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Ethics has become professional imperative in public relations field, whereby unethical action is not any more considered as integral characteristic of public relations (PR) professionals, especially among scholars and practitioners. However, the question what if public relations professionals really violate ethical standards did not disappear, and concerns every instance linked to the PR-sector. In other words, the question is what disciplinary measures can be taken against the member of PR-associations. This study, based on a qualitative content analysis of websites and statutes of 20 national and international public relations associations from Europe and the US, shows what mechanisms exist in the associations to sanction the unethical behaving of their members. The analysis showed that, unlike international associations that do not take disciplinary action, although the majority of associations has bodies that could provide disciplinary measures (which includes expulsion from membership), only four associations give clear instructions how to make complaints if unethical behaving is detected, and, furthermore, only three associations indicate the consequences of unethical action by publishing judgments on a regular basis. Although the ethics is recognized as crucial principle at declarative level among all associations, efforts of some associations to establish disciplinary committees and to provide real sanctions of unethical professional behavior, can be considered as a progress in defining public relations as a profession with high ethical standards. This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Recent macroeconomic and demographic trends have resulted in new challenges for pension systems. One of these challenges is to create a sustainable pension system while simultaneously providing adequate pension benefits for current and future pensioners. This research explores how similar are pension systems of eleven European Union countries by using hierarchical cluster analysis for year 2016. Variables representing pension systems, as well as demographic, macroeconomic and labour market data were used to cluster these economies. Three clustering solutions were generated using hierarchical clustering approach, one for each variable group. Given the number of observed countries, only two cluster solutions were considered. According to the characteristics of the pension systems, countries that have greater problems of unsustainability are recognized. A similar group of countries also forms the cluster characterized by unfavourable demographic trends that make it more difficult to maintain sustainability. Romania stands out from other economies, based on macroeconomic indicators, as it recorded faster economic growth, greater labour productivity growth and lower unemployment rate in 2016. The findings of this study provide a guideline for future pension reforms, since they indicate which countries’ experience could be valuable in defining certain policy measures. This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.