It is all in the name: Toward a typology of public relations professionals’ ethical dilemmas

Abstract

Although scholarship discussing public relations professionals’ roles has been abundant, ethical dilemmas facing public relations professionals remain implicit in such roles. Specifically, a theoretically-derived typology explaining the origin of these dilemmas and categorizing them into distinct profiles has been lacking so far. We address this lacuna by utilizing role theory to elucidate the origin of public relations professionals’ ethical dilemmas and employ a deductive approach to extricate such dilemmas from each part of the name “public relations professional.” Each part of the name signifies a distinct role with specific functions and inherent expectations. Put differently, each part implies specific values that role constituents expect role incumbents to uphold. As such, the name “public relations professional” has been deliberately chosen as it carries value-laden meanings, referring to an individual who exhibits an orientation and a commitment to publicness while developing, maintaining, and promoting relationships and upholding professionalism. In building our typology, we portray the “public” role as the midpoint on a continuum, with organization at one end and society at the other; the “relations” role as the midpoint between transactions and bonds; and the “professional” role as the midpoint between employee and citizen. This leads to a multidimensional typology that includes three types of ethical dilemmas: organization-versus-society, transactions-versus-bonds, and employee-versus-citizen. We advance extant scholarship by explaining the origin of public relations professionals’ ethical dilemmas and unifying such dilemmas in an exclusive-inclusive typology.