How Ethical Do PR-Practitioners Think? Evaluation of Ethical Values and Attitudes of the Professional Field in Germany.

This paper aims to outline fundamental aspects of the ethics of PR within a theoretical-analytical framework in the first part of the paper. This is achieved on the basis of some major ethical problems and an analysis of potential conflicts that are relevant to PR and which are reflected in different ethical approaches, in particular, individual and organizational ethics or the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of conviction (Max Weber). Problematic ethical issues are defined and structured systematically in a model which distinguishes between different relationships. An overview of the status of research in the German-speaking context on the topic of PR ethics facilitates provisional statements appertaining to the awareness and acceptance of ethical codes in Germany.Some important results of a recent survey of 2,312 German PR practitioners are presented. This survey was carried out in 2007 and focused on aspects of PR ethics, on the acceptance and the degree of familiarity with ethical guidelines in Germany's professional field of PR practitioners, on the significance of morally induced goals and professional self-understandings or professional identities. It could be shown how important truthfulness is seen for German PR practitioners and which - specifically ethical - reasons are evaluated as problematic for the industry. On the basis of a debate about tie-in deals in Germany that currently reached a level of intensity results about the acceptance and legitimacy of such procedures within the professional sphere are also introduced. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]