Question

How do you feel ethics enters into whether to implement a new standard early. It is unethical to not do this?

Answer 1

Ethics in Implementing a New Standard Early

Whether one is adding a new code or refreshing an old code it is important to have an understanding of the culture in organizations. There have been a variety of devices used to understand the ethical of the governmental culture used by Korea, New Zealand, South Africa and Puerto Rico. There are dozens of examples of cultural evaluations accomplished by departments or ministries. These can be used in a variety of ways. But they are primarily focused on how well codes of conduct or ethics codes are working, and how well the institutions supporting the code are functioning.

These kinds of surveys can give an overarching perspective of ethical values and allow administrators to understand the pressures to commit misconduct and the rewards necessary to encourage right conduct in an organization. However, they seldom give a sense of the distribution of opinion in an organization. We know from a variety of studies that adults can approach ethical issues from a range of different perspectives. Perhaps the best know research was a thirty year longitudinal study of the moral development in children conducted by Lawrence Kohlberg at Harvard University. Although there has been criticism of his work, none of the critiques deny that adults in a general population vary in their stages of moral development. Researchers have found that there are statistical distributions of adults across all six of his developmental stages. Each stage presents discrete issues in code implementation. This work has been expanded to apply to public administration by Debra Stewart and Norman Sprinthall. They have developed the Stewart-Sprinthall test and applied it to understand the distribution of ethical development in Russia, Poland and the United States. The diagnostic suggested that each country required different elements within either an ethics code or a code of conduct. The variance was based on differing hierarchies of values (not different values) and historical experiences.

Level	Self Perception	Stage	Values
1. Pre Conventional	Outside Group	1. Obey or pay, punishment orientation.	1. Confused with physical objects.
		2. Self (and sometimes others’) satisfaction.	2. Instrumental to needs of possessor; egoistic
2. Conventional	Inside Group	3. Win others’ approval by helping them.	3. Based on empathy of family or group.
		4. Law-and-order approach. Doing one’s duty.	4. Authority and Social Order Maintaining
3. Post Conventional	Above Group	5. Respect individual rights. Accept critically examined values.	5. Contractual or Legalistic
		6. Act with logically developed and universally accepted principles.	6. Principle orientation

The importance of this work, as well as the social psychology research at the Center for the Study of Ethical Development at the University of Minnesota, has contributed several key elements to understanding what must go into an ethics code and why they work. First, because individuals approach ethics problems with “different” lenses a code must be able to address multiple levels of meaning. Some individuals only want to know “what will happen to them” if they violate the code; others want to understand the rule; while still other want to know what principles underlie the rules. Good codes address all of these levels.

Secondly, empirical research at the University of Minnesota strongly supports the notion that ethics can be taught. Because of this codes must persuasively address the range of approaches public servants use to analyze ethical questions. A good code then becomes the foundation for good pedagogy. Ethics education (or training) programs become far more effective if they are based on codes that can be understood, and analyzed, at several different epistemic levels.

It is also important to weave the new code into the pre-existing fabric of the organization. That is, the new code must be accompanied by any necessary changes to institutions, conduct penalties, civil service rules or legal regimes. There must be special care to account for values that have been added or are now not part of the code, as well as behaviors newly added to be unacceptable or behaviors that are now acceptable. The most common mistake in launching a code is the assumption that the code stands on its own. Codes have a dynamic relationship in government and care must be taken to avoid confusion and ineffectiveness that could result from code revision.

Is It Unethical to not to do this ?

implementing a new standard early is always based on organisations requirment. If the organisation feels that they need to implement the new standard or code as early as possible, then they work towards it. so it,s okay if they dont want this early. So it's not unethical to not to do this.