The Ethical Dimension of Public Relations in Europe: Digital Channels, Moral Challenges, Resources, and Training

Digital communication tools and practices improve the spread and impact of organisational messages. Quite often, however, they also pose moral problems. This article examines how often public relations practitioners encounter moral issues in their day-to-day work, how they assess digital communication tools and practices in terms of ethics, and the resources on which they rely to tackle moral challenges. Four research questions were addressed in an online survey among 2,324 practitioners who work in PR departments of organisations or in PR agencies across Europe. Results show that PR practitioners face more moral challenges in their daily work than they have faced in the past. Regarding digital communication tools and practices, they report moral concerns especially related to using bots, exploiting personal data for big-data analyses, paying social media influencers, and using sponsored content. Personal values and beliefs are the most important resource for dealing with moral issues—whether because only a minority of practitioners has participated in any formal ethics training within the past three years, or because existing ethical guidelines are outdated. Results call for the development of ethical guidelines that can provide explicit advice in the area of digital communication. Furthermore, structured training programs and ethics courses in graduate programs are needed to enhance practitioners’ ethical knowledge

Engendering Trust in Internet Business using Elements of Corporate Branding

In this article we discuss the role of trust as a crucial factor for success in meeting the challenges faced by companies selling goods to consumers on the internet. Corporate branding is proposed as the key vehicle by which the necessary trust-signals for reducing risk as perceived by consumers may be transmitted, based upon a theoretical definition of trust, the trust-signals important to engender trust, and the main elements of corporate brand building

Corporate Media - An Approach for Corporate Community Management

With the rapid development of Information and Communication Technology companies face several problems today. The increasing speed of product development leads to the problem that products and services need to be communicated and explained to potential customers. Shareholders and investors should gain a certain insight into the company’s activities - also the public domain and journalists demand to be better informed. At the same time the information overload of corporate community members, like journalists, analysts, customers, shareholders, employees, etc., lead to the problem that the scarce source today is attention. How should companies react to those challenges? A solution could be the design of Corporate Media, which integrate all corporate (sub-) communities to give them tailor made services. Based on the concepts of agent, media, and community, we develop an integrated platform for the exchange of tangible (e.g., products) and intangible (e.g., knowledge) objects

Examining the Role of Transparent Organizational Communication for Employees’ Job Engagement and Disengagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Austria

This study provides an understanding of how employees’ perception of organizational transparency during the long-lasting situation of the COVID-19 pandemic engendered their job engagement as well as job disengagement. Data were collected by means of an online survey among 410 employees in Austria during March 2021. Results show that employees’ perception of their organization’s approach to transparency directly influenced their job engagement and disengagement. Importantly, the relationship between transparency and job engagement was also mediated through organizational trust, and job-specific state anxiety mediated the relationship between transparency and job disengagement. The results imply the importance of transparency during times of great uncertainty and emphasize the necessity to closely consider employees’ emotional states and worries during a crisis