Structure of Ethical Governance in Commercial Advertising. Review of the Autocontrol Model from a Discursive Stakeholder Management

Abstract

In competitive and global environments in which companies operate commercial advertising plays a vital role that is essential to have full responsibility. This responsibility involves in many cases, self-regulation of advertising to ensure the guiding principles: truthfulness, legality, honesty and loyalty. In Spain the governance structure of Autocontrol came up with this goal in 1995, where the political, business and civil society spheres come together to try to coordinate their action to promote advertising self-regulation. The article focuses on a critical study of the governance system developed by Autocontrol, self-regulatory organization of the Commercial Communications, founded in 1995 in Spain. With nearly twenty years of business experience seems an appropriate time to review its management and governance structure from an ethical point of view. This goal will be accomplished using the discourse ethics and the stakeholder management approach.