تعارض اخلاقی و رضایت شغلی کارکنان روابط عمومی

This study attempted to explore the linkage between ethical conflict and job satisfaction, causes of ethical conflicts, and consequences of job dissatisfaction of public relations practitioners. The findings show that many practitioners confirmed the existence of ethical conflict in their workplace and suggest that ethical challenges are largely triggered by top management's ethical standard. Although practitioners resolved conflicts by leaving their companies, they also recognized the hope in resolving the ethical challenges that they had faced. Participants emphasized the importance of an open communication environment, the support of internal stakeholders, and a high professional standard.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge of public relations in two ways. First, the proven linkage between ethics and job satisfaction indicates that the public relations profession cares about ethical concerns; many of the respondents make an effort to tell the truth and help their supervisors to make ethical decisions. Second, the qualitative data depicting causes of ethical conflict would be good resources from which further research can be generated. The findings of this study suggest a causal linkage between an organizational environment and ethics issues in public relations. Ultimately, this data suggest how to solve ethical conflicts and foster ethical practice in the public relations profession. Respondents noted that the ethicality of top management was the main cause of ethics conflicts, and problems might have been resolved if the issues were openly discussed and employees’ input were valued. This suggests the importance of an open communication environment. The findings are consistent with the perspective of the excellence study, in which scholars argued that a horizontal and openly communicative structure is necessary for organizational effectiveness (Grunig, 1992). The findings also demonstrated that an open communication structure is indispensible in helping organizations make ethical decisions because employees’ input is valued in this type of organization. By neglecting to value employees’ or public relations practitioners’ input, the public relations’ role as a corporate conscience would not function well. Meanwhile, practitioners who have recognized ethical conflicts were more likely to leave their companies because the conflicts affected their mental and even physical well-being in the workplace. This finding provides a rationale as to why ethics should be emphasized within the profession and public relations professionals’ job satisfaction levels need to be considered along with ethical conflict. Ignorance to negative outcomes could result in a collective debility in the public relations profession. Although the practitioners who face ethical conflicts move to other employers, turnover is not an ultimate remedy to solve ethics issues in the long run. In conclusion, the answers not only suggest the clear linkage between ethical issues and job satisfaction, but also demonstrate the complex relationship between ethics conflicts and job satisfaction of public relations practitioners. This is an area where future research is needed. 5. Limitation and suggestions for future studies This study has revealed limitations: First, only 30.6% of the survey participants answered the open-ended question, because the question was a part of the large online-survey questionnaires. Other methods such as in-depth interview and focus group would help for researchers to collect richer information. Second, the cases in which practitioners experience ethical distress were not specifically identified for the purpose of observing their relation to job satisfaction. It would be interesting for future research to investigate the cases in which public relations practitioners experience ethical conflicts, dilemmas, and distress.