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Values in Flux

Administrative Ethics and the Hong Kong Public Servant

University of Hong Kong

Terry L. Cooper

University of Southern California

The ethical orientations of senior civil servants in Hong Kong are examined using survey datafrom a sample of279 officials involved in advanced training and university professional training programs. These public officials were found to identify strongly with the classical ideal constituted by administrative neutrality, loyalty to hierarchy, and respect for organizational rules. However, indications of more assertive personal values independent of the organization were discovered. This erosion of neutrality is characterized by espousal of liberal values such as fairness, equality, justice, honesty, integrity, human dignity, and individual freedom. The extent to which these values reflect a latent professional ethic as an autonomous basis for moral judgment and conduct remains unclear Although at present these administrators experience little incongruence between the rules and norms of the organization and their liberal values, whenever presented with a hypothetical conflict they tend to optfor loyalty to the bureaucratic hierarchy.

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