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Research on Marketing Ethics: A Systematic Review of the Literature Alexander Nill and John A. Schibrowsky Journal of Macromarketing 2007 27: 256 DOI: 10.1177/0276146707304733 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jmk.sagepub.com/content/27/3/256

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Research on Marketing Ethics: A Systematic Review of the Literature Alexander Nill and John A. Schibrowsky

The growing field of marketing ethics research is investigating the many aspects of marketing that have an ethical dimension. This article provides a systematic review of this research by (1) developing a categorization scheme for marketing ethics research, and (2) by analyzing—via content analysis—all journal articles, which have been revealed by a major search engine for the time span 1981 to 2005, in terms of quantity, nature and scope, topical areas, and publication outlets. While the results indicate an increase in the number of publications, marketing ethics became less represented in the mainstream literature. Much progress has been made in areas such as improving our understanding of marketers’ values, marketers’ ethical decision-making processes, and cross-cultural related issues. Societal issues and basic normative questions attracted substantially less interest from researchers. Keywords: marketing; ethics; literature; review; categorization; content analysis

The high visibility of marketing activities and managers’ efforts to administer their firms’ relationships with its stakeholders—including but not limited to customers, employees, stockholders, and the general public (Mundt 1993)— continue to keep ethics among the most challenging issues for marketing managers and academics alike. The rising focus of marketers on building and maintaining relationships through trust and commitment clearly has ethical dimensions (Whysall 2000; Gundlach and Murphy 1993). The global integration of markets and marketing, which is accelerated by the transformative changes in electronic communication (Kilbourne 2004), coupled with political transformations toward free market systems in many countries, has further propelled ethical problems for marketers. Indeed, “as more firms move into multinational marketing, ethical issues tend to increase” (Murphy and Laczniak 1981, 258). As documented by an increasing deluge of literature discussing ethical issues in marketing and business, the general public distrust of marketing activities, and a continuous string of

ethics scandals, marketers are constantly struggling with the ethical or moral side of their activities. Thus, marketers were often criticized for ethical misconduct long before Enron, Worldcom, and others were in the headlines (Armstrong and Sweeney 1994). While many of the recent scandals were primarily linked to accounting irregularities and financial misdeeds, “marketing misconduct clearly had a role in the scandals involving financial services firms” (Murphy et al. 2005). A systematic review of the marketing ethics literature, along with implications for future research based on trends as well as gaps in the literature, is needed to extend the marketing ethics discussion and shed some light on the current state of marketing ethics research. More specifically, the purpose of this article is fourfold: First, the article will develop a categorization scheme for marketing ethics research that allows for a methodical comparison and analysis of marketing ethics articles. Second, a systematic selection of journal articles employing an electronic database such as ABI/INFORM and Business Source Premier will be presented. The review will cover journal articles published between 1981 and 2005—the timeframe of the Journal of Macromarketing—in marketing journals that are listed in the electronic database—including the top journals of the field such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research, and the interdisciplinary journals Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Business Horizons, Journal of Business, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Business Research. Third, the review should provide Journal of Macromarketing readers with a sense of the quantity of marketing ethics articles published, the scope of the research (macro versus micro and normative versus positive coverage), how marketing ethics research has evolved in terms of content (i.e., which topics have been studied and which have not), and where the ethics literature is published. Finally, in the hope of sparking academic debate and inquisitiveness, the article seeks to identify the most important trends in the marketing ethics literature and provide Journal of Macromarketing, Vol. 27 No. 3, September 2007 256-273 DOI: 10.1177/0276146707304733 © 2007 Sage Publications

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future direction, particularly in terms of research gaps and expected topical areas of interest.

ETHICS IN THE MARKETING LITERATURE While ethical issues in marketing are not a new area of concern—ancient philosophers from Aristotle to Cicero analyzed typical marketing ethics problems more than two thousand years ago—they have demanded substantially more attention from researchers and practitioners over the last two decades. The public mistrust of modern business has been reported consistently almost since its inception (Stevens 2004). The Gallup Polls that report on the perceived ethics of various professions show marketing practitioners rank near the bottom among professionals in honesty and ethical standards (Advertising Age 2002). The field of marketing has long been criticized along a number of ethical lines, including issues such as product liability, personal selling tactics, false or misleading advertising, product dumping, price gouging, marketing to lowincome consumers, foreign child labor, and a host of other areas of ethics that have gained international attention (e.g., Dunfee, Smith, and Ross 1999; Lawrence, Wotruba, and Low 2002; Laczniak 1999; Lund 2000). While chief executive officers seem to have a tendency to view such behavior as the exception, the public appears to consider it as the rule. “It seems the U.S. public is far more pessimistic about the ethical climate of business these days than are members of top management” (Laczniak et al. 1995). In one of the first comprehensive reviews of the marketing ethics literature with more than one hundred references, Murphy and Laczniak (1981) come to the conclusion that it is nonmainstream, predominantly prescriptive in terms of giving normative advice to marketers, and is dominated by ethical issues in advertising and marketing research ethics. Murphy and Pridgen (1991) provide an extensive inventory of the different subject areas covered in the marketing ethics literature. In the early nineties, Laczniak comments on the evolution of the marketing ethics literature in reference to the Murphy and Laczniak article of 1981: “In the past decade, there has been a broader coverage of marketing issues, greater academic visibility for publications addressing marketing ethics, and the development of a theoretical and empirical foundation for future research in this area” (Laczniak 1993, 91). Tsalikis and Fritzsche (1989) analyze the literature on business ethics with a special focus on marketing ethics using the categories normative and positive. They conclude by voicing two major concerns that reduce the utility of scientific studies of marketing ethics: (1) the focus of the marketing ethics literature on deontological and teleological moral philosophies given the pluralistic nature of the field of moral philosophy and (1) the preponderance of single global measures, which lead to unreliable results and cannot detail the dynamics of ethical evaluations. While their extensive research provides valuable insights on the state of marketing

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ethics research, the categories being used are somewhat narrow. Also, the selection of the literature being discussed is not explained and might not necessarily be representative of the field. Gaski (1999) undertook a review of the prescriptive marketing ethics literature with the purposes of subsuming all standard ethical prescriptions under the categories “obey the law” and “act in your own self interest.” He concluded that marketers would end up acting ethically as long as they heeded the law and acted in their own self-interest. A similar evaluation of the superfluous nature of the study of ethics in business was offered earlier by some supporters of the neoclassical theory who contended that marketers should not bother with normative ethical questions (Levitt 1958; Friedman 1970). Smith (2001) rejected this line of thinking by explicating that “obey the law” is an often necessary but not sufficient requirement for good conduct. Marketers who are not genuinely interested in ethical conduct might look for legal loopholes and their “obedience to the law may be colored by beliefs about whether others obey the law and the possibility of being caught” (Smith 2001, 8). There are many situations where the law and self-interest are too inconsistent to provide any guidance for marketers. Whysall (2000), the most recent review article on the marketing ethics literature, provided an overview of the dimensions of ethical research and ethical dilemmas in marketing by extending Tsalikis and Fritzsche’s (1989) categorization scheme with green issues in marketing, health related concerns, consumer attitudes, disadvantaged consumers, privacy issues, and ethics in supply chains. He asserted that teleological and deontological theories have dominated the field and argued that the importation of ethical models developed by moral philosophers were rarely “adequate in themselves to guide marketing decisions” (Whysall 2000, 189). As could be argued in the case of all the above cited literature reviews, Whysall (2000, 175) noted that his review was “inevitably somewhat selective and personal.”

THE SCOPE OF MARKETING ETHICS While research efforts in the area of marketing ethics have increased dramatically over the last two decades with more depth and breadth of coverage, and more publications in mainstream marketing journals, there are surprisingly few systematic literature reviews. Part of the problem is the somewhat elusive and controversial definition of the scope of marketing ethics and the difficulty to systematically select and analyze the contributions in the field. While some authors (Murphy and Laczniak 1981; Murphy and Pridgen 1991; Whysall 2000) categorize the field according to marketing’s diverse subdisciplines, such as marketing research, advertising, pricing, and so on, others (Gaski 1999; Hunt and Vitell 1986) divide the literature into the broad categories normative and positive, or a combination of both (Tsalikis and

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TABLE 1 CATEGORIZATION SCHEME FOR MARKETING ETHICS

Macro

Micro

Normative (Examination of What Ought to Be)

Positive (Examination of What Is)

• What should be the role of marketing ethics in a free enterprise, private-property system? • What should be the role of marketing ethics in nondemocratic societies and transitional societies? • What should be the relationship between law and ethics? • What should be marketers' role in helping to solve societal problems? • What should be marketers' ethical responsibility toward the society? • Which ethical position should marketers take when acting in foreign cultures with different value systems? • What should be the role of consumer sovereignty? • What should be marketers' responsibility toward vulnerable consumers? • How should firms define their ethical responsibility? • How should firms make ethical decisions in marketing? • How should firms deal with specific ethical challenges? • How should firms implement marketing ethics? • How should a code of conduct be designed? • How should firms train marketing ethics? • How should marketers cope with intrapersonal value conflicts?

• What is the role of marketing ethics in a free enterprise, privateproperty system? • What is the role of marketing ethics in nondemocratic societies and transitional societies? • What is the impact of laws on marketing ethics? • What are marketers doing to help to solving societal problems? • What is the ethical decision-making process of aggregated groups of marketers? • What is the relationship between ethics and profits? • What are marketers, differing value systems across cultures? • What are (if any) universally accepted ethical norms? • What is the role of consumer sovereignty in marketing decisions?

Fritzsche 1989). Still others (DeGeorge 2005) distinguish between general ethics—subdivided into descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics—and special ethics such as marketing ethics, accounting ethics, and so on. In the following, a categorization scheme is introduced with the purposes of (1) analyzing the approaches to the study of marketing ethics, and (2) systematically reviewing the marketing ethics literature. Inspired by Hunt’s (1976) conceptual model of the scope of marketing, marketing ethics is divided into the broad dichotomies positive/normative and micro/ macro, followed by a categorization into the functional areas of marketing ethics. The categorization scheme is presented in tables 1 and 2. For the purposes of this article, the dichotomies positive/normative and micro/macro, which yield 2 × 2 = 4 classes or cells, are assumed to be mutually exclusive. Thus, an article is either placed in positive and micro, positive and macro, normative and micro, or normative and macro. This is not to say that an article could not reasonably be placed into two classes at the same time. For example, many positive contributions might also come up with normative recommendations that can be deduced from the results of their studies. The Positive/Normative Dichotomy The positive/normative dichotomy suggests a classification “based on whether the focus of the analysis is primarily descriptive or prescriptive” (Hunt 1976, 20). Descriptive contributions in marketing ethics aim to describe, explain,

• • • • • • •

What are common ethical dilemmas? How do firms define their ethical responsibility? How do firms implement marketing ethics? How do firms train marketing ethics? What is the role of codes of conduct? How are marketers coping with intrapersonal value conflicts? What are conflicts between personal values and the marketer's occupational role? • What is the ethical decision-making process in firms?

TABLE 2 FUNCTIONAL AREAS OF MARKETING ETHICS Abbrev.

Topic

Functional areas 1. Prod 2. Price 3. Place 4. Prom

Product related issues Price related issues Placement related issues Promotion related issues

Subdisciplines of marketing 5. Sales Sales related issues 6. Cons Consumer related issues 7. Intl International related issues 8. Edu Marketing ethics education related issues 9. MRes Marketing research related issues 10. SocM Social marketing related issues 11. Inter Internet related issues 12. Law Law and ethics related issues Specific 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

ethics related topics Soc Ethics and society related issues Dec Ethical decision making models related issues Stake Ethical responsibility toward marketers’ stakeholders related issues Valu Ethical values related issues Norm Norm generation and definition related issues Impl Marketing ethics implementation related issues Relig Relationship between ethics and religion related issues Discr Discrimination and harassment related issues Green Green marketing related issues Vuln Vulnerable consumer related issues

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understand, and possibly predict ethically relevant marketing activities, processes, and phenomena. Empirical investigations that describe the values or the ethical decision-making process of individuals and groups can be subsumed under this category. Also, conceptual approaches suggesting a positive theory of marketing ethics fall under this category. Examples of emerging descriptive theories are the models from Hunt and Vitell (1986), Ferrell and Gresham (1985), Ferrell, Gresham and Fraedrich (1989), and Jones (1991). These models offer a better understanding of marketers’ decision making in ethically relevant situations. The purpose of these models is “not to provide normative guidance for marketing decisions that are more ethical” (Hunt, forthcoming), but “to increase our understanding of the ethical decision-making by means of a process theory.” It is assumed that the ethical decision-making process is influenced by a variety of situational and contextual factors such as the industry environment, the organizational environment, personal experiences, and the cultural environment. According to the Hunt and Vitell (1986) model, it is thought that depending on how the individual perceives the ethical problem, the available alternatives, and the probability of resulting consequences, a deontological and a teleological evaluation occur. Singhapakdi and Vitell (1990, 16) and others (Mayo and Marks 1990) found “partial support to Hunt and Vitell’s propositions.” In contrast, normative marketing ethics adopt a prescriptive perspective. That is, it attempts to prescribe from an ethical perspective “what marketing organizations or individuals ought to do or what kinds of marketing systems a society ought to have” (Hunt 1976, 20). Thus, normative marketing ethics generate ethical standards for marketers regarding the question of what is right and what is wrong (Laczniak and Murphy 1993; Smith and Quelch 1993; Chonko 1995). They are concerned with the justification of moral norms and ethical values and can be seen as an instrument to criticize and assess differing value systems. Deontological and teleological theories, which have been borrowed from moral philosophy, are the two dominating approaches in the marketing ethics literature (Whysall 2000). Teleology, such as utilitarianism and egoism, judges the value of an action from its outcome only. According to utilitarianism as it has been introduced by John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), one should choose the alternative that leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number (Mill [1861] 1979; Frankena 1963). Deontology judges the value of actions only from the perspective of their inherent wrongness or rightness regardless of the consequences. Thus, deontological approaches rely on the duty to follow absolute principles. Kant’s moral laws—the famous categorical imperatives—are truly deontological (Kant [1783] 1965). Thus, Kant ([1783] 1965, 10) argued that “being ethical is having ethical intentions without considering the consequences because any result of any action is influenced by uncontrollable variables.”

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The Micro/Macro Dichotomy The micro/macro dichotomy categorization was based on the level of aggregation. Micro suggests a low level of aggregation and refers to ethically relevant marketing activities of “individual units, normally individual organizations (firms) and consumers or households” (Hunt 1976, 20). Thus, microethical questions usually focus on ethical dilemmas faced by individual firms and the individual decision maker within the firm. Intrapersonal conflicts which may emerge between an individual’s personal value system and the value system of his/her company—the prototypical question in this area is whether an employee should blow the whistle—fall under this category (Brummer 1985). In contrast, macro suggests a high level of aggregation and refers to ethically relevant marketing activities for consumer groups, the society, and marketing systems. Thus, macro refers to the ethical perspective of aggregate marketing activities including macromarketing with a focus on “big, complex, and systemic issues, the interplay of marketing and society, and ultimately, improvements to life quality for large numbers of stakeholders affected by marketing systems” (Shultz 2005, 3). Complex issues such as the general role of marketing ethics in a free enterprise, private-property system, the relationship between law and ethics, and marketers’ role in helping to solve societal problems are subsumed under this category. From the viewpoint of decision makers, there are areas of overlap between microethical and macroethical issues. Many executives might face both categories in a single decision. That is, some decisions might pose microethical problems but have far reaching consequences for a large group of consumers or even the society as a whole at the same time. For example, the recent decision of Deutsche Bank CEO Joseph Ackermann to lay off 20,000 employees to improve the bank’s return on investment did not only have an immediate impact on the life of these employees, it also sparked a fierce political discussion with potentially regulatory consequences in Germany (Walker 2005). Topical Areas of Marketing Ethics Topical areas of marketing ethics had to be defined with the purpose of classifying the analyzed articles in the literature (see table 2). This is not to say that one article cannot address more than one topic. Thus, the proposed topical areas are not mutually exclusive and one article might be placed in several functional categories at the same time. However, for purposes of this article, we tried to identify the primary topical areas and limited the categorization of functional areas to two per article. A topical categorization scheme should be relevant for marketing scholars, reflect the topical foci in the marketing ethics literature, and be exhaustive enough that no important topics are left out without becoming unwieldy. Thus, the categorization scheme required an incremental step-by-step approach.

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In a first step, we looked at the American Marketing Association (AMA) for orientation. As expressed in its mission statement, the AMA sees one of its principle roles as to “advance the thought, application and ethical practice of marketing” (AMA 2006b). The AMA provides three general ethical norms—(1) do no harm, (2) foster trust in the marketing system, and (3) embrace, communicate, and practice the fundamental ethical values honesty, responsibility, fairness, respect, openness, and citizenship. These values are intentionally abbreviated and aspirational, and do not—and probably should not—provide recipe-like guidance for marketers facing ethical questions. For example, what are marketers in a global environment, where different customs, values, and even laws clash, to do with the first norm—to do no harm—which is defined as “adhering to all applicable laws and regulations and embodying high ethical standards” (AMA 2006a, 1)? Furthermore, one could argue that the AMA norms do not specifically address the problem of balancing the differing interests of stakeholders—a problem that marketers often have to face when trying to adhere to different values of different stakeholders. Given the somewhat inspirational but elusive character of its norms and values, the AMA concludes with the expectation that every marketing subdiscipline has its own specific ethical issues that require policies and commentary. In a second step, we looked at functional areas of marketing—the four Ps that have been introduced first by Jerome McCarthy (1960)—and marketing subdisciplines, as suggested by the AMA. Next, on a preliminary review of the literature, we expanded the list with ethics-specific topics relevant for marketing. Procedurally, we added new categories as the literature dictated. Finally, we arrived at a topical categorization scheme that is loosely organized as (1) functional areas of marketing, (2) subdisciplines of marketing, and (3) specific ethics related topics (see table 2): Functional areas of marketing • Product related issues. The sale of potentially dangerous, malfunctioning, and environmentally harmful products is subsumed under this category. AMA’s responsibility value: “this means that products are appropriate for their intended and promoted uses” (AMA 2006a, 2). • Price related issues. All pricing-related marketing ethics. AMA’s fairness value: “we will not engage in price fixing, predatory pricing, price gouging or baitand-switch tactics” (AMA 2006a, 2). • Placement-related issues. The ethical responsibility and ethical problems that might arise in the relationship with middlemen. AMA’s respect value: “we will make a special effort to understand suppliers, intermediaries, and distributors” (AMA 2006a, 2). • Promotion-related issues. Ethical challenges of advertising and promotion, such as manipulating consumers to buy what they don’t need or can’t afford and the question of whether this is possible, are placed in this category. AMA’s norm to foster trust in the marketing

system: “it requires that marketing communications about goods and services are not intentionally deceptive and misleading” (AMA 2006a, 1) and AMA’s fairness value: “this includes the avoidance of false misleading and deceptive promotion” (AMA 2006a, 2). Subdisciplines of marketing • Sales-related issues. All sales-related ethical challenges. AMA’s fairness value: “we will reject manipulations and sales tactics that harm customer trust” (AMA 2006a, 2). • Consumer-related ethical issues. The ethical decision making of consumers and ethical perceptions of consumers and their potential impact for marketers. • International-related issues. An ever-increasing number of companies do business in foreign countries and cultures. Cross-cultural issues and problems that may arise when different cultures clash, when laws and customs are conflicting, are subsumed under this category. • Marketing ethics education–related issues. The question of how—if this is even possible—marketers and/or marketing students are (or should be) trained to act more ethically falls under this category. • Marketing research–related issues. What are (or should be) the ethical responsibilities of marketers conducting marketing research? • Social marketing–related issues. What are (or should be) specific ethical considerations for marketers engaged in social marketing, a small but important discipline of marketing? • Internet-related issues. New advances in electronic communication such as e-mail and the Internet have raised a plentitude of privacy issues and other ethically relevant problems. • Law and ethics–related issues. The relationship between law and ethics in marketing. AMA’s first norm to do no harm: “adhering to all applicable laws and regulations” (AMA 2006a, 1). Specific ethics-related topics • Ethics and society–related issues. What is (or should be) the role of marketing ethics in free enterprise, privateproperty, and nondemocratic or transitional systems? What are (or should be) the ethical implications for marketers’ ability (or inability) to solve societal problems? • Ethical decision making. How are marketers making (or how should they make) decisions from an ethical perspective? What drives the decision-making process? • Ethical responsibility toward marketers’ stakeholders– related issues. What ethical responsibilities do marketers have (or should they have) toward their stakeholders? The relationship between ethics and profits, the questions of the appropriateness of philanthropic contributions, and the primacy of the stockholder fall in this category. • Ethical values–related issues. Which ethical values are marketers adhering to or which should they be adhering to? How can ethical values be measured?

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• Norm generation and definition–related issues. How is ethics (or how should it be) defined? How can ethical values relevant for marketers be generated? • Marketing ethics implementation–related issues. How is ethics (or how should it be) implemented in the decision-making process of marketers? The discussion about the usefulness of codes of conduct and mission statements falls under this category. • Relationship between ethics and religion–related issues. The impact religion and religious values (should) have on marketing ethics and the ethical decision-making process of marketers. • Discrimination and harassment–related issues. AMA’s value respect: “we will value individual differences even as we avoid stereotyping customers or depicting demographic groups (e.g. gender, race, sexual orientation) in a negative or dehumanizing way” (AMA 2006a, 2). • Green marketing–related issues. Marketing ethics challenges germane to protecting the natural environment. AMA’s value citizenship: “we will strive to protect the natural environment” (AMA 2006a, 3). • Vulnerable consumer–related issues. Ethical problems and challenges in dealing with vulnerable consumers. AMA’s value responsibility: “we will recognize our special commitments to economically vulnerable segments of the markets such as children, the elderly, and others who may be substantially disadvantaged” (AMA 2006a, 2).

METHOD Given the vast number of marketing ethics articles and the potential number of publication outlets, it was necessary to explicitly specify the scope of the review and establish straightforward procedures. While contributions with marketing ethics content can be found in a wide variety of journals and other outlets, for this review, we focused on peer-reviewed marketing journals and some business journals that cover marketing issues (Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Business Horizons, Journal of Business, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Business Research). We started out with the “comprehensive set of marketing and marketing related journals” (Baumgartner and Pieters 2003, 123) that have been analyzed concerning their overall and subarea influence on the marketing discipline. On preliminary review of the literature, we expanded the list to fifty-eight journals relevant to marketing ethics (see table 3). A cross-check of the journals not included on the list was performed to get a sense for the nature and scope of marketing ethics articles not published in these journals. During the time period studied, approximately 77 percent of all marketing ethics articles published appeared in these fifty-eight journals. Second, an electronic database had to be selected. The two criteria were the comprehensiveness of the database in

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terms of journal coverage and the time frame (it had to cover the whole period under review). After consideration of various databases, Business Source Premier was selected as the primary database because it appeared to be the most comprehensive and complete for the time frame evaluated. Third, appropriate search terms had to be identified. After preliminary analysis, the source words marketing and ethics were found to be the most comprehensive. For the time frame of this review (1981 to 2005), Business Source Premier produced 930 ethics contributions. However, this search algorithm did not necessarily reveal all articles focusing on marketing ethics. For example, the keywords marketing and deception revealed 88 articles. Of those 88 contributions, 10 were already discovered by the original keywords marketing and ethics. Of the 78 remaining articles, we checked the first 20. One of those 20 was an article whose main focus is marketing ethics. That is, in this case, the search algorithm missed one article. We also crosschecked the keywords marketing and misconduct (14 articles with an overlap of 7 articles, and no marketing ethics articles in the remaining 7) and marketing and fraud (102 articles with an overlap of 10 articles). Another limitation of the search algorithm was the overlap between ethics and social responsibility, since both expressions are sometimes used interchangeably. While there is no comprehensive definition of marketers’ responsibility to society, the orthodox view is that “a socially responsible cooperation pursues profit while respecting the moral minimum” (Bowie 1991, 58). A more comprehensive definition argues that corporations have a duty to help solve social problems. Many of the articles in the macro/normative cluster are in line with this definition. There was a 50 percent overlap in the electronic database using the keywords marketing and social responsibility, which revealed 231 articles, of which 115 were already discovered by the original keywords marketing and ethics. We checked the first 20 of the remaining 116 articles and found 2 articles focusing on marketing ethics. Both articles fall in the macro/normative category. Therefore, the search algorithm using the keywords marketing and ethics might have lead to a slight underrepresentation of articles in the macro/normative category. Fourth, each abstract had to be evaluated to determine whether it was a marketing ethics article or just ethics related. Articles that cover some ethical aspects but whose main focus was not ethics were not included. The reasoning is that it is common for many marketing studies to include ethical implications without actually focusing on marketing ethics as the primary research topic. As an illustration, Holbrook’s article (Holbrook 2005 a), which sheds some light on conflicts between commercial and artistic interests, also raises ethical questions, but its main emphasis is not on marketing ethics. Furthermore, ethical contributions without a focus on marketing content were also not included. Fifth, a content analysis was performed on the abstracts of all selected journal articles (see table 3). These articles were classified according to the categorization scheme discussed

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TABLE 3 LIST OF JOURNALS Abbrev. ACR AMA BE BEQ BH BS CMR DS EJM HBR IJM IJRM IMR IMM JA JAMS JAR JB JBBM JBE JBIM JBL JBR JCA JCM JCPO JCPS JCR JDM

Journal

Abbrev.

Journal

Advances in Consumer Research AMA Educators’ Conference Proceedingsb Business Ethics: A European Reviewa Business Ethics Quarterlya Business Horizons Brand Strategya California Management Review Decision Sciencesb European Journal of Marketing Harvard Business Review International Journal of Managementa International Journal of Research in Marketing International Marketing Reviewa Industrial Marketing Management Journal of Advertising Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science Journal of Advertising Research Journal of Businessb Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing Journal of Business Ethics Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing Journal of Business Logistics Journal of Business Research Journal of Consumer Affairs Journal of Consumer Marketing Journal of Consumer Policyb Journal of Consumer Psychology Journal of Consumer Research Journal of Direct Marketingb

JEP JGM JHCM JIBS JICM JIM JM JME JMM JMMA JMR JMRS JMTP JNPSM JPIM JPPM JPSM JPSSM JR JSM JSR MER MKS ML MM MNS MR PM SMR

Journal of Economic Psychologyb Journal of Global Marketingb Journal of Health Care Marketing Journal of International Business Studiesb Journal of International Consumer Marketinga Journal of international Marketing Journal of Marketing Journal of Marketing Education Journal of Macromarketing Journal of Marketing Management Journal of Marketing Research Journal of the Market Research Society Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketingb Journal of Product Innovation Managementb Journal of Public Policy and Marketing Journal of Professional Services Marketing Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management Journal of Retailing Journal of Services Marketing Journal of Services Researcha Marketing Education Review Marketing Science Marketing Letters Marketing Management Management Scienceb Marketing Researcha Psychology and Marketingb Sloan Management Review

a. Journals that are not in the Baumgartner and Pieters (2003, 123) list. b. Journals that did not have any marketing ethics articles.

earlier. If a categorization using the abstract was not possible, the whole article was analyzed to more clearly ascertain the “primary” topics under investigation. Two independent judges were used to increase the objectivity of this research method. When they disagreed about a classification, they discussed the article until an agreement was reached.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The above procedure produced a total of 930 articles published from 1981 through 2005. Of those articles, 379 were determined not to be primarily marketing ethics articles. The net result was 551 marketing ethics articles appearing in marketing and business journals. Of these articles, 421 appeared in the fifty-eight journals listed in table 3. These articles were the data used for this review. The results are shown in tables 4 through 8. In most cases, the results are displayed by individual years along with five year summaries. While we present and interpret the results in the next few sections, we encourage readers to review the tables and draw their own conclusions. The findings of this review are summarized and organized using four categories that will be discussed separately:

Quantity: how many articles have been published over the years? Nature and scope of the marketing ethics literature: what is the primary focus of the articles in terms of the categorization scheme positive/normative and macro/micro? Topical areas of the marketing ethics literature: what are the primary topical areas of the articles? Publication outlets: what is published in which journals?

Quantity of Ethics Articles Over the past twenty-five years, the fifty-eight journals under consideration published 421 marketing ethics articles. As table 5 indicates, the first five-year period, 1981 to 1985, produced 21 articles. This amount doubled for the next fiveyear period (1986 to 1990) and again from 1991 to 1995, when a total of 86 articles were published. The number of marketing ethics articles continued to grow for each five-year time period. From 2001 to 2005, 147 articles were published, compared to 125 from 1996 to 2000. While the field continued to grow over the past five years, it was the smallest percentage growth rate for any five year period (18 percent). We find this slow growth somewhat surprising, given the high levels of interest in business ethics by the government, academia (e.g., Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), the media, and business itself, during that time period.

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TABLE 4 NUMBER OF MARKETING ETHICS ARTICLES AND PERCENTAGES OF THE DICHOTOMIES BY YEAR

Year

Contributions Total

% Macro/ Normative

% Macro/ Positive

% Micro/ Normative

% Micro/ Positive

% Macro

% Micro

% Normative

% Positive

2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981

37 34 25 23 27 18 39 27 22 20 15 17 18 20 16 14 12 7 5 4 5 4 7 3 2

8 15 12 4 19 6 26 30 14 15 13 12 11 0 6 7 0 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

22 26 16 17 22 28 13 19 14 20 7 18 28 25 13 14 42 71 0 25 20 25 14 0 50

13 21 24 22 22 11 28 15 27 10 33 18 39 50 31 43 25 0 60 75 20 25 29 67 0

57 38 48 57 37 56 33 37 45 55 47 53 22 25 50 36 33 14 40 0 60 50 57 33 50

30 41 28 22 41 33 38 48 27 35 20 29 39 25 19 21 42 86 0 25 20 25 14 0 50

70 59 72 78 59 67 62 52 73 65 80 71 61 75 81 79 58 14 100 75 80 75 86 100 50

22 35 36 26 41 17 54 44 41 25 47 29 50 50 38 50 25 14 60 75 20 25 29 67 0

78 65 64 74 59 83 46 56 59 75 53 71 50 50 63 50 75 86 40 25 80 75 71 33 100

TABLE 5 FIVE YEAR SUMMARIES OF THE MARKETING ETHICS ARTICLES AND PERCENTAGES OF THE DICHOTOMIES Total # Macro/ # Macro/ # Micro/ # Micro/ Contributions Normative Positive Normative Positive # Macro # Micro # Normative # Positive % Micro % Macro % Positive % Normative 2005–2001 2000–1996 1995–1991 1990–1986 1985–1981 25 year totals % last 5 years % last 10 years

147 125 86 42 21 421 35% 65%

17 25 7 2 0 51 33.3% 82.4%

32 22 16 13 4 87 36.8% 62.1%

29 25 30 15 6 105 27.6% 51.4%

69 49 98 53 47 78 33 23 63 12 15 27 11 4 17 178 138 283 38.8% 35.5% 34.6% 68.5% 69.6% 62.2%

In summary, 35 percent of all marketing ethics articles were published in the past five years. Even more surprising, 65 percent of the marketing ethics articles in this study were published in the past ten years. It can be concluded that marketing ethics is a relatively young and evolving field. Nature and Scope of the Marketing Ethics Literature Two areas of interest for marketing ethics researchers are the nature (positive versus normative) and scope (micro versus macro) of the publications. The positive/normative dichotomy. In total, 265 articles (63 percent) were classified as positive in nature and 37 percent

46 50 37 17 6 156 29.5% 61.5%

102 75 49 25 15 265 38.1% 66.4%

66.7 62.4 73.3 64.3 81.0 67.2

33.3 37.6 26.7 35.7 19.0 32.8

68.7 60.0 57.0 59.5 71.4 62.9

31.3 40.0 43.0 40.5 28.6 37.1

were determined to be normative. In addition, since 1985, the ratio of positive versus normative marketing ethics publications has been growing. Normative articles that provided (sometimes simplistic) advice on how to behave ethically almost completely vanished. This might show that the field is maturing and becoming more appreciative of the many complexities of marketing ethics. Contributions that offered a “quick fix” became a thing of the past. The micro/positive category emerged as the largest category over the last fifteen years. About half of all contributions fall in this category. This certainly led to a much-improved understanding of pressing questions such as: What are the main issues in marketing ethics? Which issues are perceived as the main problems by marketing managers? Which values do marketers believe in? How do marketers make ethical decisions? In short, these

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1 1 1 1 1 5 0 1 1 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 9

Prod

0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

Price 0 1 1 1 0 3 0 2 1 1 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8

Place 4 1 2 0 0 7 0 3 4 2 0 9 1 1 2 2 0 6 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 24

Prom

NOTE: For abbreviation definitions, see table 2.

2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2001–2005 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1996–2000 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1991–1995 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1986–1990 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1981–1985 Total Articles

Date 4 4 2 1 2 13 4 1 1 2 1 9 2 1 1 1 0 5 1 2 0 0 1 4 0 0 2 0 0 2 33

Sales 6 3 5 1 3 18 0 3 1 3 1 8 2 3 1 1 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 33

Cons 8 8 5 7 10 38 4 12 5 3 5 29 3 2 0 1 0 6 2 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 76

Intl 6 8 2 1 1 18 2 1 2 0 0 5 0 0 3 1 3 7 3 1 0 0 0 4 1 0 1 1 0 3 37

Edu 0 0 1 1 1 3 1 0 0 2 1 4 0 1 2 3 0 6 3 3 2 0 0 8 1 1 1 2 0 5 26

MRes 0 0 1 3 0 4 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6

SocM 1 1 0 0 1 3 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5

Inter 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 3 0 0 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5

Law 2 4 2 2 2 12 0 3 1 1 1 6 0 2 0 1 2 5 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 26

Soc 7 6 2 4 5 24 5 7 6 6 6 30 7 2 3 5 3 20 3 5 2 0 2 12 1 1 1 0 0 3 89

3 4 3 0 3 13 1 3 1 0 2 7 1 1 1 0 1 4 0 0 2 0 2 4 0 0 1 0 0 1 29

Decision Stake

TABLE 6 TOPICAL AREAS OF THE MARKETING ETHICS LITERATURE

9 5 5 3 6 28 1 3 3 5 8 20 3 7 4 5 6 25 1 4 3 1 0 9 2 0 3 1 2 8 90

Valu 0 2 1 0 1 4 0 4 1 2 1 8 1 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 17

Norm 5 2 1 2 1 11 1 4 0 3 1 9 2 0 1 1 2 6 2 1 0 2 0 5 0 0 1 0 0 1 32

Impl 1 1 0 0 0 2 2 0 3 0 0 5 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8

0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3

1 1 1 0 1 4 2 0 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10

1 0 0 0 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 5 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8

Relig Discr Green Vuln

JOURNAL OF MACROMARKETING

265

TABLE 7 LEADING PUBLICATION OUTLETS FOR MARKETING ETHICS ARTICLES All Years

All Years

Journal

Ranking B&P 2003a

Total

%

Total

%

Total

%

Total

%

Total

%

Total

%

JBE EJM JME MER JAMS JBR JCM JMM JM JPSSM IMR BE JPPM JMR JMTP BEQ JA JMMA MR HBR ACR IMM BS CMR JSM JR IJM IJRM JBIM JCA JHCM JMRS JPSM JCR MKS BH JAR JBBM JBL JCPS JICM JIM JSR ML MM SMR MNS

23 15 24 46 7 12 35 — 1 18 — — 21 2 48 — 15 34 — 4 5 9 — 19 31 10 — 22 39 30 33 38 41 3 6 20 11 47 44 40 — 42 — 25 28 14 8

163 22 20 19 18 16 16 16 14 14 13 10 7 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0

38.70 5.20 4.80 4.50 4.30 3.80 3.80 3.80 3.30 3.30 3.10 2.40 1.70 1.20 1.20 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.00

53 13 4 11 2 6 8 2 1 3 7 5 1 1 1 2 1 4

36 9 3 7 1 4 5 1 1 2 5 3 1 1 1 1 1 3

68 5 2 3 4 5 6 5 3 1

54 4 2 2 3 4 5 4 2 1

28 2 8 3 6 2 1 1 4 7 6

33 2 9 3 7 2 1 1 5 8 7

11 1 2 2 4 3 1 5 4 2

26 2 5 5 10 7 2 12 10 5

3 1 4

14 5 19

2

10

3 2 1

14 10 5

5 4

4 3%

5

1

5

2 1 1

2 1 2 1 2

2

2 1 1

2 1 2 1 2 2

2

1 1 1 3 2 1

1 1 1 2 1 1

2 2

5 5

2

2 1

5

1

5

1

5

2 1 2 2

1 1 1 1

1

5

2001–2005

1996–2000

1991–1995

1

1

2

2

1986–1990

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1 2

1 2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

2 1

2 1

1

1

1

1

1981–1985

2

NOTE: For list of journal acronyms and their full journal titles, see table 3. a. Number refers to the ranking by Baumgartner and Pieters 2003.

contributions provide a description, an explanation, and potentially a prediction of existing marketing ethics phenomena. Thus, they seek to shed some light on the quintessential positivist question: what is? However, marketing ethics also entails normative questions. While most of the normative contributions advise marketers on specific ethics questions, only very few investigated the principal problem of defining marketing ethics in terms of norms and values that marketers should follow—the quintessential

normative question: what ought to be? A cynic could argue that all the knowledge we gained about how marketers handle ethical problems does not provide an answer to the question of what marketers ought to do. To suppose that one can deduce an “ought” from an “is,” or what amounts to the same thing, that one can deduce a normative ethical conclusion from existing ethical practices, is to commit a logical mistake and a contradiction to David Hume’s (1711–1776) distinction between factual statements and value statements known as

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1. JM 2. JMR 3. JCR 4. HBR 5. ACR 6. MKS 7. JAMS 8. MNS 9. IMM 10. JR # of articles the in top 10 journals BE BEQ BH BS CMR EJM IJM IJRM IMR JA JAR JBBM JBE JBIM JBL JBR JCA JCM JCPS JHCM JICM JIM JME JMM JMMA JMRS JMTP JPPM JPSM JPSSM JSM JSR MER ML

1

7

1 1

1

1

1

2 1 2

1

1

3

6

14

1 1

1 1 1

1

1

4

3

1

1

1

5

3 1

2

1

1

1

2

1 1

7 1 1 2 1 1

1 3 1

1 1

1

1

1

1

1

1

2

1

9

5

1

1

1

1

1

3

17 1

1

2

1

1

1

1

13

1

2

1 1

5

1

23

2

3

1

1 2

1

1

1

4

2 1

1

13

1

3 1

1

1

2

1

2

1

1 1

2

1 6

1

4

1 2

1

1

1

1

13

3

1

1

1

1

1

3

5

1

2

1

1

1

1

2 1

1

7

1 1

2

1

1

2

1

2

1

6

1

1

4

2

1 1

4

1

1

1

7

1

3

2

1

1

2

1

2

1

1

5

1

2

1

1

2

1

1 2

2

1

3

3

1 1

2

4

4

1

2 1

2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989

1

1

3

2

1

1

1

1 4

1

2

1

1

1

1

0

1

1

3

2

1

2

2

1 1

1

1 2

1

1 1 2

2

1

1

1

0

10 4 1 3 3 20 2 2 8 4 1 1 156 2 1 16 1 16 1 2 1 1 19 15 3 2 5 7 2 14 3 1 18 1

14 4 1 3 3 1 19 0 3 2 50

1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 Total

TABLE 8 PUBLICATION OUTLETS FOR MARKETING ETHICS ARTICLES

267

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25

35% 5%

41%

51%

8%

60

75

12

2001–2005

34

147 8

37

1

23

28

5

46

74

125 9

17

27

4%

37%

59%

30% 7%

1996–2000

39

NOTE: For list of journal acronyms and their full journal titles, see table 3.

MM MR SMR Total articles by year Summary by 5 year increments Total articles Articles in the top 10 journals Total articles in business ethics journals Total articles in marketing journals Total articles in general business journals 22

20

3

54

29

86 13

1 15 18

20

1991–1995

3%

63%

34%

20% 15%

17

2 16

5

26

11

42 13

14

2 7 1986–1990

12%

62%

26%

10% 31%

12

5

4

1

17

3

21 7

5

7

5%

81%

14%

5% 33%

1981–1985

4

3

2

26

218

177

50

1 4 1 421

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Hume’s Law (Donaldson and Dunfee 1994). For example, the fact that child labor in coal mines with devastating health consequences was a common and accepted business practice in the early nineteenth century did not make it right from an ethical point of view. The preponderance of positivist contributions could stem from the fact that most marketing researchers are more familiar with positivism—the leading paradigm in marketing. In a similar vein, Wilkie and Moore (2003, 132) come to the conclusion in their analysis of scholarly research in marketing that “the reliance on the scientific approach to knowledge development” has a preeminent position. This might also explain researchers’ affinity for quantitative methods, since empirical verifiability is seen as the only credible criterion for knowledge in the positivist sciences (Apel 1988). Furthermore, positive studies often relate more to management issues that the discipline focuses on in understanding existing practices. They are also helpful in developing and implementing new practices. The micro/macro dichotomy. As table 5 shows, of the 421 marketing ethics articles investigated in this study, 283 (67 percent) were micro and 138 (33 percent) were macro oriented. This ratio of micro to macro contributions has been fairly stable over the last twenty-five years. Relatively few articles have investigated macromarketing ethical issues such as the role of marketing ethics in the society and marketers’ potential role in helping to solve societal problems. In fact, since 2000, only 32 articles were macro positive and even less (17) were classified as macro normative. The interest of marketing researchers in larger societal issues has also been reported by Wilkie and Moore (2003, 135) who claim that the area from 1980 to 2002 “has brought the most significant decline in mainstream interest in this topic during the entire history (nearly a century) of marketing thought.” It could be speculated that “the doctrine of managerial relevance” and its “increasingly privileged position in the halls of academia” (Holbrook 2005b, 143) is crowding out the interest in societal issues. That is, the reward and evaluation system of many universities is biased toward managerial relevance and/or publications in the field’s top journals as defined by ranking lists (Baumgartner and Pieters 2003). The perceived (or real) pressure by researchers to produce results that are of managerial use for marketing managers and students might prevent them from spending much time and resources on other issues. Topical Areas of the Marketing Ethics Literature The marketing ethics articles spanning the last twentyfive years cover a wide range of topics. The results of the analysis are displayed in table 6. When categorizing the results, three groups of topical areas were considered: functional areas of marketing (four Ps), subdisciplines of marketing, and specific ethics topics. Recall that each article could be classified into two topical areas.

Functional areas of marketing. In the functional areas of marketing, ethics articles pertaining to promotional activities were most prevalent. This is in line with the amount of attention that advertising and other communication vehicles have received in the general marketing literature. It should be noted that over the past five years there has been an increase in the number of articles pertaining to product-related ethics issues. The functional area with the fewest articles is pricing. We could only identify one article in this area. This is surprising, given the number of ethics-related issues surrounding pricing, such as higher prices in low-income neighborhoods, price discrimination issues, and so on. Subdisciplines of marketing. In the subdisciplines, international, sales, and education have generated the most interest. International ethics were the most researched subdiscipline and the third overall most investigated topic, with seventy-six articles. The amount of research in this area increased dramatically starting in the early 1990s and it was the most researched area over the last five years. The increasing globalization of businesses and markets, along with a growing number of marketers that have to deal with the ethical challenges of international markets, did not leave academia unaffected. It is interesting to note that the relative interest in this topic—while still very high—peaked in 2001 and has declined since then. Over the last ten years, most of this research followed a positivist approach, attempting to measure and describe ethics-related issues in an international context. Quantitative cross-cultural investigations were the preferred choice of study design. Specifically, differences in values, norms, perceptions of ethical issues, and decision making are well researched in a plentitude of crosscultural studies. Articles pertaining to the teaching of marketing ethics were the second most researched subdiscipline and the fourth most investigated topic overall, with thirty-seven articles. While the early research in this area was dominated by normative work, such as advising educators about how to instill ethical value in marketing students, later contributions focused more on values and the ethical decision-making process of students. Not surprisingly, the interest in Internet-related issues was growing fairly fast starting from the early nineties with its peak in 2000—about the same time the new economy bubble burst. Since then, the number of contributions declined in marketing journals. However, at the same time, journals from other disciplines showed increasing interest in this area. Finally, while ethics issues in marketing research sparked a fair amount of interest in the 1980s and early 1990s, it was less researched over the last decade. Sales and consumer–related issues gained relative weight over the last five years, while law and social marketing–related issues were of low interest.

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Specific ethic- related topics. Over the time span of this review, the two most researched topics were ethical values, with ninety articles, and ethical decision making, with eighty-nine articles. Ethical values–related issues, the basic question of which values marketers are (or should be) heeding, has been a mainstay area of marketing ethics research. Most of this research has been predominantly positive since the early 1990s. That is, the measuring and describing of marketers’ values stood in the forefront, while relatively little research has been done concerning the normative questions of which values marketers should have. Of the ninety ethics value–related articles, only twenty-six were characterized as normative. The issue ethical decision making—the essential question about how marketers arrive at ethically relevant decisions— started to take off in the eighties under the influence of positive decision-making models such as the Hunt-Vitell model (Hunt and Vitell 1986). The model assumes that the ethical decision-making process depends, among other things, on the role of individual moral philosophies. For example, Hunt and Vitell (1986) suggest that individuals follow a teleological or deontological evaluation of situations that are perceived as ethically relevant. This is an example of positive research about normative issues. Much of the research that followed was based on this model or tested and verified parts of it empirically. Hunt (forthcoming) concluded that “the empirical tests conducted so far provide strong support for the H-V theory”. While the primary focus of the majority of these studies was to achieve a better understanding of the ethical decisionmaking process, this vastly expanding knowledge base is also very useful in giving normative recommendations. For illustration, Badaracco and Webb (1995), and Nill and Schibrowsky (2005) report in their studies, which focus on the ethical decision-making process of employees and students, that a corporate culture emphasizing the bottom line and short-term results is positively correlated with the intention to act unethically. The normative implication of these studies is to change a corporate culture that seemingly encourages unethical behavior. Norm generation and definition–related issues—the basic questions of how ethics is (or should be) defined and how ethical values that are relevant for marketers should be generated—were of moderate interest in the eighties but represent only a very small part of the marketing ethics articles over the last ten years. This is surprising since there still is no generally accepted definition of ethics in marketing. What does it really mean to act ethically in a marketing context? This essential question remains mainly unanswered. The early attempts to import concepts such as deontological and teleological theories from moral philosophy are wrought with difficulties and have been criticized heavily. Still, only few researchers were looking for alternatives.

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Murphy (1999) developed a framework for marketing ethics based on virtue ethics as introduced by the classic Greek philosophers. “The focus in virtue ethics is on the person and his/her character traits” (Murphy 1999, 109), which can be formed and developed by practicing and imitating the behavior of others. The integrative social contract theory (Dunfee, Smith, and Ross 1999; Donaldson and Dunfee 1995, 1994; Donaldson 1996, 1989) derives ethical norms through the assumption of “rational humans seeking to design a binding, though unwritten, agreement that establishes the parameters for ethics in economic relationships” (Dunfee, Smith, and Ross 1999, 18). Differing norms are considered moral free space. Accordingly, marketers should identify and accept the authentic norms of the communities they do business in, as long as these norms are compatible with hypernorms— the norms by which all other norms are to be judged (Murphy et al. 2005)—and “are based upon informed consent buttressed by the rights of voice and exit” (Donaldson and Dunfee 1995, 109). If marketers operate in multiple communities with differing authentic norms, as is the case in most international business relationships, the suggested ethical framework provides priority rules that follow “the spirit of the overall macrosocial contract”(Dunfee, Smith, and Ross 1999, 20). The concept of hypernorms has been criticized for its difficulty in justifying and interpreting these norms and providing practical guidance (Nill 2003). Following the Kantian tradition, Bowie (1999) introduces a deontological approach toward business ethics. Kant’s three formulations of the categorical imperative can be used as “a test to see if any proposed action, including actions in business, is moral” (Bowie 2002, 62). That is, any morally acceptable action has to be logically and pragmatically consistent with the spirit of the categorical imperative. The first formulation of the categorical imperative, which resembles the golden rule—“Act according to that maxim only, which you can wish, at the same time to become a universal law” (Kant [1783] 1965, 42)—implies that reciprocity and fairness among rational beings constitute universal moral standards. Accordingly, for any decisions to be made one should ask whether “the principle on which the decision is based pass the test of the categorical imperative, that is can it be willed without contradiction” (Bowie 2002, 63). The second formulation of the categorical imperative—“Act in such a way that you treat the humanity whether in your own or any other person as an end, and never as a means only” (Kant [1783] 1965, 52)—expresses the duty to respect and treat every stakeholder as a person. That is, all people, including customers, employees and all other stakeholders, should never be treated as means to an end. The third formulation of the categorical imperative—“Act as if you were a member of an ideal kingdom of ends in which you are both commoner and monarch at the same time” (Kant [1783] 1965, 64)—views the organization and its business environment, including all

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stakeholders, as a moral community. A moral community of all business constituencies implies the commitment to strive for common goals and shared ends. Deontological approaches have mainly been criticized for being either too abstract or elusive to provide practical guidance or for being to strict to take the complex condition of a multicultural business environment into consideration. The exclusion of consequences is another potential shortcoming in a world where not everyone is willing to heed these universal principles. Furthermore, decisions based on moral duties depend on the on the (sometimes flawed) moral reasoning of the person formulating the principles and do not always offer a clear mechanism for resolving conflicting duties (Murphy et al. 2005). Other scholars (Nill and Shultz 1997; Nill 2003; Bowen and Power 1993) suggest a communicative approach, such as the dialogic idealism, as a conceptual tool to generate normative values that offer practical guidance for marketers. This approach suggests a procedural process for a constructive dialogue between interested parties, with the goal of achieving a true consensus among all stakeholders. The outcome of the dialogue may differ depending on the situational context and the individuals who participate. It is suggested that the process of the dialogue—the rules that stipulate an open and fair communication process (the ideal dialogue), where every interested party has a right to participate and honest argumentation is the only force allowed to achieve an agreement—is an incontestable prerequisite for any rational argumentation. The difficulty in implementing a communicative approach, which is idealistic in nature, time consuming, expensive, and unfamiliar to most marketers, places severe limitations on its practical adoption. Laczniak and Murphy (forthcoming) developed a normative framework, “grounded in the centrality of exchange to marketing and the inherent role of societal interactions with the marketing system,” to help marketers elevating the practice of marketing ethics. The approach is based on seven integrated basic perspectives that reflect the extant ethics literature. These basic ethical perspectives—people first; standards in excess of the law; responsibility for intentions, means, and consequences; moral imagination of managers and employees; core set of ethical principles; stakeholder orientation; delineation of an ethical decision making protocol— provide a possible road map for managers to consider ethical aspects in their decisions. This would also increase trust—a necessary prerequisite for the efficiency and effectiveness of the market system—among market participants. The high complexity of this truly integrated approach, which goes much beyond simple decision-making rules, might be a potential deterrent for some marketers. Ethics and society–related issues, as well as the ethical responsibility toward marketers’ stakeholders related issues— large, systemic questions such as: What is (or should be) the role of marketing ethics in the society? Which ethical responsibilities do marketers have (or which should they have) toward their stakeholders?—received little attention over the

whole period under investigation, with approximately 5 percent of all identified topics. In summary, three topical areas—ethical decision making, values, and international— account for approximately half of all marketing ethics research published between 1995 and 2005. Topical areas that have received increased attention from ethics scholars over the past five years include sales, Internet, and product. On the other end of the spectrum, managing resources, the law, distribution, and norm generation and definition–related issues have commanded less attention over the past decade. Publication Outlets for Marketing Ethics Of the 551 marketing ethics articles revealed by the electronic database, 421 (78 percent) were published in the journals on our list. It should be noted that the remaining 130 marketing ethics articles were published in a wide range of journals from other disciplines, such as management information systems, economics, and social studies. While about 15 percent of marketing ethics articles published in the 1980s were not included in our list, this percentage increased to more than 30 percent in the1990s. Specifically, over the last ten years there has been a heightened interest in ethical challenges germane to the advances of the modern telecommunication technology, the Internet, and privacy issues. The majority of contributions in this field have been published in journals other than marketing. Of the fifty-eight journals on our list, twelve had no marketing ethics articles over the time span under investigation. Such journals as the Journal of Consumer Policy, the Journal of Direct Marketing (now Journal of Interactive Marketing), the Journal of Global Marketing, the Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, and the Journal of Product Innovation Management had no marketing ethics articles. This is somewhat alarming, given the editorial foci of some of these journals. Conversely, about 40 percent of all marketing ethics articles, a total of 163, appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics (JBE), which is published by Springer Netherlands. It should be noted that JBE has accelerated its publication rate to about seven volumes with four issues per volume and seven articles per issue, with a total of close to two hundred articles per year, compared to one hundred in 1995 and fifty in 1985. Of those two hundred articles, fourteen were marketing ethics pieces. Compare this to 1995, when only three of the one hundred articles were marketing ethics articles. The second largest number of marketing ethics articles appeared in the European Journal of Marketing (EJM), with 5 percent of all articles and twenty-two articles in total. It is interesting to note that historically—despite the current trend in some countries such as Germany and Austria to adopt the Anglo-Saxon academic system—academia in continental Europe puts less emphasis on managerial relevance. Often, the practice of business education and research in

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many European universities more resembles a liberal arts approach than a science or trade school approach. While virtually all marketing researchers in the United States have been trained from a management and behavioral science perspective (Wilkie and Moore 2003) and are familiar with the quantitative methods of empirical investigation—the methodological foundation of most positive studies— European researchers are relatively more familiar with and used to qualitative methods—the methodological foundation of many normative studies. This might be one of the reasons for the relatively high number of normative contributions in the EJM. Together, JBE and EJM (both European journals), account for about 44 percent of all marketing ethics articles. The seemingly great interest in marketing ethics by these journals could potentially be explained by the historic differences between the academic system in the United States and in continental Europe. This is not to say that U.S. scholars don’t also publish in these journals. To the contrary, the ratio of contributions by U.S researches has been increasing steadily. Another significant finding pertains to the audiences reached by the marketing ethics literature. As table 8 shows, throughout the 1980s, nearly 70 percent of all marketing ethics articles were directed to traditional marketing journals. Around 1995, this trend began to change significantly, with over 50 percent of all marketing ethics articles being published in business ethics journals, especially the Journal of Business Ethics. In addition, during this ten year span, approximately 7 percent of the articles were published in general business journals (which tend to be read by more business practitioners), leaving just over 40 percent of the articles in marketing journals. It seems likely that the marketing ethics literature is being read by more business ethics scholars because of the increased publication rates in business ethics journals. This may help the marketing ethics literature to be more integrated into the general business ethics literature. However, the majority of this literature goes unnoticed by many general marketing scholars. The number of marketing ethics pieces appearing in traditional marketing journals has remained relatively flat for the past fifteen years. It is concerning that those scholars that focus on the traditional marketing journals are not being exposed to the majority of the marketing ethics literature. This finding is in line with the increasing research specialization of the marketing field as documented by Wilkie and Moore (2003). One could argue that this specialization is likely to impede the integration of marketing ethics into mainstream marketing research. Finally, we investigated the amount of marketing ethics research that was published in the top ten most influential marketing journals as ranked by Baumgartner and Pieters (2003). Over the past twenty-five years, a total of fifty marketing ethics pieces were published in the top ten journals (the top journal with the most marketing ethics articles was the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, with

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eighteen). These fifty articles represent about 12 percent of all marketing ethics contributions. A closer examination exposes a potentially alarming trend. During the 1980s, nearly one-third of all ethics pieces were published in these top journals, while in the last ten years this number has shrunk to approximately 6 percent. Perhaps more disturbing are the results for the top five journals (see table 7). While 22 percent of all marketing ethics articles were published in these journals in the1980s, this number declined to less than 3 percent for the last fifteen years. According to Baumgartner and Pieters (2003, 136) this “small group of journals dominates the scientific discourse, and most other journals exert no noticeable structural influence in the marketing network.” This suggests that the marketing ethics discussion is no longer part of the mainstream marketing discourse. The potential reasons for the lack of interest in societal issues discussed above might also be explanatory for the fading interest in marketing ethics by mainstream researchers. Wilkie and Moore (2003, 132) claim that the preeminent position in the marketing field is “the belief that the major purpose of academic work is to enhance the effectiveness of managers’ marketing decisions.” By its very nature, marketing ethics research does not and cannot always deliver managerial relevance. This is not to say that the results of many marketing ethics studies are not relevant for managers, but it might suggest that the dictum of managerial relevance is making the field less enticing to many marketing researchers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that marketing ethics manuscripts are likely to be rejected by the top tier journals. Furthermore, since ever more U.S. universities “adopted ‘publish-or-perish’ career paths for their new faculty, which added pressures for increasingly sophisticated research” (Wilkie and Moore 2003, 133), these young scholars might be inclined to pursue more mainstream research projects to target the top journals in the field.

CONCLUSION After analyzing the data presented above, we offer the following thought-provoking observations for future research in marketing ethics: First, the field of marketing ethics experienced a vast increase of knowledge over the last twenty-five years. Much progress has been made in achieving a better understanding of marketers’ main ethical problems, their values, their decisionmaking processes, and international and cross-cultural issues. Nonetheless, more research is needed to shed further light on the nature of marketing ethics and to increase our understanding of ethical theory. The call for more work on ethical theory is not only warranted from an academic point of view but also from a practitioner’s perspective. While most marketers that have to make real ethical decisions every day are not looking for idealism, but for strategies and decision-making systems that

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work, an understanding of ethical theories is helpful to better structure ethical questions. Second, the analysis of fundamentally normative questions in marketing ethics is underrepresented in the literature. It seems like the hard work of articulating and justifying professional standards—the ultimate point of having practitioner ethics—is often neglected in marketing ethics studies. This may help explain why micro/positive work is much more prevalent in the discipline, because creating the logic chain for what the “proper ethical standard might be” (normative ethics) is so difficult. Third, there is a limited amount of macro research in marketing ethics. This is especially true with regard to macro/normative pieces. Given that marketing is an important aspect of our society and considering that marketers depend on the societal approval of their actions, we believe that macro articles provide an integral part in the development of the marketing ethics field. Journals like the Journal of Macromarketing are likely outlets for such work. Forth, in terms of ethics specific topics, there is a void of ethical research pertaining to pricing, such as price gouging, prestige pricing, rebates, and price advertising. Perhaps some of this literature finds its way into economics journals; however, many of the ethical pricing issues are in fact marketing related. Also, there is a potentially concerning lack of ethics research in Internet marketing. We found only five articles in this subdiscipline ranging back to 1999. While the amount of Internet research has grown dramatically, little interest has been generated in the area of ethics, despite a number of troubling issues such as identity theft, phishing, privacy, online auctions, and hacking. Furthermore, there is a paucity of research concerning discrimination. Perhaps more research in the area of discrimination based on demographics, product development, advertising and selling, and price discrimination, such as the ethics of online versus offline pricing in terms of its fairness to populations that do not have computer access, is warranted. Finally, there is an apparent trend to publish fewer articles in the top marketing journals. In the eighties, there were nine articles published in the field’s top three journals, (Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research). However, in the last ten years (1996 to 2005), four articles were published in these journals. This is particularly curious, since the issue of ethical behaviors in business is so apparent in the popular press. Apparently, marketing ethics is no longer an integral part of the general marketing discourse and it evolved into a specific subdiscipline. We encourage marketing ethics scholars to target these journals, and challenge editors from these journals to look for (or invite) ethics manuscripts. REFERENCES Advertising Age. 2002. Dec. 9, 2002, 18. American Marketing Association (AMA). 2006a. American Marketing Association code of ethics. http://www.marketingpower.com/content435 .php#.

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Alexander Nill is an associate professor of marketing at the School of Business at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Among other journals, he has published in the Journal of Macromarketing, European Journal of Marketing, Business Horizons, Marketing Education Review, and Journal of Marketing Education in the area of marketing and business ethics. Dr. Nill received an MBA from the American School of International Management and a PhD from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. John A. Schibrowsky is a professor of marketing at the School of Business at University of Nevada Las Vegas. Among other journals, he has published in the Journal of Advertising Research, the Journal of Marketing Education, the Journal of Interactive Marketing, the Journal of Services Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Marketing. Dr. Schibrowsky received a PhD in Marketing from the University of Wisconsin.

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