An ethics code postmortem: The National Religious Broadcasters' EFICOM

Abstract

All ethics codes serve an argumentativefunction to improve public opinion, avoid government regulation, and produce ethical behavior among members. The National Religious Broadcasters' increased eforts to enforce its code illustrates the potential for three dificnlties to surface when organizations use codes to justify their activities. Organizations tend to limit public discussions to the code's existence, and shorthand descriptions of it, fail to address enforceability problems, and assume that the code will change corporate culture. To overcome these problems, ongoing maintenance of the code in relationship to its public context is required.