Critical Ethical Issues in Today's Challenging Business Environment

Marketing Ethics: The Marketers standards of conduct and moral values. The 5 areas of ethical concerns for Marketers are: Marketing Research – ex: Gathering marketing information in exchange for money or free offers. Product Strategy – ex: Product quality, planned obsolescence, packaging. Distribution – ex: Determining the appropriate degree of control over a channel. Promotion – ex: Gifts and Bribes Pricing – Most unethical pricing behaviours are also illegal. Social Responsibility: involves marketing philosophies, policies, procedures, and actions whose primary objective is the enhancement of society. The 4 levels of Social Responsibility are: Economic – Be Profitable; the foundation upon which all others rest Legal – Obey The Law; Play by the rules of the game Ethical – Be Ethical; Obligation to do what is right, just, and fair. Philanthropic – Be a Good Corporate Citizen; Contribute resources to the community, improve quality of life.

The author Robert Solomon argues that ethics has to an integral part with regard to business management. He does not believe that business management must include unethical or illegal methods to be able to succeed. Solomon preaches that business management is not as simple as obtaining revenue. “Businesses need to abide by fair policies and their owners have to be ethical in dealing with their customers” (Shaw p. 37). The author acknowledges that while illegal practices in business management could bring positive results at first, eventually the business is bound to fail. This is why Solomon recommended eight important policies that can help businesses in integrating ethics into their operations.

Many believe that business entities should have an ethical duty to be socially responsible, to work towards increasing its positive effects on society while decreasing its negative effects. Many organizations look for opportunities to be socially responsible while also creating shareholder wealth.

Under this task I will explain the ethical issues that business needs to consider in its operating activities and how a business they could improve the ethical of their operations and also I will evaluate the influence of stakeholders exert in one company.

The movie Erin Brockovich is based on actual events involving corporate business knowingly endangering the health of local residents and the environment. This factual event is a great example of capitalism on steroids with no empathy for who are what is destroyed on their path for wealth. The events that unfold show the degenerative break down of ethical values through the business format of Pacific Gas and Electric. PG&E lacked ethical and practical management qualities and took sweeping the dirt under the rug to the extreme.

Today’s business world presents numerous ethical issues. In today’s world above board/moral ethics in organizations do not often materialize intuitively. Organization must strive to provide employees with a clear understanding of the overall company vision. This will aid employees in practicing the code of ethics, policies and procedures in the workplace. Companies must be unwavering in continuously delivering the uppermost ethics of provision in which customers, applicants and employees are entitled to under fair business practices. One major core value is to uphold responsible and fair business practices.

“For seven years the Ford Motor Company sold cars in which it knew hundreds of people would needlessly burn to death.”

This essay is about discussing the ethicality of a company’s marketing activity. First of all, it needs to be defined what ethical activity is. Ethical marketing can bring advantages and disadvantages to the company. It can help to improve the brand image of the company and develop a trust with the customers. On the other hand, it cannot ensure that can increase the company’s sales or have a possibility to increase the advertising cost. In the following discussion, an international cosmetic firm, The Body Shop, is chosen to be the target.

Every organization also has a profession responsibility to conduct business honestly and ethically. Our readings reported, “Experts estimated that U.S. companies lose about $600 billion a year from unethical and criminal behavior” Kinicki and Kreitner (2009). The organization could avoid having ethical issues by meeting the

The relationship among factors that influence ethical behavior can be shown in a framework in which societal culture and norms, affect business culture and industry practices, affect corporate culture and expectations–all of which affect and are affected by personal moral philosophy and ethical behavior. Ultimately the nature and the principal of ethical marketing emerge. All the components have been discussed below in details: .2.1FACTORS: It includes the Societal Culture and Norms, Business Culture and Industry Practices and the Corporate Culture and

“Marketing ethics has been receiving increased research attention, particularly from the past 10 years.” Alen J. Dubinsky & Barbara Loken. Ethical issues can be defined as a situation or problem in which a company or an individual has to decide what the right thing as per ethics is or what is wrong unethically. These issues can occur in any organization and are very common. The most debated one these days are the ethical issues of marketing. We will be discussing some of the

Unethical marketing behaviors will cause legal troubles and a bad reputation. Here are some practices of unethical marketing, in which all should be avoided. First, Exploitation, which is using scare tactics or hard sells against vulnerable consumers. Second, Spamming which is the flooding a customer’s voicemail, mailbox, email or any other means of communication with unwanted messages. Third, bad mouthing the competition is talking down on values and benefits of your competion’s product or service . (Hunt, S. D., Chonko, L. B., & Wilcox, J. B., 1984) Forth, Misleading Advertisement and Information, which is any exaggerated claim or dishonest promise which will cause the customers to mistrust companies and spread that the product a failure.

Businesses have been relatively passive in investigate their in marketing ethics and are still operating according to traditional business models and process that do not reflect consumer interests and ethical implications of their activity often continue afterthought and are yet to be thoroughly incorporated into management decision-making. The contingency framework can accelerate this pre-emptive approach to ethical decision-making. To embed ethics into firms planning and strategy formulation process , marketers should learn from consumers ethical evaluation of their marketing techniques (Smith and Cooper-Martin 1997). An “ethical execution of the marketing program. In addition to financial , market, and competitive objectives, marketers should include consumer concerns and ethical integrity as important criteria for management decision making . Furthermore, ethics must be matched throughout the marketing planning process from product development, market selection , advertising and promotion execution.

Process-orientated framework, analyzing ethical problems in terms of the categories used by marketing specialists; Research, price, promotion, placement Specific issues in marketing ethics:

In the modern world, two things are most sought after: goodness and prosperity. However, given the innate nature of mankind, and his compulsions towards greed and selfishness, complete morality is impossible. This idea has roots in the definitions and ideals found in utilitarianism, a term that will be defined later, and has led many to call business ethics an oxymoron. “In the US generally, the ethical road that is paved with good corporate intentions and constructive programs includes some bumps,” (McClenahen 60). Although bumps may exist, many companies are striving for excellence in this area as statistics show ethics are related to customer loyalty 's. These businesses have found that improvements can be found through understanding and action. Business leaders can increase morals by understand utilitarianism, leadership, correct forms of communication, and how these affect customers.