COM425 Final Paper

 Ethical Dimensions of External Organizational Communication

External organizational communication powerfully expresses the moral character of organizations. The ways organizational representatives interact with one another demonstrates the relative levels of respect, honesty, integrity, equity, responsibility, and trustworthiness of their organizations. As modern organizational life has become increasingly politicized, the ethics of interorganizational communication processes often have been stretched by irresponsible attempts to influence interorganizational outcomes.

There are many instances in the modern world where questionable ethical choices have been made in guiding interorganizational communication. News stories regularly cover instances of organizational bribery, extortion, dishonesty, manipulation, and collusion in the ways business, industrial, health care, governmental, and even educational organizations conduct business with their relevant publics. For example, there have been many stories in the news about government lobbyists engaging in unscrupulous activities while representing clients, such as the revelations about former lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff, who offered bribes and misinformed officials to reap huge personal profits. Similarly, media coverage of Bernard Madoff's extortion of clients' investment funds as part of a Ponzi scheme to steal their money illustrates ethical improprieties in the ways that some devious executives interact with their clients.

Public relations, advertising, and lobbying activities have been particularly susceptible to charges of ethical improprieties. Groups of organizations often have been found to unfairly monopolize control over relevant resources, products, or markets. It is not uncommon for organizations to seek financial gains at the expense of their employees, suppliers, customers, or competitors. Such unethical attempts for interorganizational influence and control violate the moral standards of society, weaken the credibility of organizations, and threaten long-term organizational effectiveness.

Three covering principles govern ethical organizational communication: honesty, equity, and avoiding harm (Kreps, 1988):

1. For interorganizational communication to be ethical, organizational communicators must strive to be honest. It is not ethical for organizational representatives purposefully to deceive customers, regulators, or competitors. Practices such as false advertising, fudging of records, and withholding information from stakeholders or regulators are clear examples of dishonesty. Other questionable interorganizational practices include espionage, sabotage, overpricing of goods and services, discriminatory employment practices, and thievery.

2. For interorganizational communication to be ethical it must be equitable. It is not fair for organization members to exert undue and oppressive influence on different publics. Any organizational practices that unfairly restrain free trade, self-determination, and inhibit the activities of key publics—such as instances of monopoly, conflict of interest, bribery, coercion, stock manipulation, and discrimination—threaten equity in organizational life.

3. Organizations also have the responsibility to minimize harm to their environments and to their publics. For example, automakers have the responsibility to build safe and reliable cars that will not put drivers at risk of accidents, fires, and explosions. Farmers have the responsibility to protect against spreading toxins in the foods they produce that could lead to serious illnesses and deaths for consumers. Officials who operate nuclear power plants have the responsibility to enforce safety measures to reduce the risk of public exposure to radiation.

Organizations are more or less externally accountable to the extent that they live up to these covering principles for ethical organizational communication. Failures to promote external accountability inevitably lead to unethical interorganizational communication. Any organizational activity that endangers the environment decreases the organization's external accountability and violates implicit contracts between the organization and its publics. Organizational activities such as falsifying public records, withholding information about potential or current dangers, causing harm to the environment through pollution, and discriminatory employment practices are all instances of low external accountability. The best organizations engage in external organizational communication practices that promote external accountability. For example, McDonald's has begun providing nutrition information about all the foods it sells so consumers can make good choices about the foods they choose to eat. The company is not required to provide this nutrition information but decided to do so to help its customers make healthy food choices and to demonstrate its external accountability to customers.

To enhance the ethics of interorganizational communication, clear moral standards for organizational behavior must be established and maintained by organizational leaders as important themes of organizational cultures. The covering principles for ethical organizational communication (honesty, avoiding harm, and equity) should be used as guidelines for directing and evaluating interorganizational communication. Organization members, especially boundary spanners, should strive to develop honest, culturally sensitive, and trusting relationships with representatives of the interorganizational field. Clear, sensitive, and ethical communication between organizational representatives can facilitate the development of effective implicit contracts and meaningful interorganizational relationships. For example, Walgreens Pharmacies enacted a new policy to make pharmacist advisers available in all their stores to help customers learn about the risks and benefits of prescribed medications, as well as to explain the correct use of medications. This program demonstrates the company's concern for customer safety and also helps to establish good working relationships between pharmacists and patients. Similarly, the personal banker strategy used by several banks to advise consumers about good investment options is a way these banks are building personal relationships between bank personnel and customers.