State of the Science A Review of International and South African Scholarship on Public Service Ethics

Abstract

The academic enterprise should be motivated by one overriding concern: the epistemic imperative. Researchers should ensure that they pursue the most valid and reliable research design to arrive at the most truthful knowledge. This could be achieved within one or a combination of the main social science research designs: qualitative-, quantitative-, or a mixed method approach. In this article, the author reviews international and South African scholarship in the fi eld of public service ethics. To achieve this objective, the author identifi ed various themes that are prominent in the literature on public service ethics. For this purpose the following themes were identifi ed: Integrity, ethical leadership, whistleblowing, and public service values. To delineate the study, it was decided to review publications and research outputs that appeared between 2005 and 2014. The author then engaged in convenience and purpose sampling and identifi ed various data sources including conference papers, journal publications, and chapters in books. Consequently, this sample is not representative of international and South African scholarship on public service ethics. If this was the objective, there would be no end in sight for this modest effort. As this publication serves to refl ect on the research methods used by authors in 21 research outputs, it mainly caters for an academic audience as it comfortably falls in Mouton’s World 1: The World of Meta-Science. This article ends with some ideas on possible research avenues which South African scholars in public service ethics could pursue.