How Does Appiah's Cosmopolitanism Fit Into the Workplace?

How Does Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism Fit Into the Workplace?

Of the two PR models, Kwane Anthony Appiah’s view of cosmopolitanism fits more into the model of communitarianism rather than utilitarianism. Doing the greatest good for the greatest numbers of all people within the community is more of the long-term vision and ideal that PR practitioners should strive for in representing their clients.

Appiah sees cosmopolitanism as an informed cultural understanding, not just a shallow perspective of other’s views and cultures. One of Appiah’s messages in Cosmopolitanism is that there are many different value systems and worldviews to consider and that we can we less hard core in our own view – that “saving truth” in which we tend to discount all others.

Another important message is that we have an obligation to strangers. We should help when we are confronted with need. Perhaps we cannot help everyone, but we should try to help those that we can. This translates to the consumers and audiences of the clients we represent as PR practitioners. We may be confronted with a need those consumers and audiences have that are clients are not considering or meeting and we have to address that.

Sometimes we cannot find ways to meet all of the needs of all of our audiences in a manner that is satisfactory to them. Sometimes there has to be a loser, but Appiah’s message is to keep talking to those strangers or those audiences and consumers and let them know that you hear them until they don’t feel like such losers. We may not be able to agree on values or truth when dealing with our audiences, but Appiah urges us to find a way to at least agree on conversation and respect.

Organizations can damage their reputations by not demonstrating respect or a willingness to continue to talk. They can be perceived as being coercive rather than persuasive. The message should not be one that sounds like “We win and you lose,” but rather, “This is what we want to do, and we’re listening to you and we’re trying to do the right thing.”

In being representative and advocates for the organization that pays us, we have to also be objective. We cannot simply be a “yes man.” Effective PR professionals have to be strong reputation managers, which mean that, at times, we have to go to the executives and policy makers of that company and tell them when they are not doing the right thing, when they are so caught up in their truth or agenda that they don’t consider others. (Enron is a good example of this.) Sometimes we, as individual PR practitioners don’t win when we do that, but we have to keep talking with those executives and policy makers too, as much as we have to keep talking with the public.