Codes of Practice

1507 Words4 Pages

Ethics and values apply to our personal and professional lives. Ethics are a notion of one’s actions, which originates from ideology of an individual doing what is right not wrong. According to the dictionary ethics is the “branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.” These beliefs are amassed to help a person determine how their actions will be carried out. Ideals can be applied as values to a person’s way of living. There are people that view values as a personal code, and see them as a personal indication of their beliefs. Our professional values and ethics come from many different sources. In our childhood, our parents and peers are instrumental in the development of our values and ethics. As we enter the workforce we align with our ethical values to our employers, their values are shown through a company’s codes of practice.

A code of practice is adopted by a profession or by a governmental or non-governmental organization to regulate that profession. A code of practice may be styled as a code of professional responsibility, which will discuss difficult issues, difficult decisions that will often need to be made, and provide a clear account of what behaviour is considered "ethical" or "correct" or "right" in the circumstances. In a membership context, failure to comply with a code of practice can result in expulsion from the professional organization. Codes of practice usually fall in line with laws and general social mores against corruption. This is shown well within the Australian Standards board of advertising which contains seven clauses relating to standards....

... middle of paper ...

...pp. 35-41.

Pauly, J and Hutchison, L 2005, ‘Moral Fables of Public Relations Practice: The Tylenol and Exxon Valdez Cases.’, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Vol. 20 Issue 4, p231-249, Viewed 7 April 2011, Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Schiller, ME 2006, ‘Providing Knowledge for Ethical Practice in Marketing Communications.’, International Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 3, Issue 8, p7-17, Viewed 6 April 2011, Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Websites

Australian Association of National Advertisers, AANA Code of Ethics

Advertising Standards Bureau, < http://www.adstandards.com.au>

Dictionary.com, Ethics, < http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethics>

Public Relations Institute of Australia, Individual Code of Ethics,

Open Document