Los Angeles World Airports/Ontario Ethics Program
Survey Questionnaire: Interim Report
MPA 600 Class
Dr. Sandra M. Emerson
November 2007
Executive Summary
The Masters in Public Administration program at California State Polytechnic University- Pomona in cooperation with the Los Angeles/Ontario Airport developed an instrument in Fall 2008 to be used to assess the airport’s 2007 ethics training effort.
As part of this effort, Dr. Bennett Monye provided ethics training to MPA 600 class members and augmented this training with a discussion of the role ethics plays in organizations. Based on class texts and the ethics training experience the students developed questions for each of the six topic areas in the ethics training: honesty, integrity, collaboration and respect, citizenship, public trust and responsibility. These questions were supplemented with demographic questions about respondents and reflective questions regarding the ethics training experience. The draft instrument was pre-tested by 75 persons recruited by the MPA 600 class members.
An analysis of the data produced from these 75 questionnaires indicated that 19 of the 22 questions were viable as drafted and 3 questions needed to be edited for greater clarity and validity. No changes were made to the training experience questions and more specificity was added to the demographic questions regarding the respondent’s ethnicity and education.
Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the pre-test sample a draft instrument for use by LA/Ontario is provided in Appendix A.
We thank the LA/Ontario airport staff for their support in the design and development of this instrument.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 1
Introduction 3
Program Description 3
Assessment Design 4
Honesty 5
Analysis of Honest Question 5
Conclusions 6
Citizenship 6
Analysis 7
Conclusion 8
Respect and Collaboration 9
Analysis 10
Conclusions 11
Public Trust 11
Analysis 13
Question 21 15
Conclusion 15
Integrity 15
Analysis 16
Conclusions 17
Responsibility 17
Analysis 18
Conclusions 19
Training Questions 19
Demographic Questions 21
Sum of All Scores 21
Conclusions and Recommendations 23
References 24
Appendix A
Revised Draft Employee Survey 25
Introduction (Garrica andJohn Bosco)
This project sought to develop an instrument to assess the ethics training program at LA/Ontario Airport. The project operates under a Letter of Understanding between the LA/Ontario Airport and the MPA program at Cal Poly Pomona.
Ethics programs are designed to improve employee conduct and enhance the public’s trust. Employee moral and conduct is vital to building trustworthiness in an organization. Employee conduct has consequences for how the organization is judged by the public.
“The disapproval or approval of [employee] conduct is concurrently an indirect judgment of the organization. Dysfunctional conduct of one employee may damage the trustworthiness of the whole organization. It is necessary for the organization to take care that personnel properly carry out their responsibilities,” (Kaptein 1998)[1].
In support of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Executive Directive, LA/Ontario Airport implemented ethics awareness training for all employees in order to develop and assure ethical behavior throughout the organization. The purpose of the ethics awareness training was to:
· aid employees in fulfilling their duties effectively and efficiently,
· assure employees were knowledgeable about the Airport’s mission, vision and goals.
· educate the employees on how to apply ethical standards to decisions and actions.
The ethics training program focused on six core values: honesty, integrity, responsibility, public trust, citizenship, respect and collaboration.
Program Description
Working in collaboration with Dr. Monye, the Master of Public Administration students from the CSU- Pomona participated in a two-hour training session. The training was held at Ontario Airport on Saturday October 6, 2007. During the session students were informed on LAWA's vision, mission, and target population. Dr. Monye provided a brief overview and history of the organization.
The MPA students participated in the training that was similar to the training provided by Dr. Monye to LA/Ontario employees. During the training session a packet of materials was distributed which included an ethics map and a variety of cards outlining cases in ethics. The program begun with a brief introductory film provided by LAWA.The film indicated that employees are expected to be aware of ethics as an operational principle and as a cultural norm at the Airport. The film illustrated how employees might apply ethical standards in the execution of job responsibilities, such as honest and open communications among airport personnel and the traveling community.The training curriculum sought to inform employees of the rules and standards of behavior needed to be successful on the job. The session participants were split into small groups and issues such as diversity, conflicts of interest, internet policy, environment concerns, health and safety, harassment, and record retention were discussed.
Using the ethics map and cards that described ethical dilemmas, students used critical thinking to apply standards to scenarios on responsibility, public trust, and citizenship. Students were given time to brainstorm ideas and discuss differences as they worked toward a resolution. For example, participants eliminated what they would “not do,” to make the multiple choice options easier to sort through. However, in the end students realized that deciding what to do was not always black or white and that differing opinions would emerge depending on the circumstances. The class examined a challenge case which involved examining several ethical concerns simultaneously. MPA students applied a critical thinking approach to cases concerning integrity, collaboration, and honesty on the following Saturday.
Through the training students became aware of ethics as an operational principle, a cultural norm and as a standard of behavior in the execution of job responsibilities.
Assessment Design
The MPA students proceeded to address each of the topic areas and develop appropriate questions. Putting together employee survey questions, the students looked at problems confronting the organization and the needs of managers and staff to address ethical norms.
The class was divided into three groups. Each group had two core values to address. Each group developed a number of questions and these draft questions were compiled into a single Employee Survey. Each student then surveyed four employees from their respective organization. The questions were then pre- tested to see if they were internally valid (p. < 0.05) and unbiased.
The volunteer reviewers of the original survey were informed of the purpose of the questionnaire which was to test employees’ attitudes toward ethics training, assess a person’s understanding of ethics and validate the survey questions regarding the six ethical values outlined in the training. Reviewers were advised that the confidentiality of their responses would be protected. Students entered the information from each of the surveys on a spreadsheet for review and analysis by the class. No personal information about respondents was noted on the spreadsheet and surveys were destroyed and discarded after data was entered on the electronic file.
Honesty (Amy, Hatti, Inge)
The survey research seeks to test whether the training was effective in increasing employee awareness and understanding of what constitutes ethical conduct, both within and outside of the organization. In order to test the validity of the research instrument a group of participants were asked to respond to questions regarding honesty.
The instrument used was a Likert Scale survey questionnaire format that consisted of three closed-ended questions, each having four possible options. Seventy-five respondents were selected to participate in pre-testing the survey. The honesty questions were:
16: You are responsible for monitoring the company’s telephone bill. You notice that a supervisor has made numerous telephone calls to the same long distance number. What do you do? (a) say nothing (b) tell the manager that supervises the person (c) approach the supervisor and express your concern (PHONEBILL)
17: During work hours, you witness a heated conversation between two co-workers; one of them is a good friend. Would you: (a) talk to your friend (b) report the incident to the supervisor (c) explain what you observed, if asked (d) act as if nothing happened and not mention it to anyone (OBSDISPUTE)
10: In our communication, there is a gap between what we say and what we do? (a) strongly agree (b) agree (c) disagree (d) strongly disagree (GAPNEW)
The responses to the Likert question were coded: 4= strongly disagree; 3= disagree; 2= agree; 1= strongly agree.
Analysis of Honesty Questions
All honesty questions show variation in the response choices. The medians for these variables were phonebill (3), obsdispute (4), and gapnew (3). Crosstabs were used to test for significant relationships among the questions. Phonebill/gapnew showed a statistically significant relationship, 0.003, indicating that the relationship is not random. Obsdispute/gapnew on the other hand had an insignificant Chi square relationship, 0.336.
Kendall’s (test of proportional reduction in error) was used to test the strength of the relationship. All results showed moderate to strong relationships: phonebill/gapnew with Kendall’s tau c as 0.258 and obsdispute/gapnew with Kendall’s B at 0.306. This suggests there is internal consistency among these questions.
To measure the respondents’ overall view of honesty the questions were compiled to create a new dependent variable, sumhonesty. Sumhonesty was used to measure the relationship between the independent variables age, gender, ethnicity, supervisory experience, education, and years in organization. To properly measure these results, T-tests were used on gender and supervise; ANOVA was used to test bias based on age, ethnicity, education, and years in organization.
The results of the t-tests indicated that gender (0.513), education (0.581), years (0.749), and supervise (0.614) were not statistically significant and not factors that appear to have effected the response. Age (0.036) and race (0.047) were statistically significant and showed to affect the response to the questions.
Conclusions
Age and race attributes may have bias but the limited number of persons in the sample may account for statistical significance. The survey questions for the honesty portion, questions 11, 17, and 18, show validity as a test instrument and should be retained.
Citizenship (Gabriel and Betty)
To assess the ethical values of “Citizenship,” the group members (MPA students) discussed different ways to measure an understanding of the concepts of (a) modeling behavior both inside and outside of the organization (being part of the larger community) and (b) modeling congruency between the stated value of support toward sustainability/ ecological health and perceptions/actions within the organization as defined by the LAWA definition of this value.
LAWA’s Statements with Regard to Citizenship
§ We model and develop good citizenship with our communities and uphold all laws and regulations
§ We support the greening of our organization and the ecological health of our region by committing our resources toward the sustainability of current and future generations.
§ We actively participate in our neighborhoods as employees and residents.
§ We recognize we represent the organization and the governing jurisdiction at all times.
As a result the following questions were developed:
Question 11:
My organization commits its resources to the ecological health and sustainability of our region. (Variable: ECOHEALTH)
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Disagree
d. Strongly Disagree
Question 18:
You witness an employee throwing away non-recyclable items in the bin labeled for recycling. What do you do? (Variable: RECYCLE)
a) Do nothing. It does not concern you.
b) Report the employee to a supervisor or manager.
c) Ask management to develop a training program on recycling.
d) After the person leaves, go over and take the items out and throw them away properly.
e) Talk to the employee and explain the recycling program.
Question 19:
You are told by an employee about a MySpace website entry. You find it is posted by an employee in your organization to complain about working conditions and management. What do you do? (Variable: MYSPACE)
a. Contact the employee and recommend he/she remove it.
b. Tell your supervisor about the website.
c. Report the website to Human Resources.
d. Tell other employees about it and see what they think should be done.
Question 20:
Your organization sends volunteers annually to help with cleaning up a nearby beach. You notice several employees from your organization smoking and throwing cigarette butts into the sand while taking a break. What do you do? (Variable: VOLUNTEER)
a. Go over and ask these volunteers not to throw the cigarette butts in the sand.
b. Talk to the Volunteer Coordinator about the incident.
c. Tell your supervisor when you return to work.
d. Don’t do anything to draw attention to it.
The group debated the range of appropriate answers, trying to offer a balanced choice of alternatives that would test assertive action, non-action, and options lying in between. We considered to the following to be an appropriate range of action choices:
§ To take a positive action that required remediation in addressing the issue
§ Notification to a higher authority, either supervisor or equivalent. This involved participation to remediate, but alleviated the pressure to be assertive or risk some level of confrontation.
§ On the opposing side, we developed an answer that would involve no action. This indicated avoidance of taking responsibility.
§ Some questions included a fourth or fifth answer, probing further into choices that lie in the “gray” area, indicating level of comfort with various methods of taking initiative and/or responsibility for a situation.
Analysis
The sample survey results were tested to find design flaws in the following manner:
Frequency Analysis-Testing for Variation
To validate that the questions did not produce answers that were skewed for any one answer, a frequency analysis was conducted. The response data showed adequate variability in the responses that were dispersed.
Question 11 (ECOHEALTH) displayed a frequency with the answers of Agree (n=31) and Disagree (n=27). The answers reflect the respondent’s perception of their particular organization and may indicate very disparate organizational cultures or this question may rely on “perception” too broadly. Perhaps the phrase “commits it resources” is influencing the way the question can be answered. The intent of the question seems valid: to gauge whether the organization is standing behind its stated commitment to the environment. This question may still be of value in reading the verbal/non-verbal messages that the respondent receives within the organization.