Скачать книгу

eventually sign the contract, and the salesperson wanted to start the campaign early in order to meet his quarterly quota and, thus, make more money. When the advertiser got the first invoice, the surprised reply was, “What’s this, we never bought anything or signed anything?” Why did the salesperson forge a signature? Was there pressure from management to close business early or did greediness motivate the salesperson? What was the root cause of this unethical behavior? Of course, being a sociopath or a narcissist clearly can lead to unethical behavior, but people not suffering from these personality disorders sometimes behave unethically. Why?

      Reasons people do not follow the rules

      Groups, organizations, and companies must create and communicate ethical standards to guard against these abuses and, even more importantly, to follow up with practices and behavior at the highest levels of the organization that adhere to stated corporate standards. Unfortunately “Do as I say, not as I do,” can be as effective on employees as it was on me as a teenager when my father told me not to smoke cigarettes as he puffed away on one of his 40 Camels a day. For example, Enron had a clearly defined code of conduct that it communicated to everyone in the company and posted on its website. Enron’s top executives obviously viewed this code as public relations, not as a set of rules they should follow, thinking arrogantly and cynically, “No one will know.”

      Employees of an unethical company whose executives do not follow the rules should strongly consider leaving the company and looking for another job. Leaving an unethical, corrupt company is probably in your long‐term self‐interest because when the company’s ethical problems come to light, your pension fund or 401(k) plan will be worthless if it is invested in the stock of a company that declares bankruptcy. Also, your reputation will be tainted in the job market. Therefore, select the companies you work for very carefully and choose ones that will enhance your reputation not detract from it.

      Ethics are clearly defined and published standards and norms of right and wrong that are expressed as guidelines for behavior. There are three general types of ethical standards. First, most organizations, companies, and professions have written codes of ethics or standards of conduct. Next are accepted beliefs and modes of conduct among various social and ethnic groups. Finally, individuals have their own standards of right and wrong that they use to make daily judgments, which are based on a combination of deep‐seated personal values and beliefs inculcated from the first moment parents say “bad boy” or “bad girl.”

      If you substitute “customers” for “employees” in the last sentence, you have excellent guidelines for ethical behavior for media salespeople and their bosses.

      1. Responsibility to consumers

      As defined in Chapter 1, consumers use a product and the consumers of the media are the audiences – users, readers, viewers, listeners, or subscribers.

Скачать книгу