This week I decided to attend a speech by Strategic Advisor to International Governments and Business Ella Minty at the Scottish Business Week. The speech was about the Importance of Public Relations in growing a successful international business at the Scottish International Week. Due to the heavy storm in the area the train stopped half an hour between Musselburgh and Edinburgh, I was a few minutes late even though I ran as fast as I could from the station to the place where the International Business Week was held. I think I used half the time that Google Maps suggested that I would use.
The speech was definitely worth the running for. Minty had some very good points about the importance of cultural awareness when establishing a business in another country. She said that one of the threats that your business was can be faced with is cultural misunderstandings. If you haven’t even done a small bit of research about cultural behaviour in the country you are going to, you and your business might not be taken seriously.
Should you shake hands or should you not? In some countries people get offended if you do shake hands, while in other countries people get offended if you don´t. Living in different countries I have experienced myself how important cultural awareness is when you are communicating with people from other countries. For example, I now know that people in many countries do not use irony, and therefore do not understand an ironic joke.
Another theme Minty talked about was ethics in the PR business. That you should make sure that your collaborators are not taking bribes or have hidden political agendas.
If PR is not done right, it could overthrow governments, Minty said, and was referring to former president in South Africa, Jacob Zuma, who had to resign earlier this year due to allegations about corruption. A great part of the allegations stemmed from his links to the Indian Gupta family. In addition to corruption the Guptas were accused of hiring a British PR firm that conducted a PR campaign on behalf of the family’s company that apparently raised racial tension in South Africa.
When I told an American friend about the speech and that Public Relations can be so powerful that a government can be overthrown she jokingly said “oh, you should come to my country then”. I do not intend to overthrow Trumps government. I am definitely glad that ethics in PR will be covered thoroughly this semester.
Ina N. Moe 