ABSTRACT
I have said that the ethics of social work administration is a function of the purposes served by social organizations; of the relationships in and of social organizations which are associated with those purposes; of the responsibilities of organization personnel—both paid and volunteer—which are related to those purposes; and of the societal, organizational, and occupational norms and expectations by which evaluations of both organizations and their personnel are guided. Robert Presthus conceives of organizations in terms quite compatible with this conception of administrative ethics in social organizations, for he defines them as “‘miniature societies’ in which the dominant values of society are inculcated and sought in a more structured, spatially restricted context” (1962, p. vii). Presthus, in his book, discusses “the influence of social values and bureacratic structure upon members of the big organizations that pervade our society,” and “the patterns of individual accommodations that occur in the bureaucratic milieu” (p. 3). Naturally enough, Presthus emphasizes the pervasive influence that contemporary organizations have on individual and group behavior, especially through the use of rewards, sanctions, and other inducements. However, ethics may be viewed as a means of coping with organizational influences and inducements as well as a means of accommodating them.
