Conference Agenda

Corruption and wrongdoing in the public sector constitute substantial problems. Whistleblowers face uncertainty regarding negative consequences from reporting. Online reporting channels have been developed, often spurred by the Whistleblowing Directive of the European Union (2019/1937). Implementing organisations need to signal trustworthiness of these websites. Based on the literature on communicating trustworthiness online, first, a framework for website analysis is developed. Second, an empirical illustration benchmarks the websites of 24 Austrian public sector organisations from four different areas. Practitioners interested in designing whistleblowing channels on organisational websites can draw on the factors as inspiration or compare and benc hmark their existing website with those from other organisations. The research provides a stepping stone on the path to build and implement better systems to address the significant problem of corruption in the public sector.

The revolving door phenomenon has been subject to extensive political and media attention in Finland throughout the 2010s (similar interest towards revolving doors by the US media has been discussed by e.g. Vidal et al., 2012). The attention has stemmed from some high-profile cases during the 2010s, where ministers and political aides transitioned directly from serving the government to the private sector and lobbyist organisations (see e.g. Koski 2018; Tolpo et al. 2023). The media attention is thus attributable to the potential conflicts-of-interest related to revolving doors, as a revolving person may in their new office 1) support and advance policies and decisions that are beneficial for their future career aspects, 2) use their previous experience and connections to support their current employer, or 3) promote their status by referring to their previous work in the public sector (Demmke et al., 2020, 123). Revolving doors are thus characterised by a “conflict between the public duty and private interests of public officials” (OECD, 2003).

The ministerial aides’ and public officials’ career moves are lightly regulated. As of August 2024, the only regulation related their prior employment is the requirement to report their involvement in business, or in the boards of businesses or associations, along with other financial liabilities, before their appointment to a public office (Section 8a of the Act on Public Officials in Central Government 750/1994; apart for the possible security clearance needed for high-ranking posts). Respectively, the post-public office employment of political aides is regulated by temporary 6-to-12-month cooling-off periods, where restrictions are placed on their employment outside the public sector after their office (Section 44a of the Act on Public Officials in Central Government 750/1994). In the case of the highest-ranking political aides of the Finnish government, the state secretaries, such cooling-off periods are 6 months long, which may not be enough to fend off conflicts-of-interest (GRECO 2023, p. 7).

Arguably, as the employment is not of official interest, media scrutiny of career moves plays an important role in uncovering potential conflicts-of-interest. If the media is active in its scrutiny, the potential of media coverage of conflicts-of-interest may also in itself act as a fending-off accountability mechanism, where potential negative publicity guides towards behaviour that cannot be seen to present a conflict-of-interest (c.f. Jacobs & Schillemans, 2015; Schillemans, 2008).

Thus, this paper investigates the attention paid by the media on the careers and employment changes of the highest-ranking political aides in the service of the Finnish centre-of-government, the state secretaries. State secretaries are politically appointed civil servants chosen by each minister as their closest political aide. They act as ministries’ leading civil servants under the minister’s purview, alongside the non-politically appointed permanent secretaries responsible for the day-to-day leadership (Backman, 2021; Pietarinen et al., 2015; VNK, 2023). Their tasks include the coordination of policy drafting within and between ministries, and they can also act as substitutes for the minister in certain meetings. (Government Proposal 42/2004; VNK, 2023). Thus, the state secretaries wield significant power in leading and coordinating policy drafting and preparatory work in ministries.

While our prior review of Finnish state secretaries’ professional backgrounds indicated that changes in the employment of previous or current political aides may be reported by the media (Niskanen & Autioniemi, in review), the extent, style or focus of this reporting has not previously been examined. In addition, considering the person-focused nature of media reporting of political scandals in the Nordics (Pollack et al., 2018), it is also of interest to investigate, whether the media merely reports on politicians’ professional backgrounds (a person-oriented focus), or if the potential effects of the politicians’ backgrounds on policies are also analysed, or if the professional background is analysed in (a structure-oriented focus). This informs three research questions:

Does the media report on the state secretaries’ career changes?

Is the reporting speculative of a potential conflict of interest, or is evidence of a potential conflict of interest presented?

Is the reporting neutral, negative or positive in tone?

Is the reporting at the individual level (a person-oriented focus) or is the reporting related to a broader phenomenon (a structure-oriented focus)?

The material consists of media articles published in major Finnish newspapers and news websites since the institution of the state secretary system in 2003. The material was gathered by searching news outlets’ online sites, and by searching the National Library of Finland’s collection of digitized newspapers.

We begin this paper by summarising prior research on revolving doors. Following this, we consider prior research on the role of the media in scrutinizing potential conflicts-of-interest. After this, the paper proceeds with a description of the methodology and the results. We end by discussing the implications of the results for conflict-of-interest policies directed towards political entourages and knowledge of the media in conflict-of-interest scrutiny. By this, the aim of this research is to contribute to the literature on media as an accountability-inducing actor, along with the non-regulative governance of conflicts-of-interest of high-ranking politicians and public officials.

Standards of ethical conduct are at the very heart of government’s effective functioning while serving the public interest. A body of theoretical and empirical literature points out the positive influence of moral values in fostering employee’s commitment toward institutional mission, work engagement, and performances of civil servants. However, the ethical side of the subject remains still neglected.

The research, carried out by the Italian National School of Administration, explored what public employees know and feel about whistleblowing procedures and safeguards in the frame of the Italian anti-corruption law. In detail, we tried to understand to what extent employees’ perception of whistleblowing rules are connected to a set of items pondering the influence of ethical values emerging from the adherence of interviewees to public service motivation (PSM), organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and group mentality, situational and organizational constraints and/or resources to support whistleblowing. To validate the theory applied, quantitative measures have been performed using sets of items that are recognized as robust, also in comparative perspective, in the field of public administration studies. The data we collected resulted coherent and reliable (as shown by the very high values in the alpha test of Cronbach).

The theoretical model predicted that higher levels of PSM, and OCB drive a work mentality that supports reporting instances of reprehensible, or morally questionable conduct that public employees might witness. Our findings show that the construct holds empirically as well. Results show also that training on anticorruption matters may play a relevant role in deepening employees personal and collective awareness on the ethical dimension (including factual constraints) implied by working in public organizations.

Finally, we shall identify two domains in which progress should be made in order to enrich and enlarge not only the validity of our theoretical claims, but the applicability of our findings as well. First of all, from a methodological point of view, our quantitative approach should be corroborated with more in-depth qualitative studies that will enhance the validity of results extending their scope with further contextualization. Second, taking this context-specificity into account, we should be able to encourage the training programs on anti-corruption focusing on what actually occurs within public organizations when rules and standards of ethical conduct face actual implementation.