Can business and marketing practice be ethical in its entirety? The purpose of this chapter is to understand ethics in relation to marketing, examining theoretical bases and critical cases that provoked enormous controversy and sanctions. Ethics issues in marketing stem from an unconscious bias caused by equity sensitivity and certain manifestations of particular dimensions of diversity with low levels of inclusion. Notwithstanding equity, diversity, and inclusion studies stressing ethics and moral value, critically linking theories with practical issues is needed to promote good practices in marketing and business. Ethics in business and marketing improve decision-making and operations while creating credibility and satisfying stakeholders. For businesses, remaining ethical and having it entrenched in the culture of the organisation is a necessity to balance stakeholder interest. The chapter provides a window of opportunity for marketers and business practitioners to acquaint themselves with marketing ethics failures and regulatory responses.
TopIntroduction
Usually, marketing occurs in the context of an organisation whose ethical standards and values reflected in the marketplace. Thus, understanding and appreciating the ethical standards and values associated with business is essential for ethics in marketing. Ethics refers to morality, values and philosophy of systematically instilling right or wrong behaviour. It is all about some form of rationalisation of morality that guides decisions and behaviour. In business, ethics addresses activities, situations and decisions where issues of right or wrong deeds arise. Organisations’ business ethics primarily look for areas and issues in a business where “values are in conflict” with morality (Trevino & Nelson, 2017). Ethics in marketing refers to the arduous task of ensuring that businesses adhere to core marketing ethos internally in their products and services production and externally with all its major stakeholders.
The core marketing ethics are based on the principles and values of right conduct that direct the decisions, actions and activities of the business entity. What is at stake here is the standards of what is right or wrong, which businesses are expected to adhere to in all activities. Ethics is the practice of instilling fairness, honesty and empathy in all aspects of business activities. The key is for business leaders to promote and integrate ethical values in the firm. Incorporating ethics of values in all aspects of the business calls for ‘living it’ and making it the culture of the business. It focuses on values and practising them in all aspects of the business. For businesses defining acceptable standards and conduct to manage marketing ethics and other ethical standards boost overall performance. Overall, business practitioners' approach to ethics depends on the principles justifying whether an action is right or wrong. Adequate explanation of the disposition of the ethical approach applied helps to resolve difficult moral decisions, especially in marketing. Yet, the common criticism and ethical issues in marketing arise due to equity, diversity and inclusion claims beyond legal compliances (Hayes, 2021; Trevino et al., 2017; Eagle, Dahl & Low, 2015). Extensive studies have been done in the area of ethics (Yıldırım, Mert, & Cebeci, 2021), ethics in marketing (Chonko & Hunt, 2015; Eagle et al., 2015), and ethical theory (Becker, 2019) without focusing on how well ethics tenets translate into current marketing practice and action. A better understanding of the theoretical foundation of ethics is necessary due to the enormity of issues about equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Theoretical foundations of ethics (in this case business ethics and ethics in marketing) become the guidelines or body of principles and values for resolving moral issues. Accordingly, it is imperative to review theories and approaches that tend to guide ethical strategies and decision-making for businesses as these reflect in managing marketing ethics. Further, Singh and Mishra (2018) opined that the theoretical foundation of business ethics is shaky and inclined toward a diverse perspective due to their “disparate and absolute nature”. This assertion means that identifying a common core theory will be difficult. However, the traditional ethical theories (consequentialism, deontology, utilitarianism and others) seem to be applied with other perspectives (justice theories of rights, virtue theory and others) in business decisions and policies. In effect, the eclecticism approach to gaining complementary insights has been the practice in many ethical business decisions and policies (Singh et al., 2018, Chonko et al., 2015). However, often no set rules dictate how these theories and perspectives are to be combined for consistency in building a solid grounding for business ethics policies and decisions. More so, when practical issues that has to do with equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in marketing are identified, investigated and integrated as part of ethical decisions in business and marketing.