Administrative Ethics and Executive Decisions: Channeling and Containing Administrative Discretion

As first responders to public problems, administrators must survey situations, identify solutions, and occasionally make executive decisions that are binding upon the government as a whole. The ability for administrators to assert claims that orient the government in a particular direction is not only powerful, but it can also be problematic and even dangerous.

For administrators, the tension between moving in a spirited way, and remaining sensible, is a problem of how to exercise one’s disc...