ABSTRACT
Ethical loyalists base their loyalty on more than being employed and earning a salary; their loyalty is founded on the legitimacy of organizational interests, purposes, and products and the virtue of its people. This chapter presents a different approach to public relations loyalty that prioritizes both personal and professional responsibilities. Paradoxes exist in all organizations, but organizational actors fail to notice them until faced with organizational change, complexity, or deterioration. The chapter explores how the public relations literature has dismissed loyalty as a by-product of communicative action. Loyalty remains a virtue as long as one believes in the virtuous character of the organization despite the actions of those who the loyalist believes have deviated from the organization’s mission and values. Ethical loyalty goes beyond fulfilling physical needs; it is a commitment to universal values, such as honesty, fidelity, doing good, non-maleficence, gratitude, freedom, and justice.
