Abstract
Since restrictions were eliminated by the Supreme Court in 1977, it was to be expected that advertising would increase among professionals in all fields. Both within and across various professions, however, practitioners have been found to advertise their services in markedly varying ways and degrees. The present study attempts to analyze those factors which relate to differentials in the acceptability of various advertisements by three groups of professional practitioners: accountants; dentists; and, lawyers.
Utilizing Guttman scaling techniques and multiple regressions analysis, three of five components of professionalism, "collegial maintenance of standards, " adherence to a "code of ethics" and "professional identification," all emerged as significant differentiators of practitioners' use of advertisements. In addition, several background factors, years in practice, specific occupation, and location of practice, also were found to be significantly related to professionals' use of advertisements.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.