Morals in PR German Public Relations Professionals, Their Ethical Positions & Their Moral Perceptions

The purpose of this research was to contribute to the first step of a discourse which shall in the end help develop an application-oriented public relations ethics. This was pursued by seeking answers to the three initial research questions raised to explore the status quo of German public relations professional's moral perceptions and considerations. Due to the explorative nature of this work as well as the sensitivity and complexity of the topic, two methods, qualitative e-mail interviews and an online-survey, were used to receive the largest possible insight and reveal as many aspects as possible. The results showed that the two methods did complement each other in most parts and did both reveal outcomes that could be the basis for further research to gain a representative and full picture of the German public relations professional's morality. Moreover, the two scales (a quantitative TARES test application as well as a German version of Forsyth's (1980) ethics position questionnaire) were tested in the scope of this work revealing input for further research.