”Ibland vill hjärtat mer än vad vi har utrymme för” : En studie om socialsekreterares förhållningssätt mellan förvaltningsetik, professionsetik och egenetik

Sammanfattning

Public ethos consists of economic and democratic values that need to take up as much space in the public sphere. The collective reforms of New Public Management (NPM) have led to a greater focus on the economic values in public administration. In order to maintain a strong public ethos within public organizations, there is therefore a great interest in strengthening the presence of democratic values. Therefore, the government has decided that every public organization should have a work of values based on the principles of the state values that contribute to a good administrative culture. In social services, the work is characterized by situations where ethical dilemmas arise and where you need to make decisions that affect other people's lives. Higher education and ethical awareness are required to be able to make qualified ethical decisions. The study therefore aims to create an understanding of how social secretaries relate to administrative ethics, professional ethics and their own ethics. To find out, we interviewed ten social secretaries in different municipalities around Sweden. The questions for the interview are based on a thematic presentation derived from the study's first theory chapter, which concerns previous research on the three types of ethics. The second theory chapter of the study presents why ethics work is important in organizations from a theoretical perspective. The study concludes that work experience affects the social secretaries' approach to the types of ethics and the experience also contributes to the feeling of having increased scope for action. The study also concludes that self-ethics and professional ethics are close to each other, while administrative ethics, which is also more interchangeable than the other two, function more as a framework for the profession or as a way of governing the members of the organization.