The subject of the study is the process of formation of public relations ethics in China. The focus is on the conditions under which practitioners’ professional and ethical views are formed, and on why the existence of codes of ethics or general normative requirements does not in itself guarantee stable ethical behavior in professional practice. The author considers the formation of public relations ethics as a multilevel process in which the practitioner’s personal attitudes, the nature of university training, and the conditions of the professional environment interact. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between the individual, educational, and institutional-professional levels, since their interaction makes it possible to explain how moral views move from the sphere of personal experience into the field of professional knowledge and are then tested in real work situations. The methodological basis of the study is a multilevel approach, while the empirical basis includes data from a questionnaire survey of Chinese public relations practitioners and materials from semi-structured interviews with teachers at Chinese universities. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that the individual, educational, and institutional-professional levels are considered not as a simple set of factors, but as an interconnected system of professional ethics formation. It is shown that personal experience and value orientations provide the initial moral guidelines; education helps translate them into the language of professional norms, conflict-of-interest analysis, and practical decisions; and the professional environment, in turn, tests the stability of these attitudes under the influence of the demands of the organization, the client, and the specific work situation. Based on the analysis, the article concludes that the development of public relations ethics in China requires not only the clarification of professional codes, but also more consistent university training, regular intra-organizational education, and a professional environment in which ethical issues do not remain a formal declaration, but receive real institutional support.
Xinyi Ma (Wed,) studied this question.