Law Provides Liability, Public Relations Provides Prevention: How National Culture and Implementation Gaps Moderate the Institutionalization of Legal Ethics Evidence from Racial Harassment and Oil Sector
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68050/JAMS.2026.596Keywords:
legal ethics, organisational ethics, hostile work environment, Equality Act, power distance, implementation gap, racial harassment, oil companies, EITI .Abstract
While laws like Equality Act 2010, Title VII, EU Racial Equality Directive 2000/43, AGG, FCPA and UK Bribery Act impose liability, organisations still exhibit ethical failures, including racial harassment such as managers threatening brown employees with cane/whip based on colour. This paper examines why formal ethics codes fail to prevent informal misconduct, focusing on national culture as moderator and implementation gap. Using mixed-methods data from 600 ethics and PR professionals across six countries and 45 interviews, we find individualism positively moderates PR ethics effectiveness [β=0.14, p=0.012] while power distance negatively moderates [β=-0.18, p=0.003], supporting Habermas ideal speech and Hofstede. Qualitative findings reveal 60% report implementation gap - formal code modified but informal behaviour persists when enforcement weak, despite reasonable steps defence under Equality Act s109 and adequate procedures under Bribery Act s7. We introduce construct legal ethics [internal: confidentiality, competence, conflict; external: regulatory compliance, substantive justice] and argue PR bridges law and ethics, translating CSRD, CSDDD, EITI, UNGPs into prevention via zero-tolerance policies, training and disciplinary communication. Contribution: A study linking legal ethics, culture and harassment prevention through PR.
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Articles published in the Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Studies (JAMS) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise stated. Authors retain copyright of their work and grant JAMS the right of first publication.
