Date

3-10-2026

Department

Helms School of Government

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Public Administration (PhD)

Chair

Mecca Carter-Marshall

Keywords

local government, servant leadership, ethical codes

Disciplines

Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Abstract

This study empirically examined the association between the adoption of ethical codes and servant leadership in local government organizations. Analyzing survey data from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) from 2012-2018, along with the U.S. Census Bureau’s Community Engagement and Volunteering Supplement (CEVS) to the 2021 Current Population Survey (CPS), this study explored how the associations between adoption, scope, and enforcement mechanism of ethical codes impacted seven categories of servant leadership: relationships with elected officials, policy collaboration, information exchange, innovation, performance effectiveness, service delivery, and public/community engagement. This study also explored the relationship between ethics training and these seven dimensions of servant leadership. Although evidence suggests that compliance-based ethics infrastructure such as ethical code adoption and a broadly-applying ethical code scope is associated with servant leadership, integrity-based ethics initiatives, namely a robust, continuous ethics training program, shows the strongest association with servant leadership outcomes in local government.

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