Conclusion

There is no one single approach to the ethical practice of global public relations which will not receive criticisms—there are pros and cons with each of them. However, understanding how ethics are formed and expressed requires practitioners to understand how norms and values are formed at the individual, organizational and societal levels. It is easy to make an ethical decision when the norms in a foreign market happen to be the same as the norms in the domestic market. But when the two conflict, practitioners are likely to approach the ethical questions by considering what is ethically acceptable at the individual level, organizational level, societal level and global level (in that order). In Lesson #2, the ethical application of public segmentation and relationship management will be discussed in relation to global public relations.

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