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LOYALTY IN PUBLIC RELATIONS: WHEN IS IT RAW MATERIAL FOR VIRTUE AND WHEN IS IT RAW MATERIAL FOR SOME VICES?









By Kevin Stoker, Ph.D.
Department of Communications
Brigham Young University
E-509 HFAC
Provo, Utah 84602
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Submitted for consideration in the Public Relations Division research paper competition, Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication 2000 Convention, Aug. 9-12, 2000, Phoenix, AZ.


                Loyalty-
LOYALTY IN PUBLIC RELATIONS: WHEN IS IT RAW MATERIAL FOR VIRTUE AND WHEN IS IT RAW MATERIAL FOR SOME VICES?

        Loyalty, the desire to be and remain with the group, the willingness to bear some cost for that and, at least to an extent, to take the interests of others as one's own, is the raw material for the virtues. It is also the raw material for at least some of the vices. (Ewin, 1992, p. 419)
Loyalty has become somewhat of a buzzword in public relations. Some of the country's leading firms are touting it as the raw material for turning around struggling organizations. Loyalty also serves as the raw material for building relationships that can weather public crises and economic ups and downs. But what happens when the relationship deteriorates to the point where remaining loyal is no longer practical or productive and when continued association undermines one's credibility and character. When does one's personal loyalty to consistent standards outweigh the costs of taking the interests of others as one's? When does loyalty go too far and become the raw material for vices, such as deception, deflection, and denial? 
Public relations professionals are uniquely affected by deterioration in the quality of products, moral behavior, or relationships. As intermediaries between an organization and its environment, public relations practitioners receive, process, and distribute information and represent the organization to external and internal publics (White & Dozier, 1993, p. 103). At some point in a public relations career, a practitioner will likely be called on to defend a company's position or action to those publics. What does one do when that position or action is later discovered to be suspect, less than honest, or even a blatant lie? How does one handle a situation in which the company line is flawed or, worse still, misleading and outright dishonest? One's credibility is gone as well as one's career. 
Using a model developed by Albert O. Hirschman's (1970) in his groundbreaking book, Exit, voice, and loyalty, as a framework for analysis, this paper addresses the practical and moral ramifications of organizational deterioration on public relations professionals. First, the concepts of exit and voice and their relationship to public relations practice will be explained. Second, the experience of a thirty-year veteran of public relations will be used to illustrate how exit and voice interact to influence top management. Next, the paper will consider loyalty, its definition, its limits, and its effect on public relations practice. To further explicate the practical and ethical implications of loyalty, the paper will examine the recently publicized exits of George Stephanopolous and Mike McCurry from the Clinton administration. The paper will then delineate between loyalty as a raw material for virtue and a potential source of vice before proposing a model to guide public relations practice.

Exit and voice
Firms and other organizations are conceived to be permanently and randomly subject to decline and decay, that is, to a gradual loss of rationality, efficiency, and surplus-producing energy, no matter how well the institutional framework within which they function is designed. (Hirschman, 1970, p. 15)
Acting to reverse these declines, according to Hirschman, are exit and voice. At the exit stage, customers stop buying products or members begin leaving the firm, sending a message to management that a problem exists and needs to be remedied. When using the voice option, customers or organizational members protest the decline by communicating to management or others with authority over management practices. In both instances, the key component in counteracting organizational decline is communication. The future of the organization may depend upon its ability to pay attention to negative feedback, and its highly likely that the public relations practitioners would provide some of this feedback. The systems theory approach to public relations emphasizes the professional's role as a boundary spanner who interacts with the environment, channeling important information back and forth between management and employees, the organization and the public (White & Dozier, 1992; Grunig, Grunig, & Ehling, 1992; and Aldrich & Herker, 1977).
As a characteristic of competition, exit induces revenue losses that communicate quality decline and lead to re-engineering and revival (Hirschman, 1970, pp. 21-29). But exit only works as a recuperation mechanism if the drop in demand is significant enough to attract attention. In an environment with high demand and low supply, customers and employees may stick with the firm because they have no alternatives. On the other hand, in a competitive environment with alternatives of higher or equal value, customers will likely exit at the first signs of decline and begin buying from a competitor. 
If all the customers exited at the same time, a firm might collapse and never recover. "For competition (exit) to work as a mechanism of recuperation from performance lapses, it is generally best for a firm to have a mixture of alert and inert customers" (p. 24). Alert customers are most sensitive to a quality decline and become the first to leave. If all customers or employees were alert, a decline in quality would lead to the immediate downfall of the company. The existence of inert customers provides the company with time to make corrections. In some cases, exit might not pose problems because the company replaces lost business with new customers. In industries where prices remain constant across the board, such as with gas stations, it may serve some organizations' best interests to maintain competition and keep consumers searching for improved products that do not exist (pp 27-28). Thus, exit may not have the correcting effects promised by competition and instead encourage a collective mediocrity.
The failure of competition to resolve organizational downturns poses a problem for a budding profession such as public relations, which provides services that benefit clients and society and is "held responsible for improving the institutions administering those services" (Kultgen, 1988, p. 371; quoted in Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 2000, p. 146).  Far from being a passive disseminator of information, the public relations professional should help to counteract organizational decline by informing management about problems and providing counsel on how to repair its problem relationships. Public relations also assumes a social responsibility, a corporate conscience role, mandated by the profession's code of ethics. Practitioners are expected to "conduct _ [their] professional life in accord with the public interest" (PRSA Code of Professional Standards for the Practice of Public Relations, cited in Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 2000, pp. 166-167).
Thus, public relations has a practical and moral obligation to intervene when the organization deteriorates, whether in the quality of products, performance, or relationships. In most instances, the practitioner will respond by invoking voice. 
To resort to voice, rather than exit, is for the customer or member to make an attempt at changing the practices, policies, and outputs of the firm from which one buys or the organization to which one belongs. Voice is here defined as any attempt at all to change, rather than to escape from, an objectionable state of affairs, whether through individual or collective petition to the management directly in charge, through appeal to a higher authority with the intention of forcing a change in management, or thorough various types of actions and protests, including those that are meant to mobilize public opinion. (Hirschman, 1970, p. 30)
Like exit, voice alerts management that a problem exists and can lead to recuperation. There is a danger of too much voice undermining recuperative efforts or not giving management time to make the necessary changes, but in general "voice is a badly underdeveloped mechanism; it is difficult to conceive of a situation in which there would be too much of it" (p. 33). Anyone who chooses not to exit a firm would become a candidate for the voice option. Indeed, in contexts where exit is less of an option, such as in family, state, or church relationships, voice becomes more of a factor in effecting change. But voice also can act as an alternative to exit. If customers or members perceive that their voices will have an effect on the organization, they may postpone exit and use it only as a last resort when voice fails (pp. 36-37). When customers and employees feel that management will listen and respond to voice, they will stick with the company, fully expecting declines to be temporary and reversible.
Public relations plays a pivotal role in the voice process, not only in terms of relaying information back to management but telling stakeholders how that information influenced the organization. One leading practitioner, Andy Cunningham of Cunningham Communications Inc., argues that public relations informs management about what the organization's key constituencies are thinking and then "demonstrate to those constituents how their input has helped inform top management's decisions" (Mieszkowski, 1998, pp. 195-196). Grunig and White (1992) defined this type of public relations as two-way symmetrical, a model based on using "research and dialogue to manage conflict, improve understanding, and build relationships with publics." Both the organization and the public can be persuaded and both can change. This view of public relations emerges from systems theory in which public relations helps organizations anticipate, adjust, adapt, and respond to the public interest (Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 2000, pp. 24-25).
For customers or organizational members to invoke voice, they believe that they or others they influence can correct the decline, and they see value in trading the certainty of an organization not in decline for the uncertainty of one that is deteriorating. Public relations is strategically positioned to establish a climate in which customers and members feel that change in possible. Through their work with the media, practitioners influence external publics. They also influence those inside the organization through internal communication. This highly practical role places a great deal of responsibility on the practitioner to effectively communicate employee concerns and then relay the response of management back to the frontlines. In other words, public relations influences the influential, whether it be a dissatisfied public, disgruntled employees, or disengaged managers. As a communication bridge between these various stakeholders, the public relations professional achieves credibility directly proportional to the accuracy and value of the information communicated. The opposite is also true. The professional loses credibility in direct proportion to the validity of the message. 
In the case of organizational deterioration, a practitioner may choose not to risk his or her credibility and exit the situation. But the demands of loyalty, as Hirschman (1970) contended, hold "exit at bay and activates voice" (p. 78). A premature exit by the practitioner may undermine an organization's ability to communicate its recuperation to the public. According to Hirschman, the customers and employees most sensitive to a decrease in quality are also the ones most likely to make the first exit. If the public relations professional joins this early mass exodus, then the organization loses those "who could best help fight its shortcomings and its difficulties" (p. 79). In other words, an early exit by the practitioner may serve his or her self-interests, but it will likely fail to serve the best interests of other organizational members and publics that benefit from its products and services. This presents the professional with both a practical and moral dilemma.
As a professional, public relations practitioners "can be ethically partial to the interest of clients or management so long as no direct harm is done to others or the public interest" (Martinson, 1995/1996, p. 3). The action becomes unethical when the practitioner intentionally harms a third party or society. An early exit would clearly harm those working to right the listing ship, as well as those inert customers and employees who would likely go down with the ship. Martinson argued that practitioners should universalize their partiality to their clients and organizations, emphasizing that whatever is good for the practitioner must be good for all others faced with the same situation. 
However, the ethical concerns of a marketing or human resources manager faced with organizational deterioration differ from those confronted by a public relations professional. In representing an organization to the public, the public relations practitioner presupposes that his or her communicative action serves the public interest as well as organizational and personal interests. The problem arises in determining what the public interest is and the balance between one's loyalty to the organization and the public interest (see Bivins, 1993). The PRSA Code of Professional Conduct provides some, albeit limited, clarification of the practitioner's loyalties. The professional is expected to work in harmony with the public interest while at the same time dealing fairly with the public, clients, and colleagues. Indeed, several articles deal with the practitioner's loyalty to fellow colleagues and the profession, but little else is said about the relationship with a client until the final article. The practitioner is then counseled to "sever relations" with any client or organization acting contrary to the code (see Cutlip, Center, & Broom., 1994, pp. 153-154). 
But the practitioner's fiduciary responsibility does not end at the point of an organizational downturn. Indeed, it could be argued, that crises bring out the best in public relations because they force organizations to respond to the public interest and communicate plans for addressing and correcting problems. Exiting an organization at the first sign of trouble might not qualify as dealing fairly with the client or the public. In some cases, an early exit might serve the self-interests of the practitioner at the expense of the organization or the public. This smacks of egoism and implies a greater loyalty to self than to the organization or the public. Egoism defines a moral action as one that provides a person or related persons the greatest amount of good over evil. It means one always acts out of self-interest, striving to bring about the greatest good for self and one's cohorts. The other alternative is for the practitioner to voice his or her concerns. Of course, nobody in an organization is going to tell public relations that it has the freedom to do whatever it wants to do. Sometimes the practitioner has to be the conscience of the organization, for better for worse, and speak his or her mind, regardless of the consequences. 

A personal example of exit and voice
Voicing objections should serve as a starting point for the loyal employee. Speaking out is an act of loyalty and a professional duty. Indeed, by expressing concerns, looking for creative solutions, and offering expertise, public relations practitioners exercise professional autonomy and do the job entrusted to them. On occasion, the organization may reject the practitioner's concerns and expect public relations to mislead the press and the public. It is a ticklish situation. If a practitioner is in such a position, should he or she go along and, using all his or her public relations expertise and word-smithing prowess, turn a lie into a thinly disguised "truth?" As practitioners are so fond of saying, "Putting a 'decent spin' on it." Or does the practitioner quit in anger and disgust? Quitting writes "fin' to that job, allowing one to emerge from the fray with honor and integrity intact. Are there other options? Based on one of the author's thirty years of corporate experience, the answer is, "Yes." However, it is up to the individual to measure the possible costs against the risk.
Maybe the arrogance of the times dictated that it was "o.k." for powerful manager-types to tell the public only what they wanted them to know. (And, it was a given that hired pr-guns were to follow their leaders without question.) In other words, they genuinely thought that the function of pr professionals was to make up outrageous claims and to say whatever would sell the product. Looking back, some felt that "profit at the cost of honor" was acceptable. Today, with all the industry watchdogs and governmental agencies, it is much more important to tread an honorable path. Management has learned the value of traveling the high road-that honesty is preferable to the cleverest of fabrications. The chance of exposure is much greater. A point to be made is that honesty is much easier to defend in the public forum than a lie, and honesty will earn one a lot more friends in the media as well as in the community. Not to mention professional credibility, which, if one does not have it, one might as well look for another, less hazardous, line of work.
When the company president asks the practitioner to come up with a way to make a potentially dangerous product, procedure, or process appear to be user friendly, harmless and beneficial when it is clearly known that it is none of the above, what should the practitioner's reaction be? Quit immediately (if young enough, or if gutsy enough or confident enough, or tough enough, start acting like a pr counsel and earn one's pay). It is not easy to buck the system in any organization, but now is the time to pull it all together and put all the chips on the table. Older, but not necessarily wiser, pr practitioners may opt to take the easy way out, while pulling the ripcord on their golden parachutes. 
To prevent the company from shooting itself in the foot, it takes work, some convincing arguments and some cleverness, all of which are reasons they hired a public relations practitioner in the first place. Confronting the top guy with reasons why his or her strategy will not work requires finesse, courage, and the presence of mind to pose a multitude of possible scenarios. "If we say this, the media will know we are lying." And tell the boss why. "If we cite this research, the media will question it, so why are we using outdated research?" And provide a professional interpretation of the situation. "Our own research clearly shows this product or procedure to be questionable and, in my opinion, there's enough research out to the contrary to prove us wrong." And show him the intelligence you've gathered. "A smart reporter will report the other viewpoint, too." And provide some examples of that reporter's work to prove the point. And, as a last resort-the real bomb-"What we are saying is an outright lie and I will resign before I let this company release this information." And be prepared to follow through on the threat.
Hirschman (1970) also argued that the use of voice demanded more courage and creativity, and he emphasized that voice is most effective when backed by the threat of exit (pp. 82-83). Practitioners may not wield the influence necessary to improve conditions in an organization unless they are willing to place their job on the line to bring about change. In other words, the ultimate act of loyalty may be to risk the loss of one's job to promote the overall welfare of the organization and society. Public relations practitioners must play the role of the company's corporate conscience. Often it is a very, very unpopular place to be. In the situation alluded to in this article, the outcome was that the public relations practitioner brought so many arguments against the "popular" position that the top brass was convinced that they needed to rethink their position. Why? Because various unpleasant outcomes-that the pr-untrained had not even considered-were presented to them-channeled through the public relations conscience. Countering "General Bullmoose" thinking with, "Can you imagine the headlines this would make." And then, coming up with all sorts of expository and embarrassing headlines opened eyes. Planning like a pr professional combined with thinking like an investigative reporter laid bare the bones of an ill-conceived strategy. Liberally salted with a dash of humor, too. Practitioners often take for granted (or overlook in the terror of the moment) the knowledge they possess that can convince others (not as informed) of the consequences of going public with bad information. "You know what you know, but sometimes what you know just will not come to the top."
What would have happened if a fresh-out-of-school rookie had been the one on the firing line? Would he or she have had the presence of mind, the credibility and even the courage to stand in front of a hostile group and put the job on the line for a principle? It is possible a promising career would have ended. The practitioner has two choices-quit or fight for one's principles and the principles of the company. Sure, one may lose the job, but not a career. And, the company that follows the advice will soon recognize the value of public relations. 



The role of loyalty in exit and voice
The degree to which customer-members of an organization are willing to trade the certainty of exit for the uncertainties of an improvement in the situation is what Hirschman (1970) defines as loyalty. "Thus, even with a given estimate of one's influence, the likelihood of voice increases with the degree of loyalty" (p. 77). Loyalty is not an act of faith, but a "reasoned calculation" that over a period of time the right decisions will more than balance out the wrong ones (pp. 78-79). This implies a definition of loyalty closely aligned with that of Josaih Royce, who wrote that loyalty, if properly defined, "is the fulfillment of the whole moral law" (Royce, 1971, p. 15). He defined loyalty as, "The willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause." This devotion must be expressed "in some sustained and practical way, by acting steadily in the service of [the] cause" (p. 17). But how does one define the truth and rightness of a cause? History supplies many examples of individuals or societies who used loyalty or a related concept, patriotism, to justify acts of brutality and injustice.
Royce sought to dispel such dangers by urging people to freely choose or find a cause and "serve it with all your might and soul and strength; but so choose your cause, and so serve it, that thereby you show forth your loyalty to loyalty_" (Royce, 1971, p. 138; quoted in Fletcher, 1993, p. 152). By poorly choosing a cause, one would undermine the loyalty of others. The opposite is also true. Loyalty to a good cause would lead to an increase of loyalty in others. Fletcher (1993) wrote that, "each person should exercise the maximum amount of loyalty compatible with respect for the loyalty of others" (p. 152).
Loyalty, strictly speaking, demands what is morally due the object of loyalty. A loyal subject is one who wholeheartedly devotes himself to his duties to his lord. What is due or owed is defined by the roles of the persons concerned. The fact that loyalty gives what is due also explains why we can demand the loyalty of others.
It follows that mere blind obedience to every wish of the person who is the object of loyalty is not loyalty; it is a perversion of loyalty. There is not moral value to it at all, since it is not something that is morally due. A loyal Nazi is a contradiction in terms, although a loyal German is not. (Ladd, 1968, p. 98)
The truth-seeking aspect of loyalty would require the public relations practitioner to constantly evaluate whether his or her organization is owed loyalty and whether that debt overcomes one's loyalty to the personal and public interests. Ladd noted that conflicts of loyalty exit, but that does not mean that the conflicting loyalties are improper or invalid. "Sometimes there are clear ways of resolving these conflicts and sometimes there are not, but we cannot eliminate the problem of conflicting loyalties either by a metaphysical trick or by the mechanical application of a value calculus" (p. 98). Dealing with these conflicts requires the active participation of the practitioners in the strategic decisions that lead to the development of the collective character of an organization. Character, as Carl Friedrich (1984) defined it, "is the consistent loyalty to believed standards" (p. 295). Sometimes public relations uses voice to simply remind the organization of its standards, of its collective conscience.
It might be argued that this view of public relations is too idealistic, especially in light of the fact that practitioners are not generally members of the dominant coalition. But loyalty does not necessarily require practitioners to be influential themselves, but it can hardly exist "without the expectation that someone will act or something will happen to improve matters" (p. 78). In other words, if practitioners have no voice or influence, and see no influential voice to express concerns, then their loyalty has crossed the line between virtue and vice. It begs the question is there any such thing as a silent loyalist?
Research is only now exploring the relationship of loyalty and voice at the individual level. Freeman (1980) showed that union contracts reduced the exit by providing opportunities for workers to voice dissatisfaction with conditions (see also Freeman & Medoff, 1984). Cahuc and Kramarz (1997) also found reduced employee turnover when power was exchanged for loyalty. The effect of union or collective agreements, however, was limited to collective voice and had little or mixed effects on individual voice, a much more widespread phenomena (Hobson, 1997). "Individual voice expressed by avoiding work and withholding enthusiasm appears to be common across diverse settings" (p. 1208). 
The "individual voice" construct, however, may be misleading. Another possible explanation is that under some conditions situational factors moderate exit and voice and the employee stays with the firm but makes an internal or psychological exit (Turnley & Feldman, 1999). Further support for this explanation comes from Boroff and Lewin (1997) who studied employees reporting unfair treatment by employers. Loyal employees were less likely to exercise voice and leave the firm and more likely to "suffer in silence" (p. 9; see also Barry, 1974; and Birch, 1975). In other words, instead of holding exit at bay, as Hirschman attests, loyalty promotes internal exits that allow members to remain with an organization despite dissatisfaction with its performance. For example, employees may stop listening to upper management by ignoring policy changes or complaints. A public relations practitioner who simply writes a press release without questioning its content or strategic value has exited from taking a moral responsibility for public communication. Indeed, the practitioner that slips into the background to avoid morally distressing information or decisions has made a moral exit from the organization.
Mike McCurry, former White House press secretary under President Clinton, exhibited this type of exit in dealing with the Monica Lewinski affair ("McCurry on McCurry:" 1999). "I got into trouble because I didn't seek the truth about Monica." If he had defended the president in public, he said, he could not have done his work and "so I delegated controversy and scandal to the specialists-the lawyers" (p. 3). McCurry wondered whether he did the right thing. This dilemma presented him with conflicting loyalties to his president, the public, his family, and himself. He justified staying out of the information loop by saying that paying for a legal defense could have cost him his savings and home. McCurry avoided giving voice to his concerns because he feared negative consequences for himself and his family. Hirschman (1970) said that organizational customers and members speak out when they have little opportunity for exit. McCurry was free to exit the situation and could have become a controversial moral hero. But he made an internal exit, and the decision continues to haunt him. 
According to Royce, dodging serious questions about one's cause to protect one's own self-interests is not true loyalty. Royce's loyal practitioner would be a truth-seeker, identifying with organizations and causes that he or she would will that all people deem worthy of loyalty. One would constantly seek the truth as to whether the client or organization redeems on its claims for loyalty from employees, customers, investors, and the community. This apparently happened to George Stephanopoulos in his relationship with President Clinton. During the 1992 campaign, Stephanopoulos witnessed Clinton's lying but continued to fight for him on the campaign trail. "I now had doubts about Clinton, had seen his flaws up close, which caused me to focus even more intently on his strengths and believe even more fervently in his ideas," Stephanopoulos said. "Now I was a true believer" (Stephanopoulos, 1999, p. 34). But even the loyalty of true believers could be questioned. In one incident, Hillary, unhappy with Stephanopoulos, said, "If you don't believe in us, you should just leave." Stephanopoulos was shocked, writing that, "I'm the most loyal staffer they've ever had." He then defended his loyalty by confessing to himself that he had sacrificed his credibility for the Clintons. But Stephanopoulos also admitted that doubts had plagued him from the beginning (pp. 39-40). The angst experienced by Stephanopoulos and McCurry is indicative of the power loyalty has on interpersonal as well as civic relationships.
We cannot escape our loyalties; they are rooted in our profoundest convictions. They are strange stirrings within us that we are wont to regard as the workings of conscience_. Whenever the ongoing process of life is thwarted, the seething undercurrent of our attachments to institutions and codes is thrown temporarily out of harmonious relationship and its delicate structure must be reorganized before the organism may proceed once more. (Bloch, 1966, p. 29-30)
Bloch's statement helps explain why conflicts of loyalties create crises that extend long after one has left the situation. The loss of loyalty creates a loss equivalent to a loss of innocence. Public relations practitioners may choose an internal exit because the communicative nature of their jobs results in the development of interpersonal loyalties. If that loyalty is called into question, it threatens our concepts of self and our roles in society. 
So we are threatened with having to wear these narrower loyalties on our sleeves, in all their nakedness, or else abandon them, which creates for parts of our social lives a problem not unlike that which islanders or Native American tribesmen faced when they met modern Western civilization. How can a person maintain community and civic loyalties if he is led to conclude that his community and his city are no better, and deserve no more, than a thousand others. (Ewin, 1982, p. 191)
In other words when one's president, boss or organization prove to be susceptible to the natural ebb and flow of humanity, it calls into question one's character, motives, and values. Royce (1971) would argue that the practitioner's obligation to loyalty must transcend personal experience or history with the organization or person. Loyalty would demand fidelity to an eternal truth, one valid for everybody. "Loyalty is the Will to Believe in something eternal, and to express that belief in the practical life of a human being" (Royce, 1971, p. 357). Royce defined the "eternal" as consisting of "all temporal happenings and strivings," a "single consciousness" that "fulfills all our rational purposes together, and is all that we seek to be." In other words, loyalty is not a passive state, inevitably determined by history and tradition, but an active process in which the individual seeks after universal truths and loyalties. The seeker of truth is loyal to loyalty because "whatever [the] truth you try to discover is, if true, valid for everybody, and is therefore worthy of everybody's loyal recognition" (p. 376). 
By universalizing loyalty-a good cause for one person is a good cause for all-Royce reflects a deontological approach to ethics. The deontological theory of ethics focuses on what a person ought to do in any given situation. Moral laws or maxims applicable to all rational beings determine the rightness of acts. These moral laws or maxims are determined by what Kant (1986) called a "categorical imperative" (p. 79). English philosopher W. D. Ross (1954) defined the categorical imperative as acting "only on maxims such that in adopting them you can at the same time wish that they be adopted by all men and always_when they are in the same situation as you are" (p. 45).
In other words, maxims would have equal hold on all persons, regardless of the situation. With respect to moral laws or maxims, Kant (1986) advocated the development of "pure rules" or duties that a person ought to follow no matter what. These duties could include avoiding harm, beneficence, promoting justice, telling the truth, or repairing wrongs. For Kant, adhering to these duties is an act of good will. "The good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes or because of its adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of its willing, i.e., it is good of itself" (p. 62). In other words, an act is right not because of its purpose, goal, or the motivation behind it but because it is right in and of itself. Thus, Royce made loyalty a moral duty with respect to the categorical imperative that what is right for one must be right for all. In the context of public relations, an organization or client worthy of a practitioner's loyalty would command the loyalty of all rational individuals. The loyal practitioner would not only benefit his or her organization, but society as a whole. Royce explained,
Whoever is loyal, whatever be his cause, is devoted, is active, surrenders his private self-will, controls himself, is in love with his cause and believes in it. The loyal man is thus in a certain state of mind which has its own value for himself. To live a loyal life, whatever be one's cause, is to live in a way which is certainly free from many well-known sources of inner dissatisfaction. Thus hesitancy is often corrected by loyalty; for the cause plainly tells the loyal man what to do. Loyalty, again, tends to unify life, to give it center, fixity, stability. (Royce, 1971, p. 22)
In public relations, the loyal practitioner would exhibit confidence before the public because of his or her commitment to the cause. If the object of one's loyalty began to conflict with personal values then, by Royce's definition, the conditions for loyalty would begin to disappear. In other words, a cause that creates dissonance, hesitancy, and divisiveness is not a worthy object of loyalty. Some have argued that downsizing of the 1980s and early 1990s, along with the new high tech economy, has undermined the importance of loyalty ("We aren't all free agents," 1999, p. 47). Some in the computer industry are not sure whether it is an asset or a liability ("Loyalty: Asset or Liability?" 1999, p. 52). But new definition of loyalty is emerging that more closely resembles the type of loyalty advocated by Royce nearly a century ago. Workers hold companies more accountable, demanding employee ownership plans, influence, and recognition of other loyalties, such as family, church, and personal growth (Hays, 1999; "Profits from loyalty," 1998; and Laabs, 1998). 
The principles of loyalty will be even more important in the mangement of relationships in the virtual corporation, where the line between employee and vendor grows increasingly blurred. Most managers will find they can build real vendor partnerships only with companies they've done business with for years_. In short, long-term partnerlike relationships will be even more relevant in the future than they have been in the past. Loyalty-based management is about building and managing the relationships-all the relationships-that comprise a business system. It is about value-sharing partnerships in which stakeholders-distributors, vendors, communities-share in the value they help create. These are the principles that enable companies to build effective relationships today and pursue the virtual realities tomorrow. (Riechheld, 1996, p. 23)
Reichheld (1996) argued that businesses rise and fall depending upon the loyalty or defection of customers, employees, and investors. This philosophy, according to Haughey (1997) is "suffused with" Aristotelian ethics. "Character ethics does not focus on the rightness or wrongness of this or that act," Haughey wrote, "but inquires into the character of the acting person or the kind of persons we should become." Aristotle emphasized dispositions, and good dispositions are virtues (p. 5). 
Haughey described loyalty as a "combination of rationality and affectivity" (p. 4). In other words, mature loyalty is a virtue cultivated in individual character that the person later accepts as an objective principle valid for everyone. Haughey's "essential elements" are applicable to public relations because they account for the importance of loyalty as a concept and its role as a virtue of character. Loyalty should begin with the goodness of the organization and the good dispositions of the individual practitioner and the persons associated with the organization. The effects of the organization on the public relations professional also must be evaluated. Is it encouraging ethical practice? Are its actions consistent with one's personal integrity? Is it a mutually beneficial relationship that still maintains the individuality of the loyal person? Can dissent be expressed? Can multiple loyalties co-exist? In sum, Haughey would advocate public relations practitioners cultivate loyalty as a virtue, associate with virtuous companies, and then apply loyalty as a moral principle by which to live.
Thus, the public relations practitioner following Royce's model would seek to know the truth of the cause and the people leading that cause. They would identify with causes or organizations that reflect their own values and those of society. Indeed, they would validate their loyalty by making it universal and positing that whatever is a worthy object of loyalty for one must also be a worthy object of loyalty for all. To prevent distress and disillusionment, the professional must not only consider the cause but the virtue of those leading the cause. In doing so, the practitioners balance loyalty based on a fiduciary relationship with loyalty based on virtues common to the character of practitioners and the leaders to whom they profess their loyalty. 
The problem for public relations practitioners arises in rank-ordering their loyalties. Public relations professionals place a high value on their loyalty to the public or "public interest," as the Public Relations Society of America refers to it. They also owe loyalty to public service, the profession, and their autonomy to act independent of organizational or personal interests. Other objects of loyalty include one's clients, organization, community, and family. One also owes loyalty to self, personal integrity and character. 
As already stated, voice is most effective when backed by the threat of exit. Management must know that a practitioner would not sacrifice his or her integrity to lie for the company. Swann Brannon of Savannah (Georgia) Electric & Power Company said company executives would not ask her to mislead the public because they know she would refuse to do it (Personal conversation, April 5, 1999). The organization must know and appreciate the practitioner's commitment to ethics, professionalism, and integrity. If the organization shows no intentions of improving or changing, the practitioner has no other choice than to exit. To stay and suffer in silence or make an internal exit undermines the validity of loyalty and crosses over into submission and blind obedience. 
Thus, loyalty to a struggling organization or one embroiled in a crisis is a virtue as long as the public relations practitioner perceives that giving voice to his or her concerns will make a difference. The practitioner does not need to have a direct influence on decision-makers but at least has to have an influence on the influential-those who do have the power to bring about change. As long as there is hope for change, the practitioner will best serve the public interest by helping the organization recover and reassume its role as a productive element of society. The loyal practitioner will use reason, creativity, expertise, experience, wit, and the threat of exit to counteract forces contributing to the organization's decline. 
To depart too soon and desert an organization or cause it its time of distress would emphasize self-interest over the collective interest and undermine the loyalty of others. If organizational leaders refuse to listen, disregard negative feedback, and pursue a course of action contrary to one's personal and social conscience, the public relations practitioner has an obligation to exit. Remaining with an organization or cause in which one sees no possibility of change or improvement turns loyalty into a vice.  
Where we are loyal to a group, then, we have come to entertain certain social beliefs and practices. To the group, an abstraction, we are never truly loyal. To the group, the living embodiment of all those things we believe, do and feel, we cheerfully give our allegiance because in doing so we are simply gazing at ourselves in social breadth. These, then, constitute not the basis of our loyalties but our deepest loyalties. For the constancy of a relationship to some group persists only as long as the group stands for these underlying activities, whether in actuality or in symbolic reference. (Bloch, 1966, p. 52)
Based on the preceding discussion, some basic principles have emerged to help create a model to guide exit, voice, and loyalty decisions.
1.      Authenticity: A public relations practitioner should align with organizations or causes that reflect standards consistent with one's character and those valued by society. It is also important to know whether one can have influence in an organization. Does it listen to its customers and members? Is it sensitive to the public interest? Is there consistency in what management says and what the organization does? In other words, select an organization worthy of loyalty and then one's communications will increase the loyalty of others, including that of customers, employees, and the public. 
2.      Mutual loyalty:  Does the organization encourage or discourage the espousal of other loyalties, such as loyalty to family, religion, the community, and society? How can the public relations professional build mutually beneficial relationships with key publics if the organization is not committed to build those same kinds of relationships with its employees. It is a constitutional question. Does the organization see its customers and members as a group or as individuals. Unlike the paternalistic approach to management, mutual loyalty requires a high level of communication--a willingness to enter into a conversation that "will lead to a better understanding of what the individual's self-interest is, and how the organization might begin to satisfy that" (Laabs, 1998, p. 4).
3.      Listen: As Hirschman (1970) emphasized, those most sensitive to organizational deterioration also may have the greatest potential to reverse the decline. Listening places as much value on individual voice as it does collective voice. The loyal public relations practitioner is a truth seeker, an investigative reporter inside the organization, gathering positive and negative feedback and then relaying that information back to management.
4.      Communicate problems as well as solutions: Value loyalists enough to tell how their concerns influenced management decisions. "The job of PR people in the future is to find communities of knowledgeable people and to communicate with them," said an agency owner. "It's to make them aware of the product, listen to what they have to say, and move that information back and forth. It's a position of influence for people who like to be influential" (Andy Cunningham, quoted in Mieszkowski, 1998, p. 196).
5.      Put principle ahead of the paycheck. Back up voice with the threat of exit. Instead of using exit as an escape hatch, make it a matter of principle by which one values loyalty enough to risk short-term personal security for the long-term prosperity of the organization and its members. Loyalty to principles will increase the practitioner's credibility inside and outside the organization.
6.      Show loyalty to loyalty. If one sees no potential for changing or improving the situation, avoid an internal "suffering in silence" exit and leave the organization. To stay with an organization or cause unworthy of one's loyalty to that of the public's is a perversion of loyalty and the raw material for vice.
This paper only touches the surface in terms of exploring the concept of loyalty as an ethical foundation for public relations. The relationship between public relations and loyalty also should be further explored. Should public relations take the lead in loyalty questions? Or should it remain the focus of human resources? Its relationship to communication also needs greater explication. The assumptions made in this paper should be tested, especially in view of changes brought on by the explosive growth in the high tech industry. How does one determine the amount of influence exerted in an organization? How applicable is the exit, voice, and loyalty model to young practitioners working in technician roles? Is there evidence of this kind of decision-making process in organizations dealing with crises? 



 


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