Content area
Full Text
The searing media indictments of business executives for a wide range of improprieties, if not out-and-out crimes, tend to put their public relations colleagues in the hot seat. Almost invariably, when an organization's individual or collective behavior is called into question, its public relations staff is summoned to fight the fire.
By the same token, business has been increasingly looking to communications professionals to help explain, if not make, the ethical rules of the game.
It's arguable that every question of business ethics that comes to light in the press is a public relations issue, since the organization's reputation is at stake. So in a large sense, every business scandal involves the public relations field and its practitioners. Even closer to home, there is the question of appropriate conduct of public relations as a business and the appropriate practice of public relations in organizations of all kinds, including for-profit corporations, the military, non-profit groups and even charities.
The bashing that public relations frequently gets in the media is also of great concern to professionals. A "critical look at the reputation of public relations" shows that "much of its negative visibility relates to perceptions about our ethical standards," stated Davis Young, Fellow, PRSA, president and CEO of Edward Howard & Co., Cleveland (see May 1993, Page 32). He chairs the Public Relations Committee for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
How to address ethical issues, detect and police inappropriate conduct, and instill ethical attitudes among people in work settings have been topics of much research and debate over the years. This article is designed to point out some of the ethical issues in public relations, report on some recent research in the field, and suggest possible future actions in the area of ethics.
Burning ethical questions in public relations include:
* Discrimination, including sexual harassment (see article, page 26);
* Misinformation or dissemination of misleading information;
* Propaganda vs. the public's right to know;
* Profiting from inside information;
* Misuse of funds;
* Avoiding corporate responsibility for unsafe products or those which can harm consumers;
* Destruction of natural resources or pollution.
These are some of the ethical issues being addressed in a survey of PRSA members being conducted at Ball State University...