Global ethics?

In my piece, Are Ethics Good Business? I highlighted research that suggested PR practitioners saw themselves as more ethical than the clients or organisations that employed them

Here's an update based on responses from Blog Week visitors:

In the original survey, conducted in the North East of England, I got this response
Some would say ethics is good business. Would you personally…agree strongly (47pc) agree (49pc) no opinion (2pc) disagree (2pc) disagree strongly (0pc)

How about your clients/ internal contacts? Would they mostly
agree strongly (17pc) agree (68pc) no opinion (12pc) disagree (2pc) disagree strongly (0pc)

So the majority of PRs ‘agree strongly’ but say their clients, or their in house colleague would only ‘agree’. The survey of Global PR Blog Week visitors shows a similar trend with 68pc of practitioners agreeing strongly, compared to a perception that only 20pc of clients would agree strongly.

I also noted an interesting difference appeared to arise when I asked English practitioners
My prime ethical loyalty is to:
no-one (0pc ) me (41pc) organisation (34pc) client (5pc) society (20pc)

I think this is a key question - one that underpins a lot of other assumptions on ethics. When I posted a small survey of attitides among 12 Global Blog participants, most from the US, they said:
no-one (0pc ) me (16.7pc) organisation (0pc) client (25pc) society (58.3pc)

When I widened it to visiors to the Global Blog, they answered
no-one (0pc ) me (20.8pc) organisation (29.2pc) client (4.2pc) society (54.2pc)
Again the majority of respondents were from the USA, and they were the ones shifting the emphasis to PR practitioners believing themselves to be ethically responsible to society.

Thanks for taking part

Author: Philip Young | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 0 comments
Category: @ Philip Young | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

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