The interpretivist perspective is rapidly growing in acceptance and influence in the feld of organization and management. This perspective has important implications for the field of administrative ethics that have not yet been sufficiently acknowledged. Traditionally, administrative ethics appears to have assumed an objectivist epistemological and legalistic ethical perspective, and interpretivism seems to imply epistemological subjectivism and ethical relativism as alternatives. Using Jung's theory of the unconscious as a foundation, an ethical perspective is developed indicating that through the vehicle of human relationship one can find stable points of reference for moral action in the requisities of the personal development of the actors involved in the situation, and hence, this perspective avoids the trap of ethical relativism to which interpretivism is vulnerable. Lying, cheating, and stealing are used as examples and the case of the Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke is presented as an illustration of how the approach applies in organizational situations.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Society for Public Administration (1982) Applying Professional Standards and Ethics in the Eighties: A Workbook and Study Guide for Public Administration (H. Mertins, Jr., and P. J. Hennigan, eds.). Washington, DC: Author.
2.
APPLEBY, P. (1949) Policy and Administration. Birmingham: Univ. of Alabama Press.
3.
BAILEY, S. (1964) "Ethics and the public service."Public Administration Rev.23: 234-243.
4.
BERGER, P. (1963) Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. New York: Doubleday.
5.
BERGER, P. and T. LUCKMANN (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday.
6.
BOK, S. (1979) Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. New York: Vintage.
7.
BROWN, R. H. (1978) "Bureaucracy as praxis: toward apolitical phenomenology of formal organizations."Admin. Sci. Q.23: 365-382.
8.
BURRELL, G. and G. MORGAN (1979) Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis. London: Heinemann.
9.
CARVETH, D. L. (1977) "The disembodied dialectic."Theory and Society7: 73-102.
10.
FISHER, F. (1982) Politics, Values and Public Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview.
11.
GARFINCKEL, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. London: Prentice-Hall.
12.
GOFFMAN, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.
13.
GOULDNER, A. W. (1965) Wildcat Strike. New York: Harper.
14.
GREENFIELD, T. B. (1973) "Organizations as social inventions: rethinking assumtions about change."J. of Applied Behavioral Sci.9, 5: 551-570.
15.
HAMPDEN-TURNER, C. (1976) Sane Asylum. San Francisco: San Francisco Book Company.
16.
HARMON, M. (1981) Action Theory for Public Administration. New York: Longman.
17.
HART, D. K. (1974) "Social equity, justice, and the equitable administrator."Public Administration Rev. (January/February): 1-51.
18.
HARDING, E. M. (1970) The Way of All Women. New York: Putman.
19.
HERMAN, S. and M. KORENICH (1977) Authentic Management: A Gestalt Orientation to Organizations and Their Development, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
20.
INGALLS, J. D. (1979) Human Energy. Austin, TX: Learning Concepts.
21.
KOHLBERG, L. K. (1969) "Stage and sequence: the cognitive developmental approach to socialization," pp. 347-480 in D. A. Coslin (ed.) Handbook of Socialization Theory and ResearchNew York: Rand McNally.
22.
KUHN, T. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
23.
NEUMANN, E. (1973) Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. New York: Harper.
24.
PFOHL, S. J. (1975) "Social pole analysis. the ethnomethodological critique."Sociology and Social Research59, 3: 243-265.
25.
PROGOFF, I. (1973) Jung's Psychology and Its Social Meaning. New York: Doubleday.
26.
RAWLS, J. (1971) Theory and Justice. Boston: Harvard Univ. Press.
27.
REAGAN, M. D. (1963) The Managed Economy. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
28.
REICH, C. (1964) "The new property."Yale Law Rev.73: 733-787.
29.
ROHR, J. A. (1978) Ethics for Bureaucracy: An Essay on Law and Values. New York: Marcel Dekker.
30.
SARTRE, J. P. (1965) Being and Nothingness. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel.
31.
SCHUMAN, D. (1973) A Preface to Politics. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.
32.
SILVERMAN, D. (1971) The Theory of Organizations. New York: Basic Books.
33.
WALDO, D. (1981) The Enterprise of Public Administration. Novato, CA: Chandle and Sharp.
34.
WEICK, K. (1979) The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
35.
WHITMONT, E. (1978) The Symbolic Quest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
36.
WINTER, G. (1966) Elements for a Social Ethic: The Role of Social Science in Public Policy. New York: Macmillan.
37.
WOOD, R. C. (1955) "Ethics in government as a problem in executive management."Bobbs-Merrill Reprint Series in the Social Sciences. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
