This paper seeks to identify a mid-level unifying ethical principle that may help clarify and articulate the ethical responsibilities of business firms in the field of marketing ethics. The paper examines critically the main principles which have been proposed to date in the literature, namely consumer sovereignty, preserving the conditions of an acceptable exchange, paternalism, and the perfect competition ideal, and concludes that all of them are vulnerable to damaging criticisms. The paper articulates and defends the mutuality principle as the (...) most plausible candidate for the role of master principle in the relations between a firm and its customers. This principle requires that sellers look for reciprocity in their relations with their customers, seeking to provide to their customers something that helps them improve in some way their well-being and is commensurate with what they receive from them. (shrink)

This essay presents my research stream on impoverished citizens as it relates to transdisciplinary work at the intersection of consumer behavior, applied ethics, public policy, and marketing practice. The original studies that inform this discussion were conducted using ethnographic methods with subpopulations that included the homeless, rural poor, children living in poverty, and aborigines isolated in the Australian outback. The opening section frames my work within the context of the larger marketing domain. The next section describes dysfunctional business activities that (...) reduce the consumer quality of life of disadvantaged citizens. Their reactions to this maltreatment then are presented, with an emphasis on the various groups noted. The essay closes with a brief discourse on restricted consumer behavior in business ethics research. (shrink)

This article focuses on the issue of data mining as it relates to the consumer and to the issue of whether the consumer's private information has any proprietary status. A brief review of data mining is provided as a background for a better understanding of the purposes and uses of data mining. Also examined are several issues of the ethics of data mining, including a review of stakeholders, who they are and which may be most seriously affected by unethical data (...) mining practices. Several suggestions for the improvement of data mining as it relates to the consumer are further presented: suggestions that would allow for data mining that would be beneficial to both the business community and the consumer. (shrink)

This paper provides a marketing ethics analysis that addresses the practice of selling genetic tests directly to the consumer. It details the complexity of this emergent sector by articulating the panoply of evolving ethical/social questions raised by this development. It advances the conversation about DTC genetic testing by reviewing the business and healthcare literature concerning this topic and by laying out the inherent ethical complications for consumers, marketers, and regulators. It also points to several possible public and company policy adjustments. (...) Because this area is relatively new and incredibly dynamic, its current discussion is necessarily an exercise in the “logic of discovery” rather than the “protocol of validation”. The paper serves as a primer for the types of GT being promoted. It also calls for a public discourse in the academic and general community to uncover and define the ethical guidelines and systemic adjustments necessary to create fairness in the various DTC transactions occurring between genetic test sellers and the buyers/clients of their services. (shrink)

With the increasing popularity of social media, a new ethics debate has arisen over marketing and technology in the current digital era. People are using online communities but they have concern about information credibility through word of mouth in these platforms. Social media is becoming increasingly influential in shaping individuals’ decision-making as more and better quality information about products is made available. In this research, a social word-of-mouth model proposes using a survey to test the model in a popular travel (...) community. The model highlights the role of social media and social support in social networking sites, identifying increasing credibility and information usefulness resulting in an ethical environment to adopt word of mouth. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are both detailed. (shrink)

The extant marketing literature provides little guidance for theory development or practice with regard to questions of ethical conformity and the resulting market response. To begin to bridge this research gap, we advance a theoretical framework of ethical conformity in marketing, appealing to marketing ethics, management strategy, and sociological foundations. We set the stage for our theoretical arguments by considering the role of normative expectations related to marketing practices and behaviors held by societal constituents. Against this backdrop, we propose drivers (...) of conformity in marketing, including practices consistent with both overconformity and underconformity. The framework allows us to advance testable research propositions by which questions of ethical conformity may be explored. We conclude by suggesting additional future research needed to develop the domain, specifically in the form of empirical inquiries uncovering firm strategic decisions with ethical implications. (shrink)

While the ethics of technology is analyzed across disciplines from science and technology studies, engineering, computer science, critical management studies, and law, less attention is paid to the role that firms and managers play in the design, development, and dissemination of technology across communities and within their firm. Although firms play an important role in the development of technology, and make associated value judgments around its use, it remains open how we should understand the contours of what firms owe society (...) as the rate of technological development accelerates. We focus here on digital technologies: devices that rely on rapidly accelerating digital sensing, storage, and transmission capabilities to intervene in human processes. This symposium focuses on how firms should engage ethical choices in developing and deploying these technologies. In this introduction, we, first, identify themes the symposium articles share and discuss how the set of articles illuminate diverse facets of the intersection of technology and business ethics. Second, we use these themes to explore what business ethics offers to the study of technology and, third, what technology studies offers to the field of business ethics. Each field brings expertise that, together, improves our understanding of the ethical implications of technology. Finally we introduce each of the five papers, suggest future research directions, and interpret their implications for business ethics. (shrink)

This article focuses on the issue of data mining as it relates to the consumer and to the issue of whether the consumer's private information has any proprietary status. A brief review of data mining is provided as a background for a better understanding of the purposes and uses of data mining. Also examined are several issues of the ethics of data mining, including a review of stakeholders, who they are and which may be most seriously affected by unethical data (...) mining practices. Several suggestions for the improvement of data mining as it relates to the consumer are further presented: suggestions that would allow for data mining that would be beneficial to both the business community and the consumer. (shrink)

I argue for the role of trust and cooperation as part of the foundation of digital commerce by expanding the reach of the Integrative Social Contract Theory of Donaldson and Dunfee. I propose that a digital business community can be a community in the morally relevant ways that Donaldson and Dunfee describe, and that the basic framework of ISCT can apply to the digital business world similarly to its application in the offline business world. I then analyze the roles of (...) trust and cooperation in e-commerce, showing how they are important to the digital business community and explaining their moral relevance under a digital form of ISCT. I use the ISCT framework to show that trust and cooperation are an instantiation of the hypernorm of necessary social efficiency, and that authentic microsocial norms developed for the ends of trust and cooperation carry moral responsibility. (shrink)

Increased consumer usage of the internet has highlighted a number of problematic online marketing practices, including the use of online platforms to research consumers without full consumer awareness. Despite current debates regarding online research ethics from a marketing perspective, scant research has been published on consumers’ concerns with how they are researched online, which is a knowledge gap this paper seeks to address through qualitative research with UK consumers. This is an important yet neglected topic, given that consumer voices have (...) been under-represented in the online research ethics debate over the years. The paper makes a significant theoretical contribution as it extends the ethics of care and responsibility to an online context, which can frame ongoing online research ethics discussions where problematic power asymmetries may exist between researchers and consumers. (shrink)

This article analyzes the business ethics of digital games, using Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. It identifies different types of monetization options as virtuous or nonvirtuous, based on Rand’s views on rational self-interest. It divides the options into ethical Mover and unethical Looter designs, presents those logics in relation to an illustrative case example, Zynga, and then discusses a view on the role of players in relation to game monetization designs. Through our analysis of monetization options in the context of (...) Objectivist ethics, the article contributes to discussions on game revenue ethics. It also expands the still understudied area of applying Rand’s ethics to business, in the context of a new sector, game development, and business. This research enables ethicists to apply a wider-than-before perspective on virtue ethics to online business, and helps game developers act in a virtuous manner, which provides them with a long-term business advantage. (shrink)