Book description
Those who serve the public trust must take special care to ensure they
make ethical and responsible decisions. Yet the realities of
bureaucracies, deadlines, budgets, and demands for quick results make
the payoffs for dealing formally with ethics seem unclear. Since its
original publication,
The Responsible Administrator
has guided professionals and students alike as they grapple with the
challenges of making ethical, responsible decisions in real world
situations.
This new edition includes information on coping with new
demands for accountability, as well as new cases and examples, an
examination of current issues relevant to administrative ethics, and
supplementary materials for professors.
Cooper's theoretical framework and practical applications and
techniques will help you consider all of the factors involved in a
decision, ensuring that you balance professional, personal, and
organizational values. Case studies and examples illustrate what works
and what does not. The Responsible Administrator helps both
experienced and novice public administrators and students become
effective decision makers, provides them with a solid understanding of
the role of ethics in public service and the framework to incorporate
ethical and values-based decision making in day-to-day management.
Terry L. Cooper is The Maria B. Crutcher Professor
in Citizenship and Democratic Values (Social Ethics) at the University
of Southern California (USC). His research centers on citizen
participation and public ethics. He is one of the coprincipal
investigators in the USC Neighborhood Participation Project (NPP),
conducting research on the role of neighborhood organizations in
governance in the City of Los Angeles through the system of
neighborhood councils established in 1999. Also, he is the director of
the USC Civic Engagement Initiative, which is expanding the work of
the NPP beyond neighborhood councils and beyond Los
Angeles.
Cooper is the author of The Responsible
Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role
(4th ed., 1998) and An Ethic of Citizenship for Public
Administration (1991). He is the coeditor of Exemplary Public
Administrators: Character and Leadership in Government (1992)
and the editor of Handbook of Administrative Ethics (2nd ed.,
2001). His articles have appeared in Public Administration Review,
Administration and Society, International Review of Administrative
Sciences, International Journal of Public Administration,
Administrative Theory and Praxis, International Journal of
Organization Theory and Behavior, Public Budgeting and Finance,
and The Bureaucrat. He is a past member of the editorial boards
of Public Administration Review and Administrative Theory
and Praxis and currently serves on the editorial board of The
American Review of Public Administration. Cooper is the editor
of the Exemplar Profile series in the journal Public Integrity.
Cooper has previously served as chair of the Section on Ethics
of the American Society for Public Administration. He has conducted
ethics training for many professional groups at different levels of
government around the United States and in several other countries.
