A strong consensus exists on the importance of ethics in public management. While
an unadorned listing of the values and attributes may not seem like much help, it
aids not so much because it solves the problems, but identifies the checklist that
institutional design issues and mangers must attend to. Obviously the values will
come into conflict and require compromises (Dobeli98g). The existence of a values
checklist, however, provides rhetorical and moral leverage for administrators
throughout the world and legitimizes decisions, actions, and managerial strategies
that support them against more limited efficiency, self-interested or outcome driven
conceptions. The values inhere in a theory of personal responsibility where individuals
promise within an institutional context to give serious weight to the values.