OTHER CONFLICT SITUATIONS

Personal relationships are certainly not the only situations within which a PR professional can find himself or herself in a potential conflict of interest situation, although they often seem to be the ones that tend to be glossed over as not truly important. Perhaps before we examine situations other than personal relationships that have the potential to present these problems, it might be useful to establish why we're even concerned about them. The short answer is this: trust.

Writing about conflicts of interest in government positions , political scientists Kenneth Kernaghan and John Langford make it clear: ˜ a primary reason for concern about conflicts of interest is that they reduce public trust and confidence. ^{[ 2]} They could just as easily be writing about public relations professionals. As we have already established in an earlier chapter, trust between organizations and their publics, including society in general, is key to relationships that are the fundamental focus of public relations practice.

So, if trust is what is at stake, it is important to examine a few other situations outside personal relationships that also can present conflicts. Kernaghan and Langford have developed a list of potential conflict situations. ^{[ 3]} Let's use them as a basis for our a list with examples applied specifically to PR.

1. Self-dealing : If a you are a PR practitioner working for an agency and award a sub-contract to a design firm that you personally own, this would be a self-dealing problem.

2. Accepting benefits : If you are an internal PR person, are involved in selecting a consulting agency to plan an event for your organization and one of the contenders provides you with dinner and free tickets to an event they are currently planning for someone else, this could be construed as accepting benefits. Influence peddling is another form of this practice.

3. Using your employer's property for personal benefit : If you are doing outside freelance work (not uncommon in PR) and decide to use the office photocopier to produce your materials to send to someone else strictly for your own benefit, this is a conflict situation. This will come up again in our discussion of moonlighting in Chapter 10.

4. Using confidential information : This is one of the situations we were trying to avoid by limiting our personal relationships with clients , suppliers, the media and so on. It is possible to leak this confidential information inadvertently or deliberately. Either way, it's an ethical problem.

5. Moonlighting : Clearly, if your outside freelance work is for an organization that is a direct competitor to your employer or involves any of these other conflict situations that we've already discussed, then it is a problem.

6. A past-employee : Leaving a position and going to work for a competitor, for example, puts you in a potential conflict situation. You are privy to information that you do not have the right to use to benefit your new employer. And that might just be the reason you were hired !

So, what is one to do about these potential conflicts? There are really only two choices if you are attempting to be an ethical public relations practitioner. First, you can declare to all parties your potential conflicts and let them help you to decide if you can continue to behave in the same fashion. For example, you could tell your boss that you are doing freelance work and ask if it would be all right to use the photocopier. If he or she says yes (which I seriously doubt would be the case), then guidelines would be set up and you have avoided a conflict.

Indeed, one of the most recent contributions to dealing with the issue of employee dating is the implementation at some organizations of the so-called ˜ dating contract. The relationship is openly declared to management and the parameters are set out with all parties signing. The document can cover guidelines for behaviour as well as the ramifications for the participants should the relationship begin to negatively affect their work or the work of others. The kind of full disclosure illustrated by this kind of solution to a potential problem is one of the ways of dealing with other situations where conflict of interest might otherwise be perceived.

Of course, the second choice is really, the simplest: avoid any of these situations in the first place. To eflect on your potential for becoming involved in conflict-of-interest situations, consider the questions in Figure 9.1.

Avoiding conflicts of interest

Consider the following statements to reflect on your potential for falling into conflicts of interest.

• I keep my personal and professional relationships separate.

• I avoid discussing business in non-business situations.

• I disclose any outside business interests to my employer.

• I avoid accepting anything that could be viewed as a gift from potential clients.

• I avoid using any office equipment and supplies for tasks unrelated to my employer.

• I avoid taking care of personal business on company time.

• I feel comfortable in my ability to maintain employer/client confidentiality.

Figure 9.1: Avoiding conflicts of interest

^{[ 2]} Kernaghan, Kenneth and Langford, John (1990) The Responsible Public Servant , Institute for Research on Public Policy, Halifax, NS, p 139

^{[ 3]} Kernaghan and Langford, pp 142-53