Trust, good governance and unethical actions in Finnish public administration

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study and contribute to the discussion of administrative ethics and integrity by investigating three ethical issues, namely trust, good governance and unethical actions in the Finnish public administration. Design/methodology/approach The evidence of this research is based on empirical data from a National Citizen Survey implemented in 2008 by the University of Vaasa. The questionnaire was sent to 5,000 Finnish citizens and the response rate was 40.4 percent. Findings The strength of the Finnish society concerning trust is that the citizens feel confident in public sector organizations and societal institutions. Even though serious corruption cases have remained few in Finland, there is still work to do in order to keep the situation under control. Ignorant and bad treatment of citizens occurs mostly in individual service encounters, it does not reflect the whole of the ethics of administration. Research limitations/implications Further research is needed in order to investigate the societal background factors that can explain the different findings from the research questions. Also further research is required for comparing the results of different countries. Practical implications Strengths and weaknesses are identified as a tool for further research and for the work for practitioners. Originality/value The core contribution of the paper is a contribution to knowledge concerning citizens' perceptions of trust, good governance and unethical actions in an egalitarian society.