2012 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

have everyone like you and think that you are doing a good job‖ (Lubbers, Bourland-Davis, &
Rawlins, 2007/8, p. 9).
To influence ethical decisions in an organization, a public relations practitioner must
have the ear of senior management and be persuasive (Berger & Reber, 2006). Public relations
practitioners have identified effective ways to persuade senior management. The top three
approaches that are also acceptable to employers (i.e., approaches that avoid unsanctioned tactics
such as leaking information to the media) include rational argument, coalition building with
other employees, and pressure (e.g., ignoring a supervisor‘s request or being assertive until
management listens; Berger & Reber, 2006). Public relations practitioners commonly express
dissent in response to unethical courses of action; in fact, in a survey of PRSA members, a little
more than half of all respondents expressed that they would always object to unethical decisions
(Berger & Reber, 2006).
Research Questions
Preliminary research about student public relations interns lends insight into ethical
dilemmas in the workplace at the entry level. Interns conveyed their concerns about media
relations (e.g., maintaining fairness and integrity in the face of intense media interest in a story),
client relations (e.g., being tempted to inflate measurements of success), observations of ethical
breaches and not knowing what to do, and issues unique to nonprofits as ethical dilemmas they
faced (Lubbers et al., 2007/8). More in-depth research is needed in the focused context of public
relations agencies to understand the pressing ethical dilemmas Millennials confront, how they
make meaning of them, and how they respond to them. Therefore, the following research
question is investigated:
RQ 1: What ethical dilemmas do Millennials confront in their PR agencies?
Recent research has focused on seasoned professionals‘ perspectives about how to
improve ethical decision making (e.g., Lee & Cheng, 2011). To complement existing research,
this study provides a view from the bottom rung of the ladder:
RQ 2: How do Millennial agency practitioners think the profession could improve ethical
decision making in the industry?
Method
To explore the research questions, five asynchronous online discussions with
approximately 10 people per group were conducted, and one person participated by email to help
obtain a more diverse sample (N=51 participants). There are several advantages to asynchronous
online discussion groups. The lack of face-to-face interaction and the assignment of a
pseudonym mean that participants can share more openly than they might otherwise do, which is
especially important for discussions of sensitive topics (Houston, 2008; Oringderff, 2004;
Valaitis & Sword, 2005). Asynchronous online discussion groups tend to result in deeply
reflective monologues, in addition to more disclosure of personal stories and emotions than
would occur in a face-to-face focus group (Graffigna & Bosio, 2006). The balance of talk tends
to be more equal in an asynchronous online discussion group, and every participant responds to
every question asked (Graffigna & Bosio, 2006).
Drawbacks of this method include the lack of visual and verbal signs to convey meaning,
the risk that participants will be so comfortable that they will lack discretion and tact when
interacting, access issues could exclude people from participation, and there is no way to verify
that people are who they say they are (Oringderff, 2004). Fortunately, participants‘ meanings
seemed to be straightforward, follow-up questions were asked as needed, there were no problems
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