Is ethics determined by sector?

A recent survey shows that 73% of respondents say that practitioners lie in course of their work. Only 38% say that PR is fundamentally honest, 27% disagree with this while there is 35% that are not sure. What is disheartening, is that this survey was conducted among PR practitioners.

There may be defining moments when the ethics of the profession have been questioned, but also true that the majority practice with honesty and try to be fair to both the organization they represent and to their 'external' audiences. Making consistent ethical decisions where cultures and values clash or vary is difficult. Where do you draw the line in terms of being loyal to your employer at the same time living with conscience?


To promote or not to promote?
PR Week featured an article that sought to collect views from different PR professions on how they felt about promoting some products. The tobacco industry has faced the most critism. How do you promote tobacco when the highly risky health issues are a reality? Well, the sector may well be legally regulated and allowed to sell, they employ thousands of people and contribute to the various economies. But is it worth the lives lost? The debate about how the only way to be ethical is to work in charity or voluntary sector, makes one wonder if the ability to be ethical lies within the type of sector one works for. Working in charity may help lower the chances of being unethical because of the nature of work involved. Established for the benefit of social good, we may assume that there is no reason to be unethical. But again, it also depends on the practitioners and what we define as right and wrong and on whose interest we are serving.

The ethical guidelines set by CIPR , PRSA, PRSK and other professional bodies all over seem to be experiencing problems about enforcement. The fact that there is the law and sometimes what is law may not necessarily be ethical doesn't help matters much. The onus is left to the practitioner to decide about what is considered ethical as per the company policy and the codes of conduct outlined by the professional bodies albeit their minimal clarity.

Am sure most practitioners are faced with the dilemma of defining what is ethical or morally upright given different scenarios and have to make decisions about what is best for the larger majority. It is arguable that utilitarianism is the most common approach to ethical decision making in business, because it takes into account the expected outcome when deciding on what is the right thing to do. However, we cannot always accurately predict future consequences (Cutlip et al. p.120)


References
Cutlip, S., et al. (2006), Effective Public Relations (9th ed.), New Jersey, Prentice Hall

PRWeek(2010), Professional ethics: should you promote these products? http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/983049/Professional-ethics-promote-products/ [Accessed 25/02/10]

PRWeek(2010), PR professionals believe 'spin' is entrenched in industry, survey shows.
http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/search/981450/PR-professionals-believe-spin-entrenched-industry-survey-shows/ [accessed 25/02/2010]

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It's a Crisis!!! Where is the PR Executive?

Most PR practitioners will attest to the fact that the hardest and most challenging time for an organization is when faced with an external crisis. Whether or not it's an act of God, the pressure is always at its worst for any CEO and more so for PRs. Danny Rogers : How PR Executives become the story, raises some interesting points about companies in a crisis. He observes that there is a growing trend of "Campbell-isation", where the PR speaks on behalf of the company whereas in the past they have always been the "hidden persuaders".

At the time of writing this post, Toyota is the most talked about crisis. Fresh in everybody's mind it seems to be the worst crisis in history...or is it? We'll probably wait and see how long it will take them to regain back their reputation, if ever. Not forgeting Corporations like Nestle that has faced reputational issues year after year...

PR Executives grapple all the time with issues that could potentially redefine the reputation of an organization. They confront a fundamental probability that they could control events in order to contain potential crisis or safeguard reputation.

While some believe that careful planning and developing message strategies can mitigate the long-term effects to organizations, the reality is quite different. Crisis prevention and response may be addressed by accurately featuring the difficulties of complexity, uncertainty and control. Unforeseen events, confusion and immediate inadequate/missing information constitute the reality of crisis and therefore demands focused flexibility in planning and responding.

References
PRWeek(2010), Danny Rogers: How PR Executives become the story.
http://prweek.com/uk/news/search/983034/Danny-Rogers-PR-executives-become-story/

BBC Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk

Understanding cultures towards Global PR

“The body language of Russians and Americans are different. Russians stand closer than Americans. They look directly and unwaveringly into your eyes. Russians are long winded. Americans are short and to the point. Russians think that giving a short answer is impolite, as if they had not given the matter enough consideration. Americans think a long answer is impolite, as if they are boring the other person and wasting their time.” Lynn Vission - Wedded Strangers

The overall debate about whether good PR is always context and culture specific, makes me put my own country into context with a huge ethnic diversity, 42 ethnic groups, all with their own different cultures. Literally. This poses a special challenge when one has to operate across the ethnic boundaries and when you work for government, that's a hurdle you have to tackle. Language barrier stands strong because while Swahili is the national language, English is the official language therefore any communication has to be in these two languages. Tricky when a third of the population understands neither and translators are necessary...

And having just found out that the Kenyan Society is a feminine, collectivist, high-power-distance society (Hofstede, 2005), it is evident why we hold people in authority with high regard. Bosses are bosses, and bypassing a superior is insubordination!

Impact of cultural differences
PR professionals must deal with multiple ethnic groups with different cultures. You are likely to work with Chinese, English, Japanese and all sorts of other nationalities with a variety of cultures including how they look at things; how they dress and; how they express personality. These differences can actually cause problems intepreting what the other person means.

You can imagine how difficult interaction between high context and low context people is; the British can feel that Kenyans insult their intelligence by explaining the obvious, while Kenyans can feel that British managers provide no direction. This would be the same scenario when dealing with different countries on a global level.

So is the idea of Global PR an anathema?
Most MNEs and NGO would understand the complication cultural barriers may present. Am not shying away from the fact that Global PR is possibly practical, that is, as long as it takes cultural values into consideration. The world is a 'global village' thanks to the uprise in technology especially the internet. We are able to penetrate areas that would have otherwise been beyond our reach. That is why we are now aware of the Japanese Bow and what it means in terms of levels of apology.

Using people with a knowledge of a specific culture is a good practice but it is important to go ahead and learn different cultures to make communication easier and more efficient. Sriramesh and Vercic indicate that culture is yet to be intergrated into PR despite its importance to human communication and relationship building. We still have some work to do.


References
Hofstede, G. and Hofstede G.J.,(2005), Cultures and Organizations: software of the mind, McGraw-Hill, New York.

Sriramesh, K., Vercic, D. (2009), The global public relations handbook: theory, research and practice, [online], London: Routledge. Available from Dawsonera [Accessed 4 February 2010]