Political Competence, Corporate Citizens, Laws & Regulations

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Please see response attached for active links, as well as two supporting articles. I hope this helps and take care.

SAME AS ATTACHED RESPONSE (POSTING 58315.DOC):

1. In general terms, what knowledge, skills, and individual behaviors must an executive have to be politically competent and to be good corporate citizens?

A. Senior Executives: Political Competence

I attached an excellent article (Source: URL: http://www1.oecd.org/puma/ethics/symposium/uhr.htm (see political competence). It addresses the difference between personal competence (i.e., personal ethical responsibility, personal integrity, accountability, etc.) and political competence:

1. Political ethical responsibility,
2. Interest in corporate goals,
3. Responsibility to act in the public interest versus personal or organizations interest,
4. Conduct behavior according to the standards that stand up to public scrutiny, advise on and protect the public interest, public trust and credibility, etc.). Since United States is one of the OECD countries of which the article addresses, this information is relevant to US as well. Let's look a little closer at the knowledge and skills associated with political competence. However, political competence demands a strong commitment of ethical competence at the personal level of competence, as well.

However, there is no consensus on the actual meanly of political competence. OECD countries, including United States, often adopt a "core values" approach to public sector ethics. The old world autocratic management style of extensive and cumbersome regulation of prescribed forms of conduct is being replaced with a new world of principles-based declarations of "core values" expected of public servants (i.e., Codes of Ethics). One of the main challenges to the reliance on "core values" is the debate and uncertainty over the political character of public sector ethics. This author has argued that the distinctive competence of public sector managers (i.e., including senior executives) is not simply their personal probity or ethical integrity, since these valuable qualities are just as much in demand in successful private organizations where misplaced private interest can get in the way of wider corporate goals. Private organizations are as much in need of public trust and credibility as are public organizations. Senior executives, therefore, must have a broad knowledge base of the societal standards and public interests, in addition to personal integrity.

In other words, senior executives rely on the principles of a Code of Ethics ("core values"), but political competence goes beyond personal integrity. The really distinctive quality of public sector senior executives derives from their special political task and official responsibility to act "in the public interest" (e.g. good corporate governance). Thus, the distinctive qualities expected of public service decision-making and official conduct reflect what has traditionally been called "the merit system" originally designed to cultivate an ethos of merits-based consideration of decisions and conduct supportive of the public interest. Managers, such as senior executives, are expected to conduct themselves strictly according to standards, which can survive the closest public scrutiny, by those political, administrative and judicial bodies responsible for ensuring that public administrators resist undue private interests in favor of the wider public interest. This responsibility of senior executives to advise on and protect the public interest highlights a distinctive political competence, which might prove difficult to capture in the emerging world of "core values" (refer to attached article for more details). Senior executives, therefore, must have a broad knowledge base of the societal standards and public interests. According to this article, they must embrace ambiguity, be flexible, and have relationship competence. They must be able to place public interest over and above their own interests.

Another article discusses ethics infrastructures and how political commitment of senior executives is considered to be the cornerstone of the ethics infrastructure (see http://www1.oecd.org/puma/ethics/pubs/eip96/op14.pdf for full article).

Clearly, personal competence and skills overlap with political ...