Academic literature on the topic 'Public relations ethics'

Public relations is involved in all communication between an organization and the pu-blic. In the contemporary world, PR practitioners have become the facilitators of information. Information and communication technology (ICT) have imposed new rules in the fi eld of public relations. Communication strategy and information management have become crucial parts of modern public relations. People change their habits with regard to the consumption of traditional and new media. The challenges imposed by the development of information and communication technology are also related to understanding the new information so-ciety. For that reason information ethics deals with the ethical implications of dissemination, use, development and safety of information. Public relations follow new information and communication trends, and they need to build fi rm ethical principles for the age of informa-tion. The author examines the ethical implications of the framing concept in public relations.

Based on a survey of recent alumni from two different institutions, this study indicates that media ethics instruction corresponds with ethical awareness and ethical leadership. Graduates who took media ethics courses were significantly more likely than those who did not to consider ethical issues in their profession important. They were more likely to value ethics highly, to be able to identify ethical issues, and to have discussed unethical practices with professional colleagues. They were also more likely to view personal and professional ethics as indistinguishable. This study suggests longer-term effects on ethical attitudes than have previous studies and reinforces the need for better and more courses in media ethics.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of ethics and service learning client work in public relations education. Interviews were conducted with students at three universities who had completed public relations client work. Findings suggest that ethics in client work involves honesty, respect, following personal convictions, bracketing personal values, and balancing ethical values. Students perceived that client work prepared them to be accountable, perform quality work, rely on mentoring, and learn that being ethical takes practice. Ultimately, client work appears to help students explore ethical beliefs and competencies in a realistic environment with assistance.

AbstractIn handling the crisis company, Public Relations Proffesionals is required to balance the interests of companies and term of public interests. Public Relations Proffesionals often perform persuasion what course for sake of good company reputation. Here, ethics advocacy present into solutions dilematik between defending the interests of company and the public interests. In communicating to the public, Public Relations Proffesionals rests on a truth value, honesty, social responsibility, openness, loyalty, fair thinking, respect, integrity and communication frankly. The models of ethics in overcoming the crisis include Attorney Adversary Model, Two-way symmetrical model, Social Responsibility Model, Partisan versus Mutual Values Model, and Professional Responsibility Model. While ethical action Professional Public Relations in crisis management adhering to the code of professional conduct and codes of conduct to be able to behave or act as professionals in decision-making, and what procedures are done objectively, and be accountable. Keywords : Professional Public Relations, Advocacy ethics, Crisis Management

<em>Professional Ethics emphasis on human relationships with others who have the same profession. The goal, so there is a good cooperation and alignment between one individual with another individual in the same profession. Ethics in Public Relations have the same goal with the ethics of the profession. Their ethics Public Relations No alignment is expected to lead to good cooperation between individuals within the scope of Public Relations and improve the professionalism of practitioners of Public Relations. A professional in performing their duties and obligations are always closely related to the code of ethics (code of profession) and codes of conduct (code of conduct) as moral standards, benchmarks or guidelines in carrying out the work and responsibilities of each in accordance with its function and role in the organization represents. In addition, a public relations professional must be able to work or to act through a thorough consideration and correct. A professional can distinguish ethically which can be done and what can not be done according to the guidelines of the code of professional conduct that is carried by the person concerned</em>

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the veracity of the contingency model of ethical crisis communication by examining the factors of influence in a time of crisis including what constitutes ethics in a time of crisis; the role of public relations (PR) practitioners as the “moral conscience” of an organization and perceptions of the PR’ role within top management. Design/methodology/approach In-depth interviews were conducted among ten senior PR managers with crisis communication experience in North America. Findings This research identifies and investigates six ethical variables – the nature of the crisis, the role of top management, the activism of stakeholders, government regulation/intervention, the diversity of cultures and the exposure to external business environments – and their potential influences on an organization’s communication practices. Research limitations/implications The qualitative approach does not produce generalizable results. In addition, the authors could have interviewed more people, although the authors have reached information saturation in analyzing the interview data based on the ten interviews conducted. Practical implications Insights from this exploratory study contribute to answering the “how” questions with empirical data that enhance the clarity on the roadmap of ethical factors in crisis communication practice. Originality/value Unlike other conceptual work that explores moral philosophies in ethics, this study aims to offer a practical approach – rather than a philosophical argument and persuasion – that is rooted in the practitioner’s world.

This study attempted to determine typical perceptions of public relations and news-editorial students of accepted ethical conduct in public relations and journalism. The researcher provided 32 students, half public relations majors and half news-editorial majors, with 51 individual statements. Each statement either supported or opposed a specific action that a public relations practitioner or journalist may take in an ethical dilemma, or a belief that professionals in those fields may hold. Each student was asked to indicate how strongly the student agreed or disagreed with each statement.A computer program developed for Q Methodology studies was used to extract two factors from the students' answers, resulting in the formation of two hypothetical groups, Type I and Type II. Type I consisted of 14 public relations majors and six news-editorial majors. Type II consisted of 10 news-editorial majors and two public relations majors.Most students in both groups agreed that they would not be asked to lie as professionals, that they would always produce original work, that professionals in their future fields believe they serve the public interest, and that professionals in their future fields believe their professions serve society. However, Type I students expected to function as channels of communication for their employers, while Type II students disagreed with that job description of themselves. Type I students strongly disagreed that practitioners in their fields do not care about public feedback; Type II students marginally agreed with that statement. Type I students seemed to believe it was normal for practitioners in their fields to maintain two codes of ethics, one for professional use and another for personal use. Type II students marginally disagreed with that concept. This finding appears to contradict those studies which suggest that practitioners are only as ethical professionally as they are personally.<br>Department of Journalism

This study attempted to determine whether or not there was a gender difference in students' ethical expectations of the public relations profession. Forty-two Ball State University public relations students participated. The students were given 49 statements that either supported or opposed a specific action that a public relations practitioner may take in an ethical dilemma, or a belief that public relations professionals may hold. Each student was asked to indicate how strongly he/she agreed or disagreed with each statement.The students' answers were analyzed using the QMETHOD factor analysis program. Two groups of individuals were defined: Factor I, "Female Dominated"; and Factor II, "Male Dominated." As the names indicate, the defining characteristic of these groups was the gender composition. The majority of females in the study fell into the first group, and the majority of the males in the study fell into the second group. Factor I z-scores were predominantly positive, whereas Factor II z-scores were predominantly negative-the results were close to perfect mirrors of one another. The findings supported the researcher's hypothesis that there is a gender difference in ethical expectations.<br>Department of Journalism

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007.<br>The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on November 11, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

This study compared the levels of professionalism among Indiana corporate and agency public relations practitioners. The entire population, 339 individuals, was contacted via telephone and administered McLeod and Hawley's professional orientation instrument, yielding 183 usable responses.Respondents rated the importance of 24 items on a 5point Likert scale, and provided information on age, education, undergraduate major, salary, and length of time with current organization, in public relations, and in the workforce.Professionalism scores were calculated by subtracting the sum of answers to the non-professional items from the sum of answers to the professional items. Scores were ranked, then divided at the median. "Professionals" fell at or above the median; "semi-professionals" fell below the median,following McLeod/Hawley methodology.A multiple regression analysis determined the only significant relationship between level of professionalism and demographics occurred with undergraduate major--a slight negative correlation. Frequency distribution showed journalism/public relations majors had higher percentages of professionals than either English or other majors.<br>Department of Journalism

The aim of this study is to understand the importance of public relations activity in non-profit organisations. The study emphasizes the bearing public relations activities can have on non-profit organisations in the contemporary world. This is especially true in an over communicated society where the vast majority of organisations compete to gain access to the scare media resources to put their message across to their potential clients, supporters and customers. Non-profit organisations generally have to depend on the donor agencies and therefore fail to attract a sizeable public relations budget. On the one hand, these organisations lack the resources to launch a successful public relations campaign and on the other the lack of knowledge and interest among general staff members makes it even harder for a public relations campaign to be developed or successfully launched. In this study, I used both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to collect and analyse data. The data were collected from two non-profit organisations based in New Zealand working in the area of child welfare. The primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires. A single semi-structured interview was conducted with each team leader of the two selected organisations. However, this was like skimming the surface and in-depth interviews would have helped me to collect richer data. On the other hand the data collected was sufficient for this research and it helped me to create a holistic understanding of the topic. The findings of the research highlight that most non-profit organisations working in the area of child welfare find it hard to market themselves due to a lack of funds and employee involvement. Although the findings from the study are significant; caution is necessary in applying the results to other scenarios and in making generalizations. One of the key findings from this research is that both organisations did not use public relations as a strategy. Most decision related to public relations was made on random basis and no long term strategic plan was made to adopt public relations as a core strategy to build creditability among their stakeholders.

The strategic communication goes beyond the area of public relations and focuses mainly on strategies that create, develop, and control the success of an organization. Strategic communication also includes traditional practices of institutionalized organizational communication to use the messages much more easily when interacting with internal and external stakeholders. Wishing to find a better strategy to programme any internal or external communication, the organizations develop different kinds of strategic plans meant to support the management process, starting with the mission and vision statement and ending with the evaluation of achieved goals. The following example - Integrated Strategic Communication (ISC)- shows the ways the integrated strategic communication can be reached in Romanian organizations.

The complexity of inter-ethnic relations is caused by various factors, e.g. globalisation processes, the intensification of migration flows, peculiarities of social interactions, and the presence of conflicts in a multi-ethnic environment. In this regard, the aim of our study was to examine the relationship between inter-ethnic attitudes and personal security among respondents of different ethnic backgrounds in different regions of the Russian Federation. Respondents were asked to fill out a questionnaire based on the questionnaire for a comprehensive study of acculturation developed by John Berry, aimed at studying such psychological constructs as the assessment of tolerance/intolerance of ethnic attitudes of the respondent, the assessment of migrant-phobia, the scale of assessment of integral security (physical, cultural, economic), the assessment of orientation towards multicultural ideology, the determination of acculturation expectations/strategies of respondents. The authors have found a statistically significant relationship between such variables as ethnic tolerance, attitudes towards social equality and levels of migrant-phobia; between such variables as economic, physical and cultural security and migrant-phobia. It was found that respondents in the Amur region are mostly oriented towards expectations such as integration and exclusion, while respondents in the Sverdlovsk region are more oriented towards integration and assimilation. The authors believe the study to be important and valuable since the resulting data indicate the presence of different features of inter-ethnic relations in different regions of the Russian Federation, determining the nature of inter- ethnic relations and the level of tension in the region.

A characteristic trait of the global society is the introduction of the idea of multi-culturalness into all areas of human life. Therefore, general cultural competencies shall include such a constituent as multi-cultural competency of personality to enable efficient performance in situations of inter-ethnic communication. The set problem has been tackled by all social institutions, however, the central role in that regard is the teaching community, which has a strong influence on the content of young people’s consciousness and behaviour. In this regard, it is important to update the problem of shaping the multicultural competence of university lecturers, which is the purpose of this study. To achieve the set objective, several intercomplementary research methods and techniques were applied: the theoretical analysis of scientific literature, observations, questionnaires, a content-analysis method, testing. A study of 200 teachers showed that in the minds of teachers, knowledge regarding the specifics of a multicultural environment, the image of a representative of another culture and inter-ethnic interactions are presented at the everyday level, are formed spontaneously based on their own experience, which requires the creation of special conditions for their further development. The content-analysis has yielded that markers used during defining a multi-cultural environment often include such semantic constructions as ‘various cultures’ and ‘several cultures’. A study of the characteristics of communicative tolerance showed that most teachers have a high level of tolerance manifested in various situations of interpersonal relations, whereas a low level was not detected.

Multilingualism in urban spaces is mainly studied as an oral practice. Nevertheless, linguistic landscape studies can serve as a good explorative method for studying multilingualism in written practices. Moreover, resent research on linguistic landscapes (Blommaert 2013; Shohamy et. al. 2010; Backhaus 2006) have shed some light on the power relations between different ethnic groups in urban public space. Multilingual practices exist in a certain ideological context, and not only official language policy but speaker linguistic stereotypes and attitudes can influence and modify those practices. Historically, South Korea tended to be oriented towards monolingualism; one nation-one people-one language ideology was domineering public discourse. However, globalization and recent increase in migration resulted in gradual changes in attitudes towards multilingualism (Lo and Kim 2012). The linguistic landscapes of Seoul, on the one hand, reflect these changes, and However, they demonstrates pragmatic inequality of languages other than South Korean in public use. This inequality, though, is represented differently in certain spatial urban contexts. The proposed paper aims at analyzing data on linguistic landscapes of Seoul, South Korea ,with the focus on different contexts of language use and different sets of norms and ideological constructs underlying particular linguistic choices. In my presentation I will examine data from three urban contexts: ‘general’ (typical for most public spaces); ‘foreign-oriented’ (seen in tourist oriented locations such as airport, expensive hotels, or popular historical sites, which dominates the Itaewon district); and ‘ethnic-oriented’ (specific for spaces created by and for ethnic minority groups, such as Mongolian / Central Asian / Russian districts near the Dongdaemun History and Culture Park station). I will show that foreign languages used in public written communication are embedded into different frameworks in these three urban contexts, and that the patterns of their use vary from pragmatically oriented ones to predominately symbolic ones, with English functioning as a substitution for other foreign languages, as an emblem of ‘foreignness.’

Rapid solutions are needed throughout the world to meet electrical demands for disaster relief, stabilizing development, industrial or research centers, exploratory drilling and mining, military stationing, and other off-grid or weak-grid applications. This need for on-demand power requires a mobile, modular, and self-sufficient power system designed for rapid deployment and seamless integration. This paper describes a mobile power solution specifically designed for disaster response situations like the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the primary motivating case for this work. A public-private partnership between Arizona State University and NRG Energy was formed to complete the use-inspired design. The mobile system was scoped to meet electricity requirements for a command center, clinic, cellular communications, kitchen, short-term lodging and public lighting, and other critical loads needed to stabilize development in the wake of natural or anthropogenic disaster that destroys the local electrical infrastructure. Deploying modular and self-contained micro-grids has the potential to reduce human harm following disaster by providing a decentralized network of electrical generation assets designed to meet critical loads for human survival and well being. In addition, since no two emergency situations are alike, the proposed solution provides flexibility and scalability to meet constraints for local renewable resources, fuel availability, and physical deployment space. The final system includes a 20 kW solar photovoltaic (PV) array, 10 kWh of lithium-ion battery storage, a 10 kW inverter system, a control computer, and a 20 kW diesel generator for supplemental power. The solar array is packed within a 20’ steel shipping container for ease and safe transport, thereby making the solution “containerized.” Components must be firmly mounted or secured to the walls and floors of the container for transport via a cargo freighter or helicopter. A second room was created inside the container to separate the generator from the batteries for safety purposes. The prototype can be fully deployed and functional in less than one hour’s time, and was tested against a load bank during various times of the day to illustrate how the power system controls shift operation between batteries, solar PV, and the generator. Sustainability, ethics, health, and safety features were considered in relation to the design specifications, manufacturability, and design scalability. These considerations included the lifecycle of the container, maintenance, modularity, intuitive operation, accessibility, and component temperature regulation, among others. Integration of other technologies such as wind power generation and water purification have the potential to bring further benefit through the plug-and-play containerized micro-grid solution.

The subjects Health Information Systems and Telemedicine and Data Quality and Interoperability of the Degree and Master in Biomedical Engineering of the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain, address learning outcomes related to managing and processing biomedical databases, using health information standards for data capture and exchange, data quality assessment, and developing machine-learning models from these data. These learning outcomes cover a large range of distinct activities in the biomedical data life-cycle, what may hinder the learning process in the limited time assigned for the subject. We propose a project based learning approach addressing the full life-cycle of biomedical data on the MIMIC-III (Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III) Open Dataset, a freely accessible database comprising information relating to patients admitted to critical care units. By means of this active learning approach, students can achieve all the learning outcomes of the subject in an integrated manner: understanding the MIMIC-III data model, using health information standards such as International Classification of Diseases 9th Edition (ICD-9), mapping to interoperability standards, querying data, creating data tables and addressing data quality towards applying reliable statistical and machine learning analysis and, developing predictive models for several tasks such as predicting in-hospital mortality. MIMIC-III is widely used in the academia and science, with a large amount of publicly available resources and scientific articles to support the students learning. Additionally, the students will gain new competences in the use of Open Data and Research Ethics and Compliance Training.

Attention to safety and health are of ever-increasing priority to industrial organizations. Good Safety is demanded by stockholders, employees, and the community while increasing injury costs provide additional motivation for safety and health excellence. Safety has always been a strong corporate value of DuPont and a vital part of its culture. As a result, DuPont has become a benchmark in safety and health performance. Since 1990, DuPont has re-engineered itself to meet global competition and address future vision. In the new re-engineered organizational structures, DuPont has also had to re-engineer its safety management systems. A special Discovery Team was chartered by DuPont senior management to determine the “best practices’ for safety and health being used in DuPont best-performing sites. A summary of the findings is presented, and five of the practices are discussed. Excellence in safety and health management is more important today than ever. Public awareness, federal and state regulations, and enlightened management have resulted in a widespread conviction that all employees have the right to work in an environment that will not adversely affect their safety and health. In DuPont, we believe that excellence in safety and health is necessary to achieve global competitiveness, maintain employee loyalty, and be an accepted member of the communities in which we make, handle, use, and transport products. Safety can also be the “catalyst” to achieving excellence in other important business parameters. The organizational and communication skills developed by management, individuals, and teams in safety can be directly applied to other company initiatives. As we look into the 21st Century, we must also recognize that new organizational structures (flatter with empowered teams) will require new safety management techniques and systems in order to maintain continuous improvement in safety performance. Injury costs, which have risen dramatically in the past twenty years, provide another incentive for safety and health excellence. Shown in the Figure 1, injury costs have increased even after correcting for inflation. Many companies have found these costs to be an “invisible drain” on earnings and profitability. In some organizations, significant initiatives have been launched to better manage the workers’ compensation systems. We have found that the ultimate solution is to prevent injuries and incidents before they occur. A globally-respected company, DuPont is regarded as a well-managed, extremely ethical firm that is the benchmark in industrial safety performance. Like many other companies, DuPont has re-engineered itself and downsized its operations since 1985. Through these changes, we have maintained dedication to our principles and developed new techniques to manage in these organizational environments. As a diversified company, our operations involve chemical process facilities, production line operations, field activities, and sales and distribution of materials. Our customer base is almost entirely industrial and yet we still maintain a high level of consumer awareness and positive perception. The DuPont concern for safety dates back to the early 1800s and the first days of the company. In 1802 E.I. DuPont, a Frenchman, began manufacturing quality grade explosives to fill America’s growing need to build roads, clear fields, increase mining output, and protect its recently won independence. Because explosives production is such a hazardous industry, DuPont recognized and accepted the need for an effective safety effort. The building walls of the first powder mill near Wilmington, Delaware, were built three stones thick on three sides. The back remained open to the Brandywine River to direct any explosive forces away from other buildings and employees. To set the safety example, DuPont also built his home and the homes of his managers next to the powder yard. An effective safety program was a necessity. It represented the first defense against instant corporate liquidation. Safety needs more than a well-designed plant, however. In 1811, work rules were posted in the mill to guide employee work habits. Though not nearly as sophisticated as the safety standards of today, they did introduce an important basic concept — that safety must be a line management responsibility. Later, DuPont introduced an employee health program and hired a company doctor. An early step taken in 1912 was the keeping of safety statistics, approximately 60 years before the federal requirement to do so. We had a visible measure of our safety performance and were determined that we were going to improve it. When the nation entered World War I, the DuPont Company supplied 40 percent of the explosives used by the Allied Forces, more than 1.5 billion pounds. To accomplish this task, over 30,000 new employees were hired and trained to build and operate many plants. Among these facilities was the largest smokeless powder plant the world had ever seen. The new plant was producing granulated powder in a record 116 days after ground breaking. The trends on the safety performance chart reflect the problems that a large new work force can pose until the employees fully accept the company’s safety philosophy. The first arrow reflects the World War I scale-up, and the second arrow represents rapid diversification into new businesses during the 1920s. These instances of significant deterioration in safety performance reinforced DuPont’s commitment to reduce the unsafe acts that were causing 96 percent of our injuries. Only 4 percent of injuries result from unsafe conditions or equipment — the remainder result from the unsafe acts of people. This is an important concept if we are to focus our attention on reducing injuries and incidents within the work environment. World War II brought on a similar set of demands. The story was similar to World War I but the numbers were even more astonishing: one billion dollars in capital expenditures, 54 new plants, 75,000 additional employees, and 4.5 billion pounds of explosives produced — 20 percent of the volume used by the Allied Forces. Yet, the performance during the war years showed no significant deviation from the pre-war years. In 1941, the DuPont Company was 10 times safer than all industry and 9 times safer than the Chemical Industry. Management and the line organization were finally working as they should to control the real causes of injuries. Today, DuPont is about 50 times safer than US industrial safety performance averages. Comparing performance to other industries, it is interesting to note that seemingly “hazard-free” industries seem to have extraordinarily high injury rates. This is because, as DuPont has found out, performance is a function of injury prevention and safety management systems, not hazard exposure. Our success in safety results from a sound safety management philosophy. Each of the 125 DuPont facilities is responsible for its own safety program, progress, and performance. However, management at each of these facilities approaches safety from the same fundamental and sound philosophy. This philosophy can be expressed in eleven straightforward principles. The first principle is that all injuries can be prevented. That statement may seem a bit optimistic. In fact, we believe that this is a realistic goal and not just a theoretical objective. Our safety performance proves that the objective is achievable. We have plants with over 2,000 employees that have operated for over 10 years without a lost time injury. As injuries and incidents are investigated, we can always identify actions that could have prevented that incident. If we manage safety in a proactive — rather than reactive — manner, we will eliminate injuries by reducing the acts and conditions that cause them. The second principle is that management, which includes all levels through first-line supervisors, is responsible and accountable for preventing injuries. Only when senior management exerts sustained and consistent leadership in establishing safety goals, demanding accountability for safety performance and providing the necessary resources, can a safety program be effective in an industrial environment. The third principle states that, while recognizing management responsibility, it takes the combined energy of the entire organization to reach sustained, continuous improvement in safety and health performance. Creating an environment in which employees feel ownership for the safety effort and make significant contributions is an essential task for management, and one that needs deliberate and ongoing attention. The fourth principle is a corollary to the first principle that all injuries are preventable. It holds that all operating exposures that may result in injuries or illnesses can be controlled. No matter what the exposure, an effective safeguard can be provided. It is preferable, of course, to eliminate sources of danger, but when this is not reasonable or practical, supervision must specify measures such as special training, safety devices, and protective clothing. Our fifth safety principle states that safety is a condition of employment. Conscientious assumption of safety responsibility is required from all employees from their first day on the job. Each employee must be convinced that he or she has a responsibility for working safely. The sixth safety principle: Employees must be trained to work safely. We have found that an awareness for safety does not come naturally and that people have to be trained to work safely. With effective training programs to teach, motivate, and sustain safety knowledge, all injuries and illnesses can be eliminated. Our seventh principle holds that management must audit performance on the workplace to assess safety program success. Comprehensive inspections of both facilities and programs not only confirm their effectiveness in achieving the desired performance, but also detect specific problems and help to identify weaknesses in the safety effort. The Company’s eighth principle states that all deficiencies must be corrected promptly. Without prompt action, risk of injuries will increase and, even more important, the credibility of management’s safety efforts will suffer. Our ninth principle is a statement that off-the-job safety is an important part of the overall safety effort. We do not expect nor want employees to “turn safety on” as they come to work and “turn it off” when they go home. The company safety culture truly becomes of the individual employee’s way of thinking. The tenth principle recognizes that it’s good business to prevent injuries. Injuries cost money. However, hidden or indirect costs usually exceed the direct cost. Our last principle is the most important. Safety must be integrated as core business and personal value. There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve learned from almost 200 years of experience that 96 percent of safety incidents are directly caused by the action of people, not by faulty equipment or inadequate safety standards. But conversely, it is our people who provide the solutions to our safety problems. They are the one essential ingredient in the recipe for a safe workplace. Intelligent, trained, and motivated employees are any company’s greatest resource. Our success in safety depends upon the men and women in our plants following procedures, participating actively in training, and identifying and alerting each other and management to potential hazards. By demonstrating a real concern for each employee, management helps establish a mutual respect, and the foundation is laid for a solid safety program. This, of course, is also the foundation for good employee relations. An important lesson learned in DuPont is that the majority of injuries are caused by unsafe acts and at-risk behaviors rather than unsafe equipment or conditions. In fact, in several DuPont studies it was estimated that 96 percent of injuries are caused by unsafe acts. This was particularly revealing when considering safety audits — if audits were only focused on conditions, at best we could only prevent four percent of our injuries. By establishing management systems for safety auditing that focus on people, including audit training, techniques, and plans, all incidents are preventable. Of course, employee contribution and involvement in auditing leads to sustainability through stakeholdership in the system. Management safety audits help to make manage the “behavioral balance.” Every job and task performed at a site can do be done at-risk or safely. The essence of a good safety system ensures that safe behavior is the accepted norm amongst employees, and that it is the expected and respected way of doing things. Shifting employees norms contributes mightily to changing culture. The management safety audit provides a way to quantify these norms. DuPont safety performance has continued to improve since we began keeping records in 1911 until about 1990. In the 1990–1994 time frame, performance deteriorated as shown in the chart that follows: This increase in injuries caused great concern to senior DuPont management as well as employees. It occurred while the corporation was undergoing changes in organization. In order to sustain our technological, competitive, and business leadership positions, DuPont began re-engineering itself beginning in about 1990. New streamlined organizational structures and collaborative work processes eliminated many positions and levels of management and supervision. The total employment of the company was reduced about 25 percent during these four years. In our traditional hierarchical organization structures, every level of supervision and management knew exactly what they were expected to do with safety, and all had important roles. As many of these levels were eliminated, new systems needed to be identified for these new organizations. In early 1995, Edgar S. Woolard, DuPont Chairman, chartered a Corporate Discovery Team to look for processes that will put DuPont on a consistent path toward a goal of zero injuries and occupational illnesses. The cross-functional team used a mode of “discovery through learning” from as many DuPont employees and sites around the world. The Discovery Team fostered the rapid sharing and leveraging of “best practices” and innovative approaches being pursued at DuPont’s plants, field sites, laboratories, and office locations. In short, the team examined the company’s current state, described the future state, identified barriers between the two, and recommended key ways to overcome these barriers. After reporting back to executive management in April, 1995, the Discovery Team was realigned to help organizations implement their recommendations. The Discovery Team reconfirmed key values in DuPont — in short, that all injuries, incidents, and occupational illnesses are preventable and that safety is a source of competitive advantage. As such, the steps taken to improve safety performance also improve overall competitiveness. Senior management made this belief clear: “We will strengthen our business by making safety excellence an integral part of all business activities.” One of the key findings of the Discovery Team was the identification of the best practices used within the company, which are listed below: ▪ Felt Leadership – Management Commitment ▪ Business Integration ▪ Responsibility and Accountability ▪ Individual/Team Involvement and Influence ▪ Contractor Safety ▪ Metrics and Measurements ▪ Communications ▪ Rewards and Recognition ▪ Caring Interdependent Culture; Team-Based Work Process and Systems ▪ Performance Standards and Operating Discipline ▪ Training/Capability ▪ Technology ▪ Safety and Health Resources ▪ Management and Team Audits ▪ Deviation Investigation ▪ Risk Management and Emergency Response ▪ Process Safety ▪ Off-the-Job Safety and Health Education Attention to each of these best practices is essential to achieve sustained improvements in safety and health. The Discovery Implementation in conjunction with DuPont Safety and Environmental Management Services has developed a Safety Self-Assessment around these systems. In this presentation, we will discuss a few of these practices and learn what they mean. Paper published with permission.

Poor and marginalised citizens rarely engage directly with the state to solve their governance issues in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings, as these settings are characterised by the confrontational nature of state–citizen relations. Instead, citizens engage with, and make claims to, intermediaries some of them public authorities in their own right. What are these intermediaries’ roles, and which strategies and practices do they use to broker state–citizen engagement? We argue that in Pakistan intermediaries make themselves essential by: (1) being able to speak the language of public authorities; (2) constantly creating and sustaining networks outside their communities; and (3) building collectivising power by maintaining reciprocity relations with their communities. In doing so, households and intermediaries engage in what we are calling ‘accountability bargains’: strategies and practices intermediaries and poor and marginalised households employ in order to gain a greater degree of security and autonomy within the bounds of class, religious, and ethnic oppression.

The main recommendations of the panel report can be summarised under five key headings:  HUMANITY The Panel recommends recognition that research in this field should be geared towards the development of critical understandings of self and society in the modern world. Archaeological research into the modern past should be ambitious in seeking to contribute to understanding of the major social, economic and environmental developments through which the modern world came into being. Modern-world archaeology can add significantly to knowledge of Scotland’s historical relationships with the rest of the British Isles, Europe and the wider world. Archaeology offers a new perspective on what it has meant to be a modern person and a member of modern society, inhabiting a modern world.  MATERIALITY The Panel recommends approaches to research which focus on the materiality of the recent past (i.e. the character of relationships between people and their material world). Archaeology’s contribution to understandings of the modern world lies in its ability to situate, humanise and contextualise broader historical developments. Archaeological research can provide new insights into the modern past by investigating historical trends not as abstract phenomena but as changes to real lives, affecting different localities in different ways. Archaeology can take a long-term perspective on major modern developments, researching their ‘prehistory’ (which often extends back into the Middle Ages) and their material legacy in the present. Archaeology can humanise and contextualise long-term processes and global connections by working outwards from individual life stories, developing biographies of individual artefacts and buildings and evidencing the reciprocity of people, things, places and landscapes. The modern person and modern social relationships were formed in and through material environments and, to understand modern humanity, it is crucial that we understand humanity’s material relationships in the modern world.  PERSPECTIVE The Panel recommends the development, realisation and promotion of work which takes a critical perspective on the present from a deeper understanding of the recent past. Research into the modern past provides a critical perspective on the present, uncovering the origins of our current ways of life and of relating to each other and to the world around us. It is important that this relevance is acknowledged, understood, developed and mobilised to connect past, present and future. The material approach of archaeology can enhance understanding, challenge assumptions and develop new and alternative histories. Modern Scotland: Archaeology, the Modern past and the Modern present vi Archaeology can evidence varied experience of social, environmental and economic change in the past. It can consider questions of local distinctiveness and global homogeneity in complex and nuanced ways. It can reveal the hidden histories of those whose ways of life diverged from the historical mainstream. Archaeology can challenge simplistic, essentialist understandings of the recent Scottish past, providing insights into the historical character and interaction of Scottish, British and other identities and ideologies.  COLLABORATION The Panel recommends the development of integrated and collaborative research practices. Perhaps above all other periods of the past, the modern past is a field of enquiry where there is great potential benefit in collaboration between different specialist sectors within archaeology, between different disciplines, between Scottish-based researchers and researchers elsewhere in the world and between professionals and the public. The Panel advocates the development of new ways of working involving integrated and collaborative investigation of the modern past. Extending beyond previous modes of inter-disciplinary practice, these new approaches should involve active engagement between different interests developing collaborative responses to common questions and problems.  REFLECTION The Panel recommends that a reflexive approach is taken to the archaeology of the modern past, requiring research into the nature of academic, professional and public engagements with the modern past and the development of new reflexive modes of practice. Archaeology investigates the past but it does so from its position in the present. Research should develop a greater understanding of modern-period archaeology as a scholarly pursuit and social practice in the present. Research should provide insights into the ways in which the modern past is presented and represented in particular contexts. Work is required to better evidence popular understandings of and engagements with the modern past and to understand the politics of the recent past, particularly its material aspect. Research should seek to advance knowledge and understanding of the moral and ethical viewpoints held by professionals and members of the public in relation to the archaeology of the recent past. There is a need to critically review public engagement practices in modern-world archaeology and develop new modes of public-professional collaboration and to generate practices through which archaeology can make positive interventions in the world. And there is a need to embed processes of ethical reflection and beneficial action into archaeological practice relating to the modern past.