abstract: One of the theoretical cores and values of good governance is the accountability of public employees, where the citizens expect the public employees to maintain professional standards, avoid conflicts of interest, respect the principles of fair and impartial treatment, and use public money wisely. However, are these unique moral standards to which only public employees are held? The dissertation seeks to examine how the public evaluates the unethical behaviors of public and private leaders differently to better understand the sources of public and private sector differences in the public’s normative evaluations. Based on a randomized online vignette experiment with 1,569 respondents residing in the United States collected in Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform, the dissertation confirms that public authorities face different levels of public tolerance relative to business managers. More specifically, the unethical behaviors of a public manager are less likely to be tolerated than the same misconduct of a business manager, while ethical offenses of elected officials are least likely to be tolerated by the public. However, the public is relatively much less tolerant of public managers’ and elected officials’ petty violations relative to business managers than they do for more egregious violations of public authorities. The dissertation further finds that public evaluations are contingent upon the respondents’ work experience in different sectors. Individuals working in government are more likely to be tolerant of petty unethical behaviors, regardless of whom they evaluate, but they become much less tolerant of public managers’ and elected officials’ grand ethical violations. The longer individuals work in for-profit organizations, the less likely they are to tolerate public authorities’ petty violations of organizational rules while consistently being more accepting of the unethical behaviors of business managers. Using an experimental design, the dissertation finds the importance of a fair and legitimate use of tax money in the public’s moral evaluations of public leadership and further discusses the potential sources of public skepticism of the public sector. Furthermore, the public and private sector comparison provides theoretical and practical implications for ethics reform in the era of collaborative governance. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Public Administration and Policy 2020

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att undersöka om en manipulation av mekanismerna moraliskt rättfärdigande, språklig omskrivning och förskjutning av ansvar, från Banduras (1999) teori om moraliskt frikopplande, påverkar bedömningen av oetiska beteenden. I studien användes en flerfaktoriell experimentell design. 195 försökspersoner fördelades slumpmässigt till åtta olika grupper (en kontrollgrupp och sju experimentgrupper). Försökspersonerna fick läsa texter om två oetiska beteenden, tortyr och mobbning. Åtta versioner av texterna användes, en utan manipulation av mekanismerna (kontrollbetingelse), tre versioner där respektive mekanism manipulerades enskilt, tre versioner där mekanismerna manipulerades i parvisa kombinationer och en sista version där alla tre mekanismerna manipulerades samtidigt. Försökspersonerna fick sedan bedöma hur acceptabla/oacceptabla beteendena var. Datan analyserades via två tre-vägs variansanalyser med bedömning av tortyr respektive mobbning som beroendevariabler.  Resultaten visar att en manipulation av mekanismen moraliskt rättfärdigande har en stark signifikant effekt på bedömningen av mobbning och en medelstark effekt på bedömningen av tortyr. Resultaten visar även att en manipulation av mekanismen förskjutning av ansvar har en signifikant men svag effekt på både bedömningen av tortyr och mobbning. Vad gäller mobbning bedömde deltagarna beteendet som mindre acceptabelt med manipulation än utan manipulation. Språklig omskrivning hade inte enskilt någon effekt vare sig i tortyr eller mobbningsbeteendet. Däremot uppvisades en signifikant interaktionseffekt mellan moraliskt frikopplande och språklig omskrivning vad gäller beteendet tortyr.  Resultaten visar att en manipulation av mekanismer för moraliskt frikopplande påverkar bedömningen av oetiskt beteende. / The purpose of the present study is to examine whether a manipulation of the mechanisms moral justification, euphemistic labeling and displacement of responsibility, from Banduras theory (1999) of moral disengagement, influences the assessment of unethical behavior. The study utilized a factorial experimental design. 195 participants were randomly assigned to eight different groups (one control group and seven experimental groups). The participants read a text about two unethical behaviors, torture and bullying. Eight versions of the texts were used, one without manipulation of any independent variable (control condition), three with manipulation on each mechanism, three with manipulation were made in pairs and the last version where all three mechanisms were manipulated toghether. The participants then got to determine whether the the behavoir is accepteble or unacceptable. The data were analyzed via Anova with assessment of torture and bullying as dependent variables. The result show that a manipulation of the mechanism of moral justification has a strong significant effect on the assessment of bullying and a medium effect on the assessment of torture. The result also show that a manipulation of the mechanism displacement of responsibility has a significant but weak effect on both the assessment of torture and bullying. Regarding bullying, participants rated the behavior as less acceptable with manipulation than without manipulation. Euphemistic labeling alone had no effect on eighter torture or bullying. However a significant interaction effect was found between moral justification and euphemistic labeling regarding to the behavior of torture.