Asian companies will face increasing pressure to improve the way they communicate with the market and abandon their tendency to 'retreat into the background' in tough times, according to a public relations expert.
Michael Morley, the New York-based deputy chairman of public relations consultancy Edelman, said during a visit to Hong Kong last week that the only way for Asian corporates to regain international confidence was to maintain a high communication level no matter how bad the economy.
'The general principle we commend is that you should communicate well through good times and bad, not just in the good times.
'We're living in a world where there's a massive push towards transparency and common guidelines to what you'll find in a company's annual report.
'This varies around the world but in the global economy there's going to be a lot of pressure for a degree of disclosure that won't come easily to certain Asian companies. It's not confined to here but it's certainly true of many companies here,' he said.
Mr Morley, who has worked at Edelman in New York for the past 15 years and in public relations for 38 years, is the author of a recently published book, How to Manage Your Global Reputation, and lectures on crisis management.