Investigating the Application of Deontology Among U.S. Public Relations Practitioners

In this study we examine the perceptions of four scenarios about public relations ethics and the application of the theory of deontology to those scenarios among 449 members of the Public Relations Society of America. The results indicate that (a) the members' application of deontological principles is fairly high, (b) the members' overall application of deontology to the scenarios is predicted by age and supervision of employees, (c) the members' dominant roles that emerge from this national sample are those of manager and technician, and (d) the members' roles have some significant relations with their application of deontology to decision making. Implications of these findings for the continuing practitioner struggle with workplace ethics are discussed; suggestions for further research are outlined.