Purpose This article aims to explain why and how ethics in public organizations become necessarily morally plural under conditions of external legitimacy pressure and ongoing organizational change. Rather than framing moral plurality as a normative problem or individual shortcoming, the article develops an organizational and process-oriented explanation of how professionals interpret, mobilize and legitimate different ethical logics in practice. By integrating institutional theory and social complexity perspectives, it shows how moral meaning emerges through four organizational mechanisms that structure professional action under legitimacy pressure. Design/methodology/approach This article is a conceptual–explanatory synthesis grounded in existing empirical research on organizational change. It does not present new primary data. Instead, it develops an analytical framework in which institutional theory and social complexity theory function as interpretive lenses through which prior empirical findings are re-examined. Four organizational mechanisms are constructed as analytical devices to interpret patterned dynamics in professional action under conditions of legitimacy pressure. The approach is interpretive and pattern-explanatory. Findings The findings show that ethics in public organizations takes shape as a situational and plural practice rather than as a coherent normative system. External legitimacy pressures are processed through recurring organizational mechanisms (organized hypocrisy, decoupling, institutional layering, and particularization), which jointly structure professional action. These mechanisms enable internal workability while simultaneously producing moral plurality. Professionals navigate this plurality by situationally activating different ethical repertoires depending on context, organizational level and accountability arena. Moral judgments therefore emerge dynamically in interaction, particularly during ongoing change processes. Research limitations/implications This article is conceptual and explanatory in nature and does not involve primary empirical data collection. The proposed framework is developed through the integration of theory and existing empirical research and is not intended to be statistically generalizable. Future research could empirically examine how professionals enact and reflect on ethical navigation practices over time, and how organizational conditions shape the activation of ethical repertoires across different public sector contexts. Practical implications Ethics in public organizations cannot be effectively addressed through uniform values, codes, or compliance frameworks alone. Ethical challenges arise from structural conditions of legitimacy pressure and continuous change, requiring organizational spaces for reflection, dialogue and sensemaking. Managers and change agents may benefit from recognizing moral plurality as a normal feature of professional practice and from facilitating conversations that support professionals in articulating, negotiating, and legitimating moral judgments in situ. Social implications Moral plurality in public organizations has broader societal implications for democratic legitimacy and public trust. Professional judgments made under legitimacy pressure shape how public values are enacted in practice. Conceptualizing ethics as a situated and relational practice helps explain why public decisions may appear inconsistent while remaining socially defensible. Making moral navigation more visible can contribute to more transparent accountability and a more nuanced public understanding of governance in complex institutional contexts. Originality/value This article conceptualizes ethics in public organizations as a navigational practice rather than a stable normative framework. By integrating institutional theory and social complexity perspectives, it provides an organizational explanation for moral plurality under conditions of external legitimacy pressure and ongoing change. The study shifts attention from individual moral deficits to structural and processual dynamics and introduces a heuristic matrix that connects organizational mechanisms to the situational activation of ethical repertoires.
M. Kieft (Wed,) studied this question.