My research focuses on a comparison of how Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Ralph Lauren Corporation managed the public relations around their company violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The FCPA makes a federal crime any incident of bribery of foreign officials. Consequently, I am interested in how each company responded to uncovering violations of the Act and how their press releases or press statements reflect their handling of the matter.

I am using a Case Study approach that utilizes a content analysis of each company’s press releases/statements. Categories that I will look at are the type of frame(s), themes, sub-themes, and key words that are presented in each press release or statement. After completing the content analysis, I will gauge each company’s treatment of the FCPA violations against best practices of public relations management as prescribed by the Arthur W. Page Society’s Page Principles.

To date, I have been able to secure four press releases from Wal-Mart related to the bribery violations from their online news archives. I have also reviewed all of Ralph Lauren’s news archives but have not found any releases on the FCPA violations. I have however, found quotes from the company in online news stories related to the bribery case. I will call the company this week to see if they have an official press statement. The fact that they don’t have any releases on the matter in their archives is an interesting finding in itself.

Overall, I am very interested in any theories involving public relations management or research involving best practices in the field. I expect that the findings from my research will touch upon these two areas.