ETHICS AS WINDOW-DRESSING

One of the most problematic aspects of organizational ethics programmes and the public relations opportunities they present is the danger of making these ethics programmes nothing more than window-dressing where management pays lip service to ethics and PR capitalizes on it, spinning it into something it really isn't. And if you think that the ethics efforts of most organizations are becoming entrenched parts of their cultures, perhaps you should consider the results of recent studies.

The results of one recent American study suggest that ˜the majority of Fortune 1000 firms have committed mainly to the lowcost, possibly symbolic, side of the effort. ^{[ 1]} Whereas 98 per cent of the 254 firms that responded to the survey indicated that they have some kind of a formal document outlining ethical behaviour (presumably some kind of a code), only 51 per cent required any kind of annual indication of compliance by their employees . There was little evidence of follow-up. It is easy to draw the conclusion that ethics, for the 49 per cent of organizations that didn't seem to follow up their initial forays into ethics in any material way, can hardly be considered a part of the corporate culture and could be construed as nothing more than lip service ”window-dressing.

An experienced , creative public relations department in an organization that develops a code of conduct and then does nothing with it would have little difficulty putting their strategic planning skills to use to develop a creative persuasion programme to promote the perception of a highly socially responsible organization ”despite the lack of any real changes in organizational behaviour. Without these material changes in behaviour or any kind of adherence to the policy to support this image, what you have is an unethical public relations strategy. This specifically is when ethics is window-dressing.

Public relations is the most important external communication function in an organization and as such sits at the interface between the organization's decision-making and its external environment. The only way for public relations to play its appropriate role as keeper of the organizational conscience is for PR to be part of the policy-making team, representing the publics and their needs to management. Window-dressing is one of the most insidious aspects of old-style public relations.

^{[ 1]} Pennsylvania State University Press Release [accessed 26 June 2001] Many firms flagging on follow-up to ethics codes. http://www.psu.edu/ur/NEWS/news/ethics.html