Ethics and reputation in Africa: The driving force of decision making?

How important is ethics and reputation in Africa? Ethics and reputation play an important role in how we conduct ourselves, the jobs we choose and the company we keep. Ethical decision making has become paramount not only on a personal level, but also in a business and governmental capacity. The information age is here, and citizens, businesses and government alike need to act from an ethical standpoint and take responsibility for their actions. The African Public Relations Association (APRA) will be hosting the 31^st APRA Conference in Kigali, Rwanda from 13 to 17 May 2019.  The focus of the conference will be on Africa and how storytelling can help change the continent’s narrative. However, how does ethics and reputation influence this narrative?

 APRA, in partnership with research agency Reputation Matters, is once again investigating the importance of ethics and reputation across the continent. “The research survey focuses on ethics and reputation on three different levels which will help determine how these two critical factors influence storytelling and ultimately, the narrative of Africa. We invite top-level business management and public relations professionals to participate in the online survey,” says APRA President, Yomi Badejo-Okusanya.

APRA and Reputation Matters conducted a similar survey in 2018 where respondents indicated that the greatest driver of ethics on an individual level is upbringing, and 70% agreed that all employees are responsible for driving ethics in an organisation. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Gift of the Givers, and Botswana received high praise as ethical entities. Notably, about a third of respondents indicated that they (personally) and their organisations have been compromised on an ethical level in the past 12 months, but almost all of them indicated that their governments have been ethically compromised. This year’s study will be compared to last year’s findings; although there were too few responses for the survey to be statistically accurate in 2018, it provides a good baseline of how Africa is seen and the driving forces behind individual, business, and government decisions.

“Your response to this study is critical to measuring the importance of ethics and reputation in Africa and providing a comparison between countries. The survey results will be announced at the APRA annual conference, taking place in Kigali, Rwanda from 13 to 17 May 2019,” concludes Regine le Roux, Managing Director of Reputation Matters.

Please participate in the online survey:

English: https://www.research.net/r/APRA2019

For more information about the APRA conference, please visit https://www.afpra.org/. Find out more about Reputation Matters at http://reputationmatters.co.za/.