Awareness of Ethics and Integrity at a Malaysian Government District Office

Abstract

The public sector, operated through local/ state governments is the most important instrument in management and administration of a nation. Apart from delivering services and sustaining national development, it is also the social institution entrusted to restore law and order of a nation. These functions and responsibilities indicate direct relationships with morality, ethics and social justice. The district office is the closest level of the government to the people. Hence, issues of ethics and integrity are clearly seen as the people whom they serve directly and who are affected by the government. This paper reports on a pilot study conducted at a district office in Malaysia to investigate employees’ responses on awareness initiatives to imbue ethics and integrity at the workplace through a questionnaire with mixed methods. This study has positively found that the district office employees are highly aware of ethics and integrity. They perceive that all initiatives taken at the workplace to create ethical awareness are highly effective and their understanding of ethics and integrity is high (Mean: 4.34 and 4.25 respectively). Posters are viewed to be the most effective medium to create awareness, followed by websites and signages. Superiors, as role models have taken a committed responsibility to remind subordinates through various channels of communication on ethical values and integrity. However, there are still employees who do not seem to be aware of the information provided on ethics. In addition, less than half of the respondents (46.3%) are directly involved in the launched ethics campaigns in office. The study findings will draw some insights on effectiveness of initiatives taken at ground level to create ethical awareness among the public-sector employees as Malaysia transforms her socio-economic landscape in the globalization era.