IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v64y2011i8p922-927.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Morality in marketing: Oxymoron or good business practice?

Author

Listed:
  • Watkins, Alison
  • Hill, Ronald Paul

Abstract

Marketing morality as oxymoron or good business practice is the primary focus of this research and is a topic deserving of attention by the field. Much theory on morality involves issues like salesperson behavior that fails to examine the impact on important goals. For instance, ethicists evaluate and provide recommendations and prohibitions without concern for their influence on the financial well-being of firms. This disconnect has unintended consequences. First, moral dictates often are naive by the standards of marketing managers, out-of-touch with complexities of real world firms. Second, scholars discount prescriptions for change since they do not reflect the full range of management requirements for success. Is marketing morality an oxymoron or good business practice? The time is right for marketers to take a serious look.

Suggested Citation

  • Watkins, Alison & Hill, Ronald Paul, 2011. "Morality in marketing: Oxymoron or good business practice?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(8), pages 922-927, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:64:y:2011:i:8:p:922-927
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296311001044
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kirman, Alan P. & Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2001. "Evolving market structure: An ACE model of price dispersion and loyalty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(3-4), pages 459-502, March.
    2. Armstrong, J. Scott, 1977. "Social irresponsibility in management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 185-213, September.
    3. Singhapakdi, Anusorn & Vitell, Scott J. & Kraft, Kenneth L., 1996. "Moral Intensity and Ethical Decision-Making of Marketing Professionals," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 245-255, July.
    4. Joshua M. Epstein & Robert L. Axtell, 1996. "Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262550253, April.
    5. Werhane, Patricia H., 2006. "A Place for Philosophers in Applied Ethics and the Role of Moral Reasoning in Moral Imagination: A Response to Richard Rorty," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 401-408, July.
    6. Desmond, John & Crane, Andrew, 2004. "Morality and the consequences of marketing action," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(11), pages 1222-1230, November.
    7. András Vag, 2004. "First Generation Multi-agent Models and Their Upgrades," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 2(1), pages 95-103.
    8. Robin, Donald P. & Gordon, Gus & Jordan, Charles & Reidenbach, R. Eric, 1996. "The Empirical Performance of Cognitive Moral Development in Predicting Behavioral Intent," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 493-515, October.
    9. Cherry, John & Fraedrich, John, 2002. "Perceived risk, moral philosophy and marketing ethics: mediating influences on sales managers' ethical decision-making," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 55(12), pages 951-962, December.
    10. Manjit Monga, 2007. "Managers’ Moral Reasoning: Evidence from Large Indian Manufacturing Organisations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 71(2), pages 179-194, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John K. Ashton & Andrew D. Pressey, 2012. "Who Manages Cartels? The Role of Sales and Marketing Managers within International Cartels: Evidence from the European Union 1990-2009," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2012-11, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    2. Hill, Ronald Paul & Capella, Michael L., 2014. "Impoverished consumers, Catholic social teaching, and distributive justice," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 32-41.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hill, Ronald Paul & Watkins, Alison, 2009. "The profit implications of altruistic versus egoistic orientations for business-to-business exchanges," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 52-59.
    2. Joshua M. Epstein, 2007. "Agent-Based Computational Models and Generative Social Science," Introductory Chapters, in: Generative Social Science Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling, Princeton University Press.
    3. Flaminio Squazzoni, 2010. "The impact of agent-based models in the social sciences after 15 years of incursions," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 18(2), pages 197-234.
    4. James Weber & Elaine McGivern, 2010. "A New Methodological Approach for Studying Moral Reasoning Among Managers in Business Settings," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 149-166, March.
    5. Hill, Ronald Paul & Capella, Michael L., 2014. "Impoverished consumers, Catholic social teaching, and distributive justice," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 32-41.
    6. Barbara Culiberg & Domen Bajde, 2014. "Do You Need a Receipt? Exploring Consumer Participation in Consumption Tax Evasion as an Ethical Dilemma," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 271-282, October.
    7. Ting-Hua Chang & Jun-Yen Lee & Ru-Hwa Chen, 2008. "The Effects of Customer Value on Loyalty and Profits in a Dynamic Competitive Market," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 317-339, October.
    8. Delli Gatti,Domenico & Fagiolo,Giorgio & Gallegati,Mauro & Richiardi,Matteo & Russo,Alberto (ed.), 2018. "Agent-Based Models in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108400046, September.
    9. Nicholas McClaren, 2013. "The Personal Selling and Sales Management Ethics Research: Managerial Implications and Research Directions from a Comprehensive Review of the Empirical Literature," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(1), pages 101-125, January.
    10. Filatova, Tatiana & Parker, Dawn Cassandra & van der Veen, Anne, 2011. "The Implications of Skewed Risk Perception for a Dutch Coastal Land Market: Insights from an Agent-Based Computational Economics Model," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 40(3), pages 1-19, December.
    11. Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2006. "ACE Models of Endogenous Interactions," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 21, pages 1047-1079, Elsevier.
    12. Peter Mudrack & E. Mason, 2013. "Ethical Judgments: What Do We Know, Where Do We Go?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(3), pages 575-597, July.
    13. Dan Ladley & Seth Bullock, 2008. "The Strategic Exploitation of Limited Information and Opportunity in Networked Markets," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 295-315, October.
    14. Tesfatsion, Leigh, 2001. "Introduction to the special issue on agent-based computational economics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(3-4), pages 281-293, March.
    15. Evelyne Rousselet & Bérangère Brial & Romain Cadario & Amina Béji-Bécheur, 2020. "Moral Intensity, Issue Characteristics, and Ethical Issue Recognition in Sales Situations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 347-363, May.
    16. Troy Tassier, 2013. "Handbook of Research on Complexity, by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Edward Elgar," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 132-133.
    17. Nigel Piercy & Nikala Lane, 2007. "Ethical and Moral Dilemmas Associated with Strategic Relationships between Business-to-Business Buyers and Sellers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 87-102, April.
    18. Leigh Tesfatsion, 2002. "Agent-Based Computational Economics," Computational Economics 0203001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Aug 2002.
    19. Gao, Tao (Tony) & Sirgy, M. Joseph & Johar, J.S., 2010. "Developing a measure to capture marketing faculty's perceptions of unethical behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 366-371, April.
    20. Antonio Doria, Francisco, 2011. "J.B. Rosser Jr. , Handbook of Research on Complexity, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK--Northampton, MA, USA (2009) 436 + viii pp., index, ISBN 978 1 84542 089 5 (cased)," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 196-204, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:64:y:2011:i:8:p:922-927. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.