Culture's Role in Marketers' Ethical Decision Making: An Integrated Theoretical Framework

Academy of Marketing Science Review,  2004  by J, Katharina

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Dr. Katharina J. Srnka, Assistant Professor of Marketing at University of Vienna, Austria. 2003 Visiting Professor at MBA Solvay Business School, Université Libre des Bruxelles, Belgium. 2001/02 Visiting Professor at the Institute of Marketing and Retailing, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Major Fields of Research: Marketing Ethics, Consumer Behavior, Cross-Cultural and Qualitative Marketing Research. Address for correspondence: University of Vienna, Department of Marketing, Bruenner Str. 72, A-1210 Vienna, Austria; Tel.: (++43-1) 4277 -38020; Fax: -38014; E-mail: katharina.srnka@univie.ac.at; URL: http://www.bwl.univie.ac.at/bwl/mark/srnka.htm. The author would like to thank the Special Issue Editor John B. Ford and the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Further, I thank my colleagues Dr. Claus Ebster and Dr. Katja Meier-Pesti at University of Vienna for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. This article is part of a special issue on "Conceptual/Theoretical Issues in Marketing in a Cross-Cultural Context" edited by John B. Ford.

Culture's Role in Marketers' Ethical Decision Making: An Integrated Theoretical Framework

In the past decades, an increasing amount of attention has been devoted to ethics in business in general and marketing in particular (Malhotra and Miller 1998:263). Marketing managers have become ethically more sensitive, and they are largely convinced that customers and the public expect them to act in a morally acceptable way. Most marketers express their moral commitment as well as the conviction that ethical conduct is mandatory to establish trust (Srnka 1997:96ff.). This is consistent with general marketing theory, which holds that all exchanges are based on trust (Kotler 2003:8f), and that conflicts are likely to result if buyer and seller are not in agreement with respect to their ethical mindsets (Lee 1981:58). Where conflicts exist, trust will not grow. Without trust, in turn, the exchange process ceases and marketing relationships cannot develop (Morgan and Hunt 1994:32). Compatibility of ethical values held by the exchange partners is thus a central prerequisite for trust and persistent relationships (Ahmed, Chung, and Eichenseher 2003:89; Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrich 1989:55; Schlegelmilch 1998:11ff; Schlegelmilch and Goetze 1999:27). Given fierce competition and rising costs of customer acquisition, enduring relationships based on mutual trust have become more important than ever before. Consequently, the relevance of ethics in marketing has surged over the last three decades.

Even more attention has recently been paid to ethical issues in the multicultural marketing context. Essentially, the cross-cultural perspective of value-compatibility has become important over the past years (Bergemann and Sourrisseaux 1996:1). Often enough, decision makers within their own cultural boundaries do not know which is the most ethical alternative. The problem of choosing an ethical option is even exacerbated, when the decision maker is confronted with differing cultural values and ethical expectations (Ahmed, Chung, and Eichenseher 2003:89). Today, marketers are increasingly faced with exchange partners from cultures different from their own background (not only with respect to nationality but also regarding political and particularly economic aspects, such as industrialization, standard of living, etc.). In view of the continuing integration into world markets of countries with rapid economic development - particularly in Asia and Eastern Europe - the need to consider cultural aspects in marketing ethics as well as the demand for a conception of culture that embraces more than simply the "nationality" dimension have significantly increased.

The assumption that cultural norms and values influence individual decision making is soundly based in the marketing literature (e.g., Engel and Blackwell 1982). It is more or less consistently acknowledged that different cultures produce different expectations, which become expressed in distinct ethical norms. These, in turn, influence decision making and may result in dissimilar behaviors (Ferrell an Gresham 1985:89). However, a comprehensive understanding of culture, values, and social norms as moderators of ethical decision making seems still to be missing. There does not even exist a generally accepted terminology of culture or a consistent conception of the process of ethical decision making in the marketing ethics literature (Dubinsky and Loken 1989:103). The lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework on culture's role in marketers' ethical decision making has inhibited the systematic development of a research agenda (Trevino, 1986:601) and resulted in empirical research that simply documents the existence of different ethical judgments among various populations but does not investigate their causes (Hunt and Vitell 1986:768). A well-developed theoretical model explaining how various cultural factors impact ethical decisions in the marketing context should provide a richer understanding and better guidance for empirical research in marketing ethics (Hunt and Vitell 1991:780; Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrich 1989:56; Bommer et al. 1987:265).