KAMU KURUMLARINDA ETİK KÜLTÜRÜN OLUŞTURULMASINDA TÜRK ULUSAL ETİK MEVZUATIN REHBERLİĞİ

Bir organizasyonda yer alan katılımcıların etik kurallara bağlılığı ve etik kurallar hakkındaki bilinç düzeyi organizasyonun kuruluş amacına yönelik faaliyetlerini başarılı bir şekilde gerçekleştirebilmesi için oldukça önemlidir. Ancak günümüzde etik kavramı genellikle ahlak kavramıyla karıştırılmaktadır. Çoğu zaman da bu iki kavram birbirleri yerine kullanılmaktadır. Tanımdaki bu karmaşıklık uygulamada da etik kuralların organizasyonlar tarafından tanımlanmasını güçleştirmektedir. Kamu kaynaklarını etkin ve verimli kullanma amacıyla faaliyet gösteren kamu kurumlarında da etik kuralların varlığı ve söz konusu kuralların kamu çalışanları tarafından benimsenmesi yolsuzluk ve rüşvet gibi etik dışı davranışların engellenmesi açısından hayati önem taşımaktadır. Kamu kurumlarında meydana gelen etik dışı davranışlar kurumlara olan güveni önemli ölçüde sarsmaktadır. Etik kuralların çalışanlar tarafından benimsenmesi ise ancak güçlü bir etik mevzuata sahip olmakla mümkündür. Bu çalışma Türkiye`deki etik ulusal mevzuatta yer alan etik kuralların çalışanlara sağladığı rehberlik derecesini ölçmeyi hedef almakta ve mevzuatın geliştirilmesi gereken yönlerini sorgulamaktadır. Bu amaçla çalışma kapsamında kamu çalışanları için temel etik kuralları tanımlayan Kamu Görevlileri Etik Davranış İlkeleri ile Başvuru Usul ve Esasları Hakkında yönetmelik analiz edilmiştir. Yönetmeliğin kamu kaynaklarına zarar verilecek davranışlardan kaçınılması konusundaki rehberlik yönünün güçlü olmasına rağmen, ortaya konulan kural tabanlı hükümlerin yönetmeliğin çalışanlar tarafından içselleştirilmesini güçleştirdiği ve yönetmeliğin eksik yönlerinin toplumu daha fazla kucaklar bir şekilde geliştirilmesi gerektiği tespit edilmiştir

GUIDANCE OF TURKISH NATIONAL ETHICS LEGISLATION ON CONSTITUTION OF ETHICAL CULTURE IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONS

In an organization participants` level of consciousness about ethical rules and their engegament to these rules are very important for successfully carrying out its activities in accordance with the purpose of its establishment.However, the concept of ethics is often confused with the concept of morality.interchangeably.This complexity of definition also makes it difficult for organizations to define their ethical rules. The existence of ethical rules and the adoption of such rules by public employees are also vital for prevention of unethical behaviors such as corruption and bribery in public administrations operating in order to use public resources effectively and efficiently. The adoption of ethical rules is only possible with strong ethical legislation. This study aims to evaluate guidance degree of Turkish ethical national legislation to employees and examines the aspects that legislation needs to be developed. For this purpose Regulation Regarding to Ethical Code of Conduct for Public Employees was analyzed in the scope of the study. Although the regulation is strong about avoiding behavior that would harm public resources, it is found out that internalization of the rule-based provisions laid out in the scope of the regulation is difficult for employees. It has been determined that the regulation should be developed in a way that embraces whole society more It is important for public employees to internalize certain values in order to be successful in combating bribery and corruption. Ethical values are the most important values that should be internalized by public employees. According to Grundstein-Amado (2001) without effective internalization, a code is a meaningless document that at best can only expect blind obedience to its precepts. An ethical culture settled in public employees is important in terms of protecting employees' honesty and impartiality in the decision-making process. Unethical behavior is one of the most dangerous ills of modern governance, with the potential to damage public trust in government and undermine the foundations of democracy (Beeri et al., 2012). According to Marini (1992) public administrators constantly face the need and difficulty of keeping the authority of their official role separate from inappropriate aspects of their personality and personal circumstances. Grundstein-Amado (2001) assert that the codes of ethics in public service organizations should serve at least three purposes: 1) educate the public about the mission of the organization; 2) foster an ethical climate; and 3) provide guidance for resolving ethical problems. In this respect, the ethical rules should have the power to direct the behavior of the employees and provide strong guidance Today due to the unethical behavior of contractors many public construction works can not be completed or they are not built in accordance with the required quality standards. This study aims to analyze the guidance degree of current ethical national legislation to public employees and examines Regulation Regarding to Ethical Code of Conduct for Public Employees which is the basic document for constitution of ethical culture in public administrations. For this purpose, the provisions of the regulation were analyzed by using the method developed by Robin et al. (1989), and the strengths and weaknesses of the regulation have been revealed. It is expected that the results of the study would constitute a base for the regulation of the ethical rules existing in the public sector. It is also expected that contributions to the private sector will be provided in defining the codes of ethics. Codes of ethics in the public sector play a pivotal role. Their function is to enhance public servants’ ethical conduct and to convey to the public that public officials are genuinely committed to pursuing an honorable public service reflecting the public good (Grundstein-Amado, 2001). A code of ethics has the potential to be an extremely effective tool in ensuring accountability in public sector decision-making (Kinchin, 2007). Kinchin (2007) asserts that a code of ethics:  Must reflect the precepts of democratic accountability and a responsible government  Must be framed in language that the decision maker relates to and set in a familiar context.  Must acknowledge the obstacles that arise in relation to each ethic for the successful internalization of that ethic by the individual Eduard (2009) states that the code of ethics for a public sector institution must be built around some clear objectives, described from the start: 1. promotion of values, of ethical principles; 2. Creating an appropriate ethical climate of the professional activity, in line with the goals and mission of the institution; 3. preventing and resolving ethical conflicts; 4. discouraging unethical practices, punishing deviations from institution`s values. Internalization of ethical codes is an important issue for administrations. Effective internalization is most likely to occur when members of an organization clarify and construct their integrated values systems and when the code is formulated and adopted through a process of democratic participation. If codes are formulated and disseminated through a shared collective process and thus reflect the collective values of organizational members, the likelihood of a successful assimilation of the code’s content is increased (Grundstein-Amado, 2001). Public employees in Turkey are obliged to carry out their activities in accordance with Regulation Regarding to Ethical Code of Conduct for Public Employees. This legislation contains various provisions to prevent unethical behavior. On the other hand these provisions, which should direct the employees to ethical behavior, are scattered among the provisions of the related laws.Due to the fact that the Regulation Regarding to Ethical Code of Conduct for Public Employees includes only provisions related to ethical rules, only this regulation has been analyzed in the scope of the study. Other laws that have limited number of provisions related with ethics have not been taken into consideration. The most important problems encountered in the content analysis are related with ensuring a systematic analysis and choosing the expressions that define ethical rules correctly. In order to make a systematic analysis, the analysis method developed by Robin et al. (1989) was applied in the scope of the study. Robin et al. (1989) conducted their research based on firms in the list of Business Week 1000. They demanded construction companies to send their codes of ethics. A total of 84 companies had returned. They organized the codes according to categories. The codes were divided into 30 categories. These 30 categories were divided into 3 different clusters soon. Cluster-1 was labeled as “Be a dependable organizational citizen”. The categories included in this cluster aimed to direct the employee to be a nice dependable person. Cluster-2 was entitled “Don’t` do anything unlawful or improper that will harm the organization.” The legalistic character of the items in this cluster made it a set of rules designed to protect the organization, rather than a set of values to guide behavior. Cluster-3 was entitled “Be good to our customers”. Items in this cluster dealt with ways in which the behavior of employees could satisfy customers. Items that may not be clustered were grouped as unclustered items. In the scope of the study, the classification developed by Robin et al. (1989) was adapted for public administrations and statements have been rearranged by adhering to the originality of the classification. In the second part of their study, they made a logical breakdown of ethical codes to assess the degree of guidance on employees and developed an evaluation matrix of four cells. Same matrix was used for the last evaluation of the study. Identification of the codes that define ethical rules in the regulation is another difficulty in analysis process of the study. For a succesful analyze, an analysing method developed by Gaumnitz and Lere (2004) was used. The Regulation Regarding to Ethical Code of Conduct for Public Employees consists of 4 parts and 42 items. Within the regulation, 73 expressions defining ethical rules have been identified. When evaluated in terms of cell characteristics according to the matrix, 89.1% of the statements were rule-based statements providing high guidance, while the remaining statements were found to be value-based statements providing low guidance. These findings show that regulation is insufficient in terms of value- based statements. When all of the groups are analyzed separately it is found out that group-1 is the group in which the least statement takes place (6.8%). According to Robin et al. (1989), evaluation of statements in group-1 may not be sufficiently descriptive for organizations. There is very little interest between these statements and ethical behaviour. Robin et al. states that these rules are specific rules that guide employees in a limited manner, therefore it is possible to view these rules as the basic rules for an organization. The results of the study supports this point of view.Statements in group-2 attach importance to the interests of the organization and this group is the group which has the most statements (54.8 %). The low number of the statements related with corruption and bribery shows that the regulation is insufficient to provide guidance for prevention of corruption and bribery. It is also found out that the number of the statements in group-3 and group-4 are too low. For ensuring public service consciousness it is necessary to give place to statements in group-3 more. The low number of the statements in group-4 shows that regulation is also insufficient in terms of directing employees to social behavior. Creating ethical culture in a society, spreading this culture and transforming it into behaviors of the society are very important issues for establishing healthy relationships among the individuals. Public administrations are organizations that represent the state and they should act on the principle of efficient use of public resources. For this reason, mistakes in ensuring ethical culture or the lack of sustainability of this culture, could produce negative results. It is quite clear that regulation is also insufficient in terms of internalization of the ethical rules for avoiding employees from illegal behaviors such as corruption and bribery. Unethical behaviors in public institutions that have their own department of construction will be a barrier to the achievement of time, cost and quality objectives of the public administration. Therefore using public resources effectively and efficiently will not be possible. On the other hand it is necessary to develop value-based ethical rules which preserve the values of society instead of putting out strict rules in order to eliminate the deficiencies. Because ethical rules are directly related with society. It is essential to integrate the current statements with individuals` own internal values. Otherwise, this regulation will not go beyond being a text that has been inured by public employees.

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