The ethical climate in Turkey is beset by ethical problems. Bribery, environmental pollution, tax frauds, deceptive advertising, production of unsafe products, and the ethical violations that involved politicians and business professionals are just a few examples. The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the ethical beliefs of American and Turkish consumers using the Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) of Forsyth (1980), the Machiavellianism scale, and the Consumer Ethical Practices of Muncy and Vitell questionnaire (MVQ). A sample of 376 (...) subjects that consists of American consumers (n = 188) and Turkish consumers (n = 199) was used to compare the ethical beliefs and practices of the two samples. The MANOVA results for the two nationality groups found that five out of six criterion variables differed between the two groups. The implications of this study are intended to assist marketers to develop strategies that suit a particular market and lessen their risk of entry. (shrink)

This research aimed to assess the potential of alternatives to extrinsic pecuniary rewards for cultivating employees’ commitment in denominational higher education institutions in Indonesia. Two ethics-related variables, namely ethical climates and ethical ideologies, were chosen as possible predictors. A model delineating the nexus between ethical climates types, ethical ideologies, and various forms of organisational commitment was developed and tested. A two-step structural equation modelling procedure was used as the primary means in testing the hypothesised relationships. The research involved staff of (...) nine Catholic higher education institutions in Indonesia and comprised 642 respondents. Results of the research revealed a negative relationship between egoistic climates and affective commitment. Benevolence climate was shown to have potential for generating not only affective, but also continuance commitment. However, our results suggested those climates that cultivate continuance commitment needed further examination. Principle-based climates were found to positively influence staff’s affective commitment through their positive impacts on staff’s idealistic ethical ideology. As expected, the principle-cosmopolitan was shown to have a negative influence on relativism. A number of managerial and scholarly implications are discussed. (shrink)

Prior research has examined value antecedents to sustainable consumption, including religious or cultural values. We bridge together these usually separated bodies of literature to provide an ethically-based examination of both religious and cultural values in one model to understand what drives sustainable consumption as well as outcomes on consumer well-being. In doing so, we also fulfill calls for more research on socio-demographic antecedents to ethical consumption, particularly in the domain of sustainable consumption. We examine this relationship using data from the (...) religiously and culturally diverse country of Singapore, collected from a door-to-door, representative sample utilizing numerous quality control techniques. Our path analysis and logical follow-up tests reveal that both religious and cultural values influence sustainable consumption, and then sustainable consumption positively influences consumer well-being. Implications are provided for consumer ethics, business’ ethical practices, and belief congruence theory. (shrink)

Although the ethical judgment of consumers in the United States and other industrialized countries has received considerable attention, consumer ethics in Asian-market settings have seldom been explored. The purchase and making of counterfeit products are considered common, but disreputable, attributes of Southeast Asian consumers. According to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia ranks third among the leading countries of counterfeit items in Asia. Retail revenue losses attributed to counterfeiting amounted to US $183 million in 2004. Therefore, elucidating the (...) ethical perspectives of Indonesian consumers is an effective means of clarifying an important cultural influence on consumer behavior. This exploratory study of 230 Indonesians has many meaningful findings. First, certain personal attitudes apparently affect the ethical judgments of Indonesian consumers. Second, Indonesian consumers who exhibited high ethical concern over actively benefiting from illegal actions had high levels of materialism and idealism, as well as low levels of relativism. Third, materialism, idealism, and relativism significantly influenced whether benefits were created from actively engaging in some questionable activities (DELEGAL). Analytical results indicated that Indonesians with high materialism and relativism were more likely to engage in actions that were questionable but legal. Finally, consumer ethics were compared by applying demographic variables such as gender, age, education, religion, and occupation, indicating that all variables significantly varied except for religion. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of individual ethical values and organizational factors on the professional ethics of PR practitioners in Korea by considering a person–situation interactionist model. Individual ethical values are used as individual factors, and organizational factors consist of an organization’s reward and punishment for ethical/unethical behavior, the behavior of peers, and the ethical integrity of the chief ethics officer. The professional ethics of PR practitioners (the dependent variable) are classified into the following three dimensions: professional ethics for the (...) public, the client, and the PR industry. The results indicate that agency practitioners were more likely to be committed to their profession than to their organization, whereas in-house practitioners were more likely to be committed to their organization than to their profession. That is, in-house practitioners showed weak professional commitment, indicating that they perceived themselves as employees, not as PR professionals. Organizational factors such as reward, punishment, and peers’ ethical behavior had considerable influence on the professional ethics of in-house practitioners, whereas they had little influence on agency practitioners. Organizational factors as well as individual ethical values were more likely to influence the professional ethics of in-house practitioners than that of agency practitioners. Thus, to foster in-house practitioners’ professional ethics and commitment, professional associations in the PR industry should make efforts to provide in-house practitioners with more information on the PR industry and more opportunities for interacting and maintaining communication with their colleagues in the industry. (shrink)