PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Alarming grand corruption incidences and ethical misconducts in the public sector have brought to the fore the importance of administrative ethics management in Malaysia. This exploratory study uses summative content analysis of official national data sets and relevant textual materials to describe the strategies that have been implemented in managing administrative ethics to address ethical misconducts. Findings show that despite Barisan National (BN) administrations’ consistent efforts at strengthening administrative ethics management, corruption and ethical misconducts have prevailed in the public sector. Hence the current Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration has revised existing anti-corruption laws, and instituted political and institutional reforms. Issues and concerns identified that affect administrative ethics management include political influence, public sector’s size, different layers of government, various codes of ethics, fusion of secular and religious values, and stringency of enforcement. Based on the aforementioned findings, the following recommendations are advanced. First, stakeholders have to actively scrutinize and participate in enforcement efforts. Second, workable and effective ethics management strategies must also be formulated based on a future comprehensive study addressing the lack of fit between existing public sector’s ethics codes with religious values, organizational and social cultures and practices in Malaysia.