What Can Happen to Public Relations Who Behave Unethically?

Ethics has become professional imperative in public relations field, whereby unethical action is not any more considered as integral characteristic of public relations (PR) professionals, especially among scholars and practitioners. However, the question what if public relations professionals really violate ethical standards did not disappear, and concerns every instance linked to the PR-sector. In other words, the question is what disciplinary measures can be taken against the member of PR-associations. This study, based on a qualitative content analysis of websites and statutes of 20 national and international public relations associations from Europe and the US, shows what mechanisms exist in the associations to sanction the unethical behaving of their members. The analysis showed that, unlike international associations that do not take disciplinary action, although the majority of associations has bodies that could provide disciplinary measures (which includes expulsion from membership), only four associations give clear instructions how to make complaints if unethical behaving is detected, and, furthermore, only three associations indicate the consequences of unethical action by publishing judgments on a regular basis. Although the ethics is recognized as crucial principle at declarative level among all associations, efforts of some associations to establish disciplinary committees and to provide real sanctions of unethical professional behavior, can be considered as a progress in defining public relations as a profession with high ethical standards. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Education as the Essential Part of Public Relations Ethics Codes

The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the 21st century were characterized by increase in faculties and in public relations associations. For members of PR-associations, professional activities are regulated by ethics codes. The goal of this paper is to explore which place in the ethics codes of public relations associations takes the importance of education and how different associations in different countries consider education as professional duty of PR-experts. This paper provides a qualitative analysis of the content of 13 ethical codes; 2 international and 11 national professional associations active in 7 countries: Austria, Germany, Croatia, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and Unites States. The analysis had revealed that the majority of analysed codes does not consider the education as the essential duty of public relations professionals, although some of them emphasized the positive connection of education and ethical conduct. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Ethics as the Strategy for Public Relations Associations

The main goal of the paper is to analyse the objectives declared by the twenty professional associations of public relations, from the perspective of ethics. To answer in which way PR-associations consider ethics as one of the objectives of their work, the research used the qualitative content analysis of the official web-sites of twenty different professional (inter)national associations in Europe and US. The research showed that the majority of the associations emphasized the ethical dimension of their efforts, although it is not unanimously shared, since some of them express it in a very vague way. Nevertheless, the majority of analysed professional associations are aware of the importance of ethics in public relations and of their own strategical role in the field of public relations ethics. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Education as the Essential Part of Public Relations Ethics Codes

The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the 21st century were characterized by increase in faculties and in public relations associations. For members of PR-associations, professional activities are regulated by ethics codes. The goal of this paper is to explore which place in the ethics codes of public relations associations takes the importance of education and how different associations in different countries consider education as professional duty of PR-experts. This paper provides a qualitative analysis of the content of 13 ethical codes; 2 international and 11 national professional associations active in 7 countries: Austria, Germany, Croatia, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and Unites States. The analysis had revealed that the majority of analysed codes does not consider the education as the essential duty of public relations professionals, although some of them emphasized the positive connection of education and ethical conduct. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Transparency in Public Relations: Evidence from Associations’ Ethics Codes

The issue of transparency in public relations, or as it is more often referred, the conflict of interest, belongs to the group of the crucial ethical issues. Nevertheless, among scholars, there exist the question of how strict the imperative of transparency should be, not just concerning the cultural differences or the areas in the world where public relations professionals come from. Given the reputation of the public relations profession, which is still partially marked with negative labels, the issue of transparency in self-regulation of professionals in PR is of utmost importance. Aiming to explore the importance of transparency for PR professionals, and how this issue is regulated, the research was conducted through a method of qualitative content analysis based on 13 ethical codes, delivered by 18 major associations of public relations professionals at national and international levels, which belong to the Western Circle: United States, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Croatia. Although the value of transparency is articulated in all ethical codes, there exist some differences, especially if a distinction is made between conflicts of interest and financial interests. In this respect, few differences emerged with regard to the character of membership in associations (individual/corporative/mixed membership), or their type (national or international) and much less within the geographical milieu of the association. The core finding is actually “the struggle” between the principle level and the operational level of transparency in PR-field: is it possible to be “ethically correct” just if PR-professionals announce that they are in conflict of interests and the client has nothing against

Artificial Intelligence in Communication with Music Fans: An Example from South Korea

According to Kotler, Kartajaya, and Setiawan, there are five components of marketing 5.0: it is data-driven, predictive, contextual, augmented, and agile. This paper uses the case study method to investigate the presence of the 5.0 marketing components in promotional strategies employed by the South Korean popular music industry. The paper explores promotional strategies used by the BTS music group in particular. The group uses the 5.0 marketing method in its promotional strategies, especially in communication with the fans, and such communication thus enters the field of public relations. The case study analysis also indicates the use of data-driven marketing and predictive analytics, which are achieved using artificial intelligence. Additionally, elements of contextual marketing were used to improve the consumer experience, and augmented marketing was utilized to facilitate business, especially for front office staff. Finally, the analysis of BTS\u27s promotional strategies shows a focus on innovation and flexibility, which are elements of agile marketing

The Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Reputation, and Business Performance

Formerly, it was considered that the main task of the corporate sector is to ensure economic performance. Nowadays, this attitude has changed and the term the bottom line has been replaced by the term the triple bottom line. Accordingly, not only financial performance but also the impact on the environment and society in which the organization operates is taken into consideration when measuring its effectiveness. Today, a corporation is not only expected to operate efficiently but also to be socially responsible. On the other hand, thanks to emphasizing social responsibility in their communication with stakeholders, corporations can have a positive reputation and good business performance. Therefore, the main goal of this article is to investigate how corporate communications managers of successful retail companies in Croatia, based on their practical experience, perceive the relationship between corporate social responsibility, reputation, and business performance. Specifically, the in-depth interview method was used to examine the attitudes of corporate communications managers of successful companies in retail market on the relationship between corporate social responsibility, reputation, and business performance. The results show that the surveyed public relations experts notice a positive relationship between corporate social responsibility and reputation, and also see a positive relationship between corporate social responsibility and business performance

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Practice of Public Relations Professionals

Are public relations a socially irresponsible profession? Although the image of public relations professionals can still be negative, in theory, they should help their organizations be socially responsible. This paper aims to explore the work of public relations experts concerning corporate social responsibility among those who work for successful retail chains in Croatia. The research paper resides on a survey conducted by the method of in-depth interviews with seven corporate communications managers selected among the 20 best retailers in the fast-moving consumer goods on the Croatian market. The research showed that the surveyed public relations experts are not directly in charge of the strategic planning of their companies socially responsible business programs. However, most respondents confirmed the existence of a communication strategy for CSR activities regarding different stakeholders.  Besides, the results show that the heads of the communications department daily participate at the executive level of socially responsible programs. These results are showing that those corporate communications managers are generally not members of senior management, where decision-making takes place. Finally, the conclusion is that the surveyed public relations experts in their practical work mainly help their companies to be socially responsible. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Public Relations Principles for the Digital Communication in a Local Crisis

In dealing with the crisis, all institutions must react and urgently solve the problem, but a special challenge is to communicate with key publics, especially those publics that have suffered damage., What is imperative for public relations is fast and two-way communication. That is why digital platforms are indispensable in crisis communication because they enable almost simultaneous reaction and enable institutions to communicate directly with the affected public, without the mediation of information media. This paper aims to analyse the crisis communication of the City of Slavonski Brod through its official website and Facebook page during water pollution in March and April 2018. The analysis was performed by methods of qualitative content analysis and a case study analysis. During the environmental incident, the City of Slavonski Brod did not communicate following the PR principles of crisis communication nor took advantage of digital communication

Social Responsibility and Loyalty in Public Relations Codes

Background: It is believed that social responsibility, the value that is strongly involved in the contemporary corporate behaviour, has also become the core value for public relations practitioners and their associations. However, there are ethical doubts concerning the question to whom a PR practitioner is actually responsible (or loyal) in the first place: to the client, the employer, the public, or society in general? Objectives: This research aims to describe how social responsibility is articulated in the documents that can be considered as the crown of public relations ethics – the codes of ethics – and additionally, how the value of loyalty corresponds to the value of social responsibility. Methods/Approach: The research is based on the content analyses of 13 codes of ethics that are delivered by 18 public relations associations at the international and the national level in the USA and the European Union. Results: Although the phrase “social responsibility” is not mentioned in codes directly, the value of social responsibility is present in very diverse ways. When the value of loyalty came into the correlation with social responsibility, the research has shown that these values exist as a separate principle. Conclusions: The public relations are a profession that tends to be socially responsible and tends to show that loyalty to clients and organizations is subordinated to public and social responsibility. Thus, the codes show that contemporary public relations, at least at the normative level, approach the two-way symmetric model and mostly promote "idealistic social role” of public relations