Public Administration Ethics in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This article introduces the results of the first survey of Czech civil servants specifically targeting the domain of public ethics. The survey serves a double purpose: to provide data relevant for the development of a tailor-made ethics training programme for public officials, and to answer two research questions: (1) What are the main factors influencing the core values in Czech public administration? (2) Does the existence of ethics resources contribute to an improved ethical climate in the Czech public administration as perceived by public officials? The findings show that an ethical code is the most widespread, but often the only, ethics instrument implemented in Czech public administration and that the code is not used effectively. The results also confirm a positive but weak influence of the number of ethics resources on the perception of the existence of ethical problems, and a slight direct correlation between a higher number of resources and the perception of positive ethics development in the workplace. No support is found for the assertion that the more ethics resources are used by the organisation, the greater is the importance of the organisational culture for decision-making. This empirical research illustrates that - unlike in other countries of the former Eastern Bloc - ethics has been a low-priority agenda in Czech public administration and that enhancing ethical standards, and thus increasing citizens’ trust in public services, will be a long-term process. Leadership and leading by example, alongside ethics education and training, are the avenues to pursue.