The conference will bring together practitioners, academics, PhD students and researchers in public administration and management, as well as contributors from any other disciplines who will exchange their research findings and insights from practical experience on the following theme ”Corruption, Ethics and Culture in Public Administration.”
Corruption is not a new phenomenon and is a term that has many meanings. Tiihonen argues that corruption “is commonly understood to be bribery, and accepting a bribe, and other unjustified influence, by giving and receiving benefits. A usual list of corrupt acts includes bribery, extortion, influence peddling, nepotism, fraud, speed money, and embezzlement” (2003, p.5). Corruption is a phenomenon which undermines public governance and principles of responsible management, and therefore citizens’ life quality and well-being as well as their trust in public officials and institutions. Among others, effective enforcement of public values, institutional ethics and personal honesty and integrity inculcation are a means of containing corruption within acceptable limits (Caiden, 2001).
In the last decades, governments and international institutions and organizations have drafted and formally adopted standards of professional conduct, ethics codes and charters for individuals holding public office (CNFPT and IASIA, 2018). For instance, in 2001 the European Union has adopted “The European Code for Good Administrative Behavior”, and then in 2012, “ The Public service principles for the EU civil service” through the European Ombudsman; similarly in 2013 the United Nations have adopted the “Standards of Conduct for the International Civil Service, International Civil Service Commission”, and in 2015 the Sustainable Development Goals where Goal 16 focuses on institutions and several of its targets encouraging the fight against corruption and building effective and transparent institutions which serve the citizens.
