Jeroen Maesschalck

Toward a Theoretical Framework for Ethical Decision Making of Street-Level Bureaucracy: Existing Models Reconsidered.

Much research has been done on the way in which individuals in organizations deal with their discretion. This article focuses on the literature on street-level bureaucracy and the literature on ethical decision making. Despite their shared attempt to explain individual behavior and decision making, these research traditions have been developed quite independently. Moreover, although they both list relevant influencing factors, they do not succeed entirely in clarifying how and under which circumstances these factors have an impact on individual behavior and decision making. This article attempts to substantiate how the concept of social mechanism could help to open the black box of causation.

Fairness Perceptions and Organizational Misbehavior: An Empirical Study

Employees evaluate the fairness or justice of their workplace: Does one get what one deserves at work? Organizational scholars consider perceived workplace fairness to be a relevant factor in predicting and explaining organizational misbehavior. For instance, Treviño and Weaver found in their study that the more employees perceive that their organization is just, the less they perceive their colleagues to be engaged in behavior that harms the organization. This hypothesis was retested with an alternative measure of organizational misbehavior in 19 Flemish governmental organizations, and confirmation was found. Moreover, the effect holds when controlling for integrity policy, leadership, tenure, and gender.

Policy failure and corruption: Federal Belgium as an institutional vulnerability

Throughout the 1990s, corruption cases, policy failure and scandals tarnished Belgiums international reputation. In this article, we analyse the effect of federalism and political culture on corruption and policy failures and their impact on the likelihood of such occurrences becoming scandals. Survey material suggests that there are few differences between French- and Dutch-speakers in the perception and tolerance of corruption. We then list a number of variables that can explain corruption in Belgium and argue that the independent effect of federalism is very limited. Next we demonstrate that federalism has played a much more significant role in lowering the risk of policy failure, while at the same time creating a few new vulnerabilities. Finally, we argue that the regional political elites do not often engage in policy learning and frequently put forward federalism as the main solution to the avoidance of policy failure and scandal. In this sense, regional political elites do not seize the opportunit...Throughout the 1990s, corruption cases, policy failure and scandals tarnished Belgiums international reputation. In this article, we analyse the effect of federalism and political culture on corruption and policy failures and their impact on the likelihood of such occurrences becoming scandals. Survey material suggests that there are few differences between French- and Dutch-speakers in the perception and tolerance of corruption. We then list a number of variables that can explain corruption in Belgium and argue that the independent effect of federalism is very limited. Next we demonstrate that federalism has played a much more significant role in lowering the risk of policy failure, while at the same time creating a few new vulnerabilities. Finally, we argue that the regional political elites do not often engage in policy learning and frequently put forward federalism as the main solution to the avoidance of policy failure and scandal. In this sense, regional political elites do not seize the opportunity for policy experimentation and transfer that is generally seen as one of the main virtues of a federal system of government.

Towards a Sound Integrity Framework: Instruments, Processes, Structures and Conditions for Implementation

This document presents key components of a sound Integrity Framework in public sector organisations. Based on lessons learned in the past decade, it provides a comprehensive approach to review and modernise instruments, procedures and actors for fostering integrity and preventing corruption. In addition to these core elements of integrity management, the paper also offers an analysis of relevant factors and conditions in the public management and governance context that provide supportive environment to maintain a culture of integrity in public organisations.

The development of moral reasoning skills in police recruits

Purpose – Police officers are frequently confronted with moral dilemmas in the course of their job. The authors assume new police officers need guidance, and need to be taught at the police academy how to deal with these situations. The purpose of this paper is to obtain insight into the impact of socialization on police recruits’ knowledge of the code of ethics and their moral reasoning skills. Design/methodology/approach – The study applied a longitudinal mixed methods design, using two methods. The first method was a qualitative observation of integrity training sessions at five police academies in Belgium. The second method was a quantitative survey-measurement of recruits’ knowledge of the code of ethics and their moral reasoning skills at three points in time: the beginning of their theoretical training, before their field training and afterwards. Findings – The analyses show differences between the police academies in their integrity training sessions. Some of these differences are reflected in dif...

Surveying organizational culture to explore grid-group cultural theory: instrument design and preliminary empirical results

Purpose – The aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable measurement instrument for organizational culture on the basis of grid-group cultural theory (GGCT). Design/methodology/approach – The study consisted of three phases. In a first phase, the literature was reviewed and experts on GGCT were consulted in order to design an item pool for the typology. In a second phase, a pilot study was done in two organizations of the Belgian federal government to evaluate this original item pool. The third phase consisted of the actual data gathering in seven organizations within the Belgian federal government. Findings – The study showed that it is possible to measure organizational culture based on GGCT. The authors used confirmatory factor analysis to examine the underlying structure of the data and found support for the existence of four culture scales. Scale reliabilities in the third phase of the study were satisfactory and ranged between 0.703 and 0.848. Research limitations/implications – The curre...

Police-public interactions : a grid-group cultural theory perspective

Purpose – The police culture literature suggests that police officers’ attitude towards the public is characterised by suspicion and an “us-vs-them” mentality. It also refers to the moral mission of protecting the public by being tough on crime. The traditional police culture model seems to imply that these aspects are typical for the police. There is, however, a lack of empirical studies to test this proposition. The purpose of this paper is to propose a different conceptual framework, based on grid-group cultural theory (GGCT), which not only broadens the lens of the police culture model, but also allows for comparative research between different professional groups. Design/methodology/approach – The newly developed conceptual framework is tested in an ethnographic study in the Belgian police and labour inspection. The main data collection methods are observation, interview and informal conversation. Findings – The results of this study show that there are similarities in the way in which Belgian police...