative,
• willingness to seek advice,
• selectivity,
• comprehensiveness,
• currency,
• flexibility,
• good judgment,
• calculated risk taking, and
• self-knowledge

POLITICAL COMPLEXITIES IN DECISION MAKING

• Political problems can arise in nearly every phase of emergency management
• At the federal level of disaster preparedness in the U.S., those appointed to important positions should have EM decision making expertise
• Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
• E.g., George W. Bush administration assigned political appointees with very limited emergency management backgrounds to FEMA, resulting in a diminished ability to respond during Hurricane Katrina

ETHICAL CRISIS DECISIONS

• An emergency manager should
• (1) recognize and acknowledge the existence of the ethical concept,
• (2) identify the specific ethical issues at hand,
• (3) identify basic guidelines for ethical reasoning,
• (4) decide who is responsible for which kinds of decisions with ethical implications,
• (5) prepare the respective responsible parties to make ethical decisions,
• (6) implement those decisions, and
• (7) assess whether the end result is the intended result
• Following these steps will help develop ethical awareness in organizations responsible for managing emergencies

ETHICAL DECISIONS: DO’S

• Place the law and ethical principles above private gain
• Act impartially
• Protect and conserve department property
• Put forth honest effort

ETHICAL DECISIONS: DON’TS

• Don’t use your position to seek personal gain
• Don’t exceed your authority or make promises
• Avoid even the appearance of ethical violations

COVID-19 AND SOCIAL VULNERABILITY

• Studies found that socially vulnerable communities were significantly impacted from COVID-19
• Existing research on the relationship between social vulnerability and vaccine utilization is suggests equity issues, but is not consistent
• Policies surrounding vaccine administration and mandates was largely influenced by politics and had ethical implications (ex. requiring vaccines to enter establishments, prioritizing vaccines for elderly/front line workers)

MASS FATALITY MANAGEMENT (MFM)

• MFM involves recovering, storing, identifying, and returning bodies to families or next of kin
• It also includes aiding victims’ families
• Proper MFM is important in emergency management planning because if not planned for, poor management can cause psychological distress and prolong the trauma victims
and their families experience following a mass fatality incident
• This can inhibit community resilience, a goal of emergency management, as returning to normalcy is not possible when individuals and communities are preoccupied with searching for, identifying, and burying loved ones

ETHICS OF MASS FATALITY MANAGEMENT
DURING COVID-19

• Another issue ripe with ethical implications during COVID-19 was mass fatality management
• When the number of deaths overwhelms the resources available to respond, an event is considered a mass fatality incident
• COVID-19 was an MFI and ethical issues arose about:
• How funeral funds were utilized
• What to do with unclaimed bodies
• How to mourn the dead (safety v. mental health)

MASS FATALITY MANAGEMENT (MFM)

• Planning MFM before an incident occurs is key to effective MFM and mitigating its potential impact on a community
• A MFM plan is essential to speed and ease response, if an incident develops
• Past research found a lack of such plans, which could be why the responses were especially difficult

MASS FATALITY MANAGEMENT (MFM)

• These plans should include efforts to:
• collaborate with other public, private, and nonprofit organizations,
• provide psychological support to community members and first responders,
• identify a central agency to lead mass fatality management efforts, and
• specify ways to provide information on handling bodies before deaths occur

EXAMPLE OF PUBLIC VALUES RESEARCH DURING COVID-19

• EMS workers surveyed and asked for pictures representing their experience with COVID-19
• Qualitative photovoice approach
• Based on Jorgensen & Bozeman’s inventory of public values, analyzed public values that contribute to society:
• Common good
• Public interest
• Social cohesion
• Altruism
• Human dignity
• Sustainability
• Voice of the future
• Regime dignity/stability

• Findings (in progress):
• More EMS workers reflected public values failures rather than instances where public values were upheld
• Failures: TBD
• Upheld:
• human dignity (45%)
• regime dignity/stability (45%).
• common good (18%)
• altruism (18%)
• voice of the future (18%)
• social cohesion (9%)
• No instances: sustainability, public interest

WHAT IS AN ETHICAL DILEMMA?

• An ethical dilemma happens when administrators confront
conflicting responsibilities
• Managing more than one sets of expectations, responsibilities, values,
etc.
• Conflicting responsibilities are incompatible
• Public administrators have many conflicting responsibilities
• Within their own role and organization
• As a public official and citizen

WHERE DO ETHICAL DILEMMAS ARISE?

Three primary sources of conflict
• Conflicts of authority
• Role conflicts
• Conflicts of interest
• Categories can intersect

CONFLICTS OF AUTHORITY

• Conflict arising from superiors, political officials, laws
• Torn between two or more sources
• For example, a political appointee may want you to produce a report to support a regulation she wants your organization to pursue, but you know that you do not have the delegated authority to write the rule.
• Conflict between the law and political superior

ROLE CONFLICTS

• Conflicting responsibilities associated with roles
• Administrator’s role and one or more role either outside the org. or within it
• Inside roles vs. inside roles
• Following department hierarchy, maintaining loyalty to subordinates
• Inside roles vs. outside roles
• Advancing public health, following guidelines of professional association

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

• Arise due to conflicting personal interests, organizational interests, and public interests
• Putting personal interests ahead of obligations as public officials or professional values
• Primary driver is having access to insider information that most ordinary citizens do not
• Unusual opportunities for personal gain

TYPES OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

• Bribery
• Influence peddling
• Information peddling
• Financial transactions
• Gifts and entertainment
• Outside employment
• Future employment
• Dealings with relatives
• Nepotism

ACCOUNTABILITY DEFINITIONS

Romzek and Ingraham
(2000)
“Accountability, in its most fundamental sense, refers to answerability to someone for expected performance. In the American system of governance, those to whom one is answerable must be legitimate sources of control and their
expectations for performance must be legitimate as well.”
Fesler and Kettl (1996) “…faithful obedience to the law, to higher officials’ directions, and to standards of efficiency and economy… [and] adherence
to moral standards and avoidance even of the appearance of unethical actions.”

Gailmard and Patty
(2013)
“… expert bureaucrats can be considered fully accountable to political principals when they make the same decisions the principals would have made, if they held the information bureaucrats hold. We call this the ‘standard logic of bureaucratic
accountability.’”
Gray and Jenkins
(1993)
“…an obligation to present an account of and answer for the execution of responsibilities to those who entrusted those responsibilities. On this obligation depends the allocation of praise and blame, reward and sanction so often seen as the
hallmarks of accountability in action.”

WHAT IS ACCOUNTABILITY?

• Accountability is about answerability for (in)action (Romzek and Ingraham 2000):
• Accountable to whom
• Accountable for what
• Something to strive toward
• Squishy

WHAT IS ACCOUNTABILITY?

• Creating accountability is a difficult balancing process
• Too much answerability: 1) administrators hide actions; 2) nothing gets done
• “The tensions between the requirements of responsibility or ‘accountability’ and those of effective executive action can reasonably be described as the classic dilemma of public
administration.” – Peter Self
• So, is there such a thing as too much accountability?

ELEMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Fiscal accountability
Process accountability
Program accountability

FISCAL ACCOUNTABILITY

• Goal: ensure agency officials spend money only on the programs they manage
• Two considerations:
• Spend the money you are supposed to
• Is this easy?
• Don’t be wasteful
• Mechanisms:
• Statutory: directive on how much, where, and when to spend money
• Auditing: Government Accountability Office and Offices of Inspectors General

PROCESS ACCOUNTABILITY

• Goal: ensure agencies perform their tasks fairly
• Mechanisms:
• Statute: set procedures for decision making and implementation
• Administrative Procedures Act
• Oversight: legislative, internal (OIG), citizen (you complain)

PROGRAM ACCOUNTABILITY

• Goal: optimize performance without sacrificing quality, equality, and equity
• New Public Management
• Developed during the 1980s
• Running government like a business
• Centers clients (you and I)
• Mechanisms:
• Establish performance goals and then measure outcomes
• Hard to do: requires asking “what is the goal of this policy and what does achieving look like?

THE EVIDENCE MOVEMENT

• Over the past two decades, public organizations have been encouraged and, at times, required to incorporate evidence in their decision-making processes.
• The Foundations of Evidence-Based Policy Making Act of 2018
• Using evidence can help reduce wasteful spending, expand effective programs, and strengthen government accountability (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2014).

DEFINING EVIDENCE AND EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION MAKING

• Scholars, policymakers, and practitioners have and continue to wrestle with developing a
clear, concise, and comprehensive definition of evidence
• It is often helpful to think of evidence along a continuum

EVIDENCE

• Developing a clear and comprehensive definition of evidence is particularly difficult.
• Numerous camps exist (Buss & Shillabeer, 2011; Head, 2008, Arygrous, 2012):
• Rigorous evaluations using randomized-controlled trials (RCT) are the only forms of evidence
• Evidence should be viewed along a continuum
• Evidence has different lenses (scientific, professional, and political)
• Evidence is best marshalled through the triangulation and mixed methods
• The hierarchy does not matter so much; it is about the processes and standards used to collect, analyze, interpret, and share data

TYPES OF EVIDENCE (JENNINGS & HALL, 2012)

• Political
• Examples: government officials, legislative staff, news media
• Professional/Scientific
• Examples: research and formal evaluations, scientific studies, professional literature
• Agency
• Examples: Interest groups, agencies (comparable and internal)
• Innovation
• Examples: think tanks, innovation award programs, consultants

Organizational Factors DETERMINANTS OF EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION MAKING

• Availability and perceptions of scientific information
• Employee capacity
• Adaptive capacity
• Organizational culture
• Decision risk and concern

Individual Factors DETERMINANTS OF EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION MAKING

• Education
• Race
• Managerial status
• Job satisfaction
• Public service motivation

THEMES FROM REFLECTION PAPERS

• Public administrators have to prioritize some values when making decisions
• There is a balance, but competing interest, between accountability and good public management for bureaucrats
• Government employees have discretion, which makes implementing policies messy and difficult to achieve everything
• There is not clear ethical paths for public administrators
• What does this mean for your future career?

WHAT IS THE PUBLIC INTEREST?

Some definitions:
• Walter Lippmann quoted in Lewis 2006: “The public interest may be presumed to be what… [people] would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently.”
• Bealey (1999) quoted in Lewis 2006: “The term may refer to the aggregate of individual interests, whatever that is. Like the ‘common good’ and the ‘general will,’ it is easier to talk about it than to determine what it is.”
• George Frederickson quoted in Lewis 2006: “In an elected democratic polity the public interest is whatever the majority in Congress or the president say it is.”
• Kwemarira, Munene, and Ntayi (2020): “It is the outcomes attained when government leaders discharge their obligations for long-run survival and well-being of the society particularly public institutions providing quality services to the citizenry.”

WHAT IS THE PUBLIC INTEREST?

• The public interest is the common welfare of the general public supported through:
• Fair and equitable decision-making
• Considerations of groups of people
• Upholding the rule of law
• Responding to changing needs and expectations of the public
• Communication + adaptation during service delivery
• Being attentive to current + future citizens
• Effective and efficient service delivery
• Transparency and optimal resource allocation
• Adapted from Bozeman (2007)

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS AND PURSUIT OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST

• The ultimate goal of public service duty is to advance the public interest.
• Public interest is an elusive concept but important for administrators.
• It requires a long-term perspective, putting the shared interests of the majority over special interests, while protecting the rights of minorities.
• The question for future and current public professionals to ask themselves is: “What action should I take to advance the public interest?”
• But, remember that the concept is elastic.
• Who defines it?

DO PEOPLE REALLY CARE ABOUT THE PUBLIC
INTEREST?

• “Perhaps academicians ought to take the lead in drawing up a list of ambiguous words and phrases that would never be missed. For such a list I would have several candidates, but it would suffice here to nominate ‘the public interest.” (Sorauf 1962)
• “We are free to abandon the concept [of the public interest], but if we do so, we will simply have to wrestle with the problems under some other heading.” (Flathman 1966)

HOW DO WE “PURSUE” THE PUBLIC INTEREST?

The public interest should not be thought of as an “end point” – it takes on meaning through process and deliberation
• 1. Promote public participation in planning and implementation
• Examples?
• 2. Justifying and explaining actions
• To the public
• To political superiors
• Examples?
• 3. Controlling self-interest and promoting groups
• Examples?
• What else?

BASIC OVERVIEW

• Rational choice theory seeks to explain collective action by
understanding how and why people act on preferences
• Rational individuals take actions that maximize their personal
utility
• Pursue utility in the most efficient manner
• Always choose most preferred alternative

• Principal Agent Theory (PAT) is a modeling technique used to understand hierarchical relationships and decision making where tasks are delegated to subordinates
• How do I get an agent to do what I would given the same information and tools?

Principal:

actor in the relationship who delegates task to a subordinate actor
• Seemingly cannot do the action herself

Agent:

actor in the relationship who acts on behalf of a superior
• Typically more expertise than the principal

Moral hazard:

alternative actions due to shared risk

Adverse selection:

hidden information prior to a contract

WHAT DO THESE MODELS DO?

• 1) Define who principals and agents are
• 2) Define what the agent can do and how it affects the principal
• 3) Define what the principal can do and how it affects the agent

AGENT IMPACT

• The agent’s actions determine the payoff for the principal
• Principal’s utility is achieved through the agent

INFORMATION ASYMMETRY

• Principals can see the outcome of an agent’s action but not necessarily the action itself
• Method of choosing outcome can and often is “hidden”
• In a bureaucratic context, agent has more expertise than principal

ASYMMETRIC PREFERENCES

• The principal and agent have different preferences
• This is not always the case
• Costs are born by agent
• Agent is more risk adverse

BACKWARD INDUCTION BASED ON COMMON KNOWLEDGE

• Principal and agent know the “game”
• Effort
• Payoffs
• Probability of outcomes
• Both know the other will act rationally

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

• 1) principals contract agents to do a task for them
• 2) principal creates payoffs to incentivize agent to act how she would like her to
• 3) agent understands payoffs and takes actions

DEFINING WHISTLEBLOWING

• Whistleblowing occurs when a current or former employee of an organizations reports “any violation of law or regulation, gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety” that he or she has reasonable belief occurred

• Thinking of whistleblowing more broadly it can include:
• reporting wrongdoing to authorities;
• refusing to participate in activities that involve wrongdoing;
• providing testimony in a legal proceeding; and
• leaking information to the media.
• Take note of legal protections later

REPORTABLE ACTIONS

• Improper government activity, broadly defined and includes
• Corruption
• Bribery
• Theft or misuse of government property
• Fraud
• Coercion
• Violation or law or regulation
• Danger to health and safety
• Abuse of authority
• Willful omission to perform duty
• Economic waste
• Gross misconduct, waste, or inefficiency
• Sexual harassment

INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL WHISTLEBLOWING

• Internal: report made to individuals and units within an organization
• co-workers, supervisors, organizational hotlines, agency inspector general
• External: report made to individuals or entities outside an organization
• Congress, Office of the Special Counsel, regulators, media, watchdog organizations, advocacy groups

WHAT ISN’T WHISTLEBLOWING?

• Not all reports are “whistleblowing”
• Concern must be about legal violations, gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, abuse
of authority, a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety
• Conduct that does not meet these standards does not rise to the “whistleblowing”
standard of whistleblower protection laws
• Similarly, reports due to policy disagreement would not be protected whistleblowing

WHISTLEBLOWING PROCESS

• 1) Triggering event occurs
• 2) Employee recognizes the event and decides to act
• Inaction means the process effectively stops
• 3) Employee reports the action
• Internal
• External
• 4) Organization responds to report
• Investigation: often lengthy
• Correction
• 5) Employee assesses response

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT AND RESPONSIBLE WHISTLEBLOWING

• Staff members owe loyalty to their organization but also have a responsibility to hold actors and/or the organization accountable.
• Whistleblowing should not be taken lightly.