DEFINING A CONFLICT


Simply put, a conflict of interest is a situation where one's personal interests conflict with one's professional ones. Dr Michael McDonald , Director of the University of British Columbia Centre for Applied Ethics, defines a conflict of interest as ˜a situation in which a person, such as a public official, an employee, or a professional, has a private or personal interest sufficient to appear to influence the objective exercise of his or her duties . [1] As you might have noticed from this definition, there is no need for the objective exercise of a person's work- related duties to be truly compromised, only that it ˜appears to be compromised.

Thus, using this definition, it seems clear that public relations professionals have a number of situations that present potential conflict situations, some of which are unique to PR, others that are common to all people in the work world today.

[1] McDonald, Michael [accessed 2 October 2003] Ethics and Conflict of Interest . http://www.ethics.ubc.ca/mcdonald/conflict.html




Ethics in Public Relations. A Guide to Best Practice
Ethics in Public Relations: A Guide to Best Practice (PR in Practice)
ISBN: 074945332X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 165

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