Ethics, NPM and post-NPM. A study of patterns and tensions in the central civil service

Ethics in public organizations have received more attention in recent decades, partly as a result of waves of public reforms. In this paper we first define ethics in public organizations taking a broad approach based on ethical theory and organization theory. We then focus more specifically on ethical guidelines in the central civil service in Norway, ask how important they are for civil servants in their own field of work and how they are related to New Public Management and post-NPM reforms. Subsequently we use structural, demographic and cultural variables to analyze variations in civil servants’ perception of ethical guidelines. The data used in the analysis are from a large survey of ministries and central agencies in Norway conducted in 2006. The main findings are, first, that the use of ethical guidelines is rather widespread within the Norwegian central civil service. Second, the ethical guidelines are a mixture of different elements, primarily belonging to a post-NPM family of reform tools. Third, there are significant variation among the civil servants regarding their assessment of the importance of ethical guidelines, mainly affected by structural features (position, tasks)and cultural features (efficiency and renewal orientation)