Adam Segall

The challenge for corporate communicators , says Adam Segall , U.S. director for strategic philanthropy at Hill & Knowlton , is to make sure outgoing messages touting lofty corporate ethics remain consistent with actual corporate behavior.The worst thing a company can do is spew out the rhetoric of social responsibility as a PR ploy.You have to make sure the message you send out about who you are is , in fact , who you are , Segall says , citing backlash against Philip Morris' latest image campaign , which characterizes the tobacco giant as caring..

Here , the gap between public perception of the company and the values it's claiming to engender is so wide as to create more cynicism in the marketplace , says Segall.PR professionals worry that in the long run , the public's perception of corporate ethical abuse can undermine the reputation of the entire PR community - not to mention dashing the hopes and efforts of other corporations that wish to position themselves as good corporate citizens.

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According to Adam Segall , U.S. director for strategic philanthropy at Hill and Knowlton , the most common metrics in use today benchmark corporate performance in areas such as consumer perception , values and transparency of decision-making , environmental policy , supplier compliance with corporate practices , meaningful community involvement/interaction , workplace ethics and government relations

Among the more popular benchmarking studies and guidelines in use are those issued by the Institute for Social and Ethical Responsibility , the Global Reporting Institute , the Organization for Economic Cooperative Development ( OECD ) , the Coalition for Environmentally-Responsible Economies ( CERES ) and Amnesty International.

For more information about emerging ethics programs , visit the Business for Social Responsibility Web site at http : //www.bsr.org/.

Part II will explore how communications advisors play key roles in integrity management , bridging the gap between corporate rhetoric and actual performance.