ABSTRACT
The Ten Commandments in Judeo-Christian belief or the Eight-fold Path in Buddhism reflect examples of religious standards of conduct, but the term has relevance in a variety of other contexts as well. From the viewpoint of public administration, a standard of conduct presumes a public manager behaves according to a defined role with an accompanying set of responsibilities. Standards of conduct provide the basis for how an administrator should act in fulfilling these responsibilities. It prescribes ethical guidelines for how one is to behave in fulfilling these objective responsibilities. Sometimes internal standards of conduct are congruent with external standards of conduct. As an illustration, from a personal and professional perspective a city manager may consider honesty to be a core value. However, the variety of authorities that the public manager must serve in fulfilling both kinds of responsibilities can lead to ethical dilemmas involving contending standards of conduct.
