Ethical Issues Connected with Multi-Level Marketing Schemes

Multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes are one of the fastest growing types of business. However, little has been written about the ethics of MLMs. This oversight is somewhat surprising, especially because some prominent MLMs have been accused of being pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes were the number one type of internet fraud in 1996, and the fourth most common form of internet fraud in 1997 (National Consumers League, 1997). This paper examines the nature of MLMs and their similarities with and differences from pyramid and endless chain schemes. The paper argues that MLMs pose some unique ethical issues, issues that are not easy to address or resolve.     

Western Australian Managers Tell Their Stories: Ethical Challenges in International Business Operations

This paper investigates the ethical challenges facing managers in Western Australia. It identifies the ethical issues that managers confront in international business. Managers in this research have identified a number of significant ethical issues when discussing the ethical incidents that occurred in their international dealings. The research shows a degree of congruence between managers' experiences and establishes the main ethical dilemmas encountered, how they felt and actions taken when confronted with an ethical dilemma.     

Leadership in the promotion of peace: Interviews with the 2015 Business for Peace honorees

Ethical leadership can lead to many positive organizational outcomes. Previous studies have shown a correlation between ethical conduct and profitability; in addition, firms that have high ethical standards have fewer legal issues. The existing ethical leadership literature assumes a stable external environment. The business and peace literature, on the other hand, assumes instability but has thus far largely ignored the role of leadership within companies as a possible driver of peacebuilding activities. The practitioner community has already begun to recognize that leaders of organizations are the key drivers of change in the peacebuilding context. The Business for Peace Foundation, the foremost organization in the practitioner community, gives its annual award to business leaders who promote peace within their organizations and communities. These Business for Peace honorees represent the ‘ethical leadership’ qualities of peace promotion, without reference to academic theories in either area. We conducted semi-structured interviews with the 2015 Business for Peace honorees and combined those with their public speeches at the Business for Peace events to examine what role these business and peace leaders saw between ethical leadership and peace promotion. Unlike the academic research that suggests only a theoretical and sometimes a direct but tangential connection to peacebuilding, the honorees highlight the direct and visible connection of ethical leadership to peace in unstable environments. We begin by describing the relevant business for peace and ethical leadership literatures. Then we highlight the significant aspects of the interviews and speeches and relate these to the prevailing theories of both business and peace and ethical leadership. Our findings suggest that ethical leadership may be an important missing link within the business and peace literature as an avenue for peace promotion, and that the leadership literature may be ignoring an important positive impact of ethical leadership.     

Suggested Management Responses to Ethical Issues Raised by Technological Change

The development of technology raises an array of ethical issues related to work. Many of these ethical issues are old issues surfacing under new guises. Technology has not changed the issues, but technology makes the issues' analysis and application more complex. This paper identifies several new ethical issues raised by technological change: computer crime, an over-reliance on computer controlled systems, bio-technical developments, degradation of quality-of-life at work and new categories of work-related injuries. These issues are discussed in the context of management responsibilities and responses. The paper offers a five-step process for the effective management of these ethical issues: Be aware of the issues, develop an ethical framework, be consistent, communicate clearly, stay alert for future developments.     

Are Students Really Less Ethical Than Business Practitioners?

Past research provides evidence of lower ethical standards amongst the student population when compared to business practitioners, using business-based survey instruments. This study examines the adequacy of this conventional research tool by assessing the influence of scenario context (university or business setting) on ethical intentions using data from 243 commerce tertiary students.Students tended to respond more ethically to issues set in a university context than to equivalent issues in a business setting. The tolerance level for unethical behaviour in both contexts was also found to decline with full-time work experience and age. However, full-time work experience appears to be the major variable influencing ethical ratings set in a business context, whereas age was found to predict the ethical judgements of students in the university scenarios. The overall pattern of responses indicates that ethical standards vary according to scenario context.The study illustrates the importance of considering respondents' exposure to the settings concerned when conducting ethical studies using scenario-based instruments. Respondents should have adequate knowledge and exposure to the type of setting they are asked to evaluate. Results of this study argue for caution in the interpretation of past findings involving student samples responding to ethical issues in business settings.     

Searching for Spirituality in All the Wrong Places

The increased usage of marketing communications on the internet has presented a number of significant business ethics issues. And, while regulatory agencies have increased their vigilance in protecting consumers from injury, the uniqueness of business via the internet has challenged these agencies to respond in evolving ways. This paper provides a brief overview of the application of the FTC's lesser known unfairness doctrine as a potential framework for better understanding emerging privacy and e-commerce issues, and specific examples are provided for illustration.     

Challenges in Teaching Business Ethics: Using Role Set Analysis of Early Career Dilemmas

Emphasis in business ethics texts and courses has generally focused on corporate and other relatively high-level ethical issues. However, business school graduates in early career stages report ethical dilemmas involving individual-level decisions, often including influence attempts from one or more members of their work role sets. This paper proposes the use of role set analysis as a pedagogical technique for helping individuals to anticipate and deal with early-career ethical issues.     

Ethical Issues in the Music Industry Response to Innovation and Piracy

The current conflict between the recording industry and a portion of its customers who are involved in illicit copying of music files arose from innovations involving the compression and electronic distribution of files over the internet. This paper briefly describes some of the challenges faced by the recording industry, and examines some of the ethical issues that arise in various industry and consumer responses to the opportunities and threats presented by these innovations. The paper concludes by highlighting the risks associated with responses that threaten further innovation, ultimately reducing the chances of finding solutions that hold appeal for all parties.     

Ethical ideology and ethical judgment regarding ethical issues in business

Differences in ethical ideology are thought to influence individuals' reasoning about moral issues (Forsyth and Nye, 1990; Forsyth, 1992). To date, relatively little research has addressed this proposition in terms of business-related ethical issues. In the present study, four groups, representing four distinct ethical ideologies, were created based on the two dimensions of the Ethical Position Questionnaire (idealism and relativism), as posited by Forsyth (1980). The ethical judgments of individuals regarding several business-related issues varied, depending upon their ethical ideology.Tim Barnett is Assistant Professor of Management at Louisiana Tech University. He has published in such journals asPersonnel Psychology, theJournal of Business Research, andHuman Relations. His research interests include ethical decision making and ethical issues in HRM.Ken Bass is Assistant Professor of Management at East Carolina State University. He has articles published in several journals, including theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. His research interests include ethical decision making, ethical strategy, and methodology.Gene Brown is Associate Professor Marketing at Louisiana Tech University. He is published in such journals as theJournal of Retailing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research, Psychology and Marketing, and Industrial Marketing Management. His main interests include personal selling, retailing, ethics, and methodology.     

On Compliance with Ethical Standards in Tax Return Preparation

The Statements on Responsibilities in Tax Practice (SRTPs) provide guidance to the CPA when making decisions in tax practice. Many of these decisions are ethical in nature and have implications for tax compliance. In this study, a survey methodology is used to test whether the SRTPs affect decisions that CPAs make. The findings suggest that a clear majority of CPAs follow the SRTPs when making ethical decisions relating to tax return preparation and that CPAs follow the SRTPs more often than unlicensed preparers on half the issues tested. However, a statistically significant number of CPAs do not follow the SRTPs and, CPAs do not follow the SRTPs any more often than unlicensed tax preparers on three issues.     

Portraying ethical reasoning in Islamic banking: Addressing the role of work experience

This study aims to examine the ethical dimensions of Islamic bankers, with a reference to the factors influencing decision-making behavior related to ethical issues based on al-Ghazali's ethical philosophy. The findings reveal the manner in which Islamic banking practitioners brace themselves into situations that warrant the use of reason in making decisions related to ethical issues, where desires tend to dominate human choices. While the guidance of divine knowledge has been found to be ineffective in decision-making, the element of satanic force was found to significantly influence this process. The insignificant heterogeneous effect of work experience suggests that banking authorities should intensify the capacity building in the area of ethical teachings and the foundation of Islamic faith, regardless of the job tenure of employees. This study contributes to the growing literature on the ethical aspects in Islamic banking and organizational behavior by offering important implications for understanding and refining the ethical stance related to Islamic banking practices based on the Islamic perspective.     

Ethical decision–making in business: focus on Mauritius

This paper explores management attitudes towards ethical issues in an attempt to shed some light on the determinants of ethical issue intensity in the context of business. A sample of business executives in Mauritius was surveyed in order to establish their ethical perceptions when exposed to potentially questionable business practices. The findings demonstrated the significant influence of factors associated with moral deliberations on strategies for ethical decision–making as compared with the impact of company policy and legal requirements. Participants revealed that, irrespective of codes of conduct, personal ethics predominate when it comes to making ethical choices. Some view the behaviour of management as a key determinant of ethical conduct. This trend differs from predictions in the literature. To date, research conducted in the developed world shows that employee perception of ethics of their superiors is a stronger predictor of behaviour than employees' personal ethical beliefs. This article focuses on Mauritius as an emerging economy, and looks at potential strategies for ethical decision–making, where business people do not necessarily operate under a specific code of conduct.     

Determining the main factors affecting consumers’ acceptance of ethical advertising: A review of the Jordanian market

Studying consumers’ acceptance of the main ethical issues in communication and mainly in advertising has recently been receiving much attention from scholars. It is especially noteworthy when the advertising is seen as a technology-driven communication process and should be prepared based on a sense of consumers’ social responsibility and moral assent. Using a self-reported questionnaire from 450 parents, this study examines the effects of children abuse, sexual appeals, fear appeals and deceptive advertisements on Jordanian parents’ acceptance of ethical advertising. After using the Structural Equation Modeling test, path analysis was used to test the hypothetic relationships employing the Multivariate Regression Models. The study found that sexual appeals and children abuse are the main factors that affect parents’ acceptance of ethical advertising in the Jordanian market.     

The Effect of Context on Moral Intensity of Ethical Issues: Revising Jones's Issue-Contingent Model

Jones's (1991) issue-contingent model of ethical decision making posits that six dimensions of moral intensity influence decision makers' recognition of an issue as a moral problem and subsequent behavior. He notes that "organizational settings present special challenges to moral agents" (1991, p. 390) and that organizational factors affect "moral decision making and behavior at two points: establishing moral intent and engaging in moral behavior" (1991, p. 391). This model, however, minimizes both the impact of organizational setting and organizational factors on these experiences of ethical issues. In this theory, context is modeled as affecting the moral intent and behavior of the actor rather than directly affecting the issue's moral intensity. Here we look specifically at the effect of context on the moral intensity of ethical issues through a phenomenological study. Our results indicate that in certain environments, context may be critical in affecting the moral intensity of ethical issues. Thus, researchers should consider it more fully when assessing these issues' moral intensity.     

How Chipotle used unbranded content to increase purchase intention by changing beliefs about ethical consumption

Abstract

To combat ad avoidance, advertisers are moving advertising into programs, a practice known broadly as branded entertainment. The difficulty of advertising to Millennials has also prompted the use of unbranded cause advertising, to increase awareness of issues championed by the brand, without triggering defensive persuasion-coping strategies. Chipotle combined both these trends when it produced a relatively unbranded piece of branded entertainment, Farmed and Dangerous, a four-episode sitcom that humorously dramatized the ethical issues raised by industrial farming. When the series ran on Hulu, an online television network, it increased sales for the Chipotle brand and won awards for its creators. This study reports a classic pre/post experimental design, to show how exposure to this unbranded entertainment increased purchase intention by changing beliefs about ethical issues related to the environment, nutrition, and gene technology.     

Have “Millennials” Embraced Digital Advertising as They Have Embraced Digital Media?

Consumers’ attitudes toward advertising ethics are of interest to marketers who understand that negative attitudes can be harmful to brands. Today advertisers increasingly depend on internet advertising. This study compares attitudes of Millennials (the first generation to use digital media more than traditional media) toward internet advertising with attitudes toward advertising in traditional media. Similar to previous generations who had more negative attitudes toward TV advertising, which was their most frequently used medium, Millennials’ attitudes appeared to be more negative toward internet advertising. Thus, we conclude that advertisers must work to engender positive relationships with Millennials through more ethical internet advertising and other innovative strategies.     

Learning from Greek Philosophers: The Foundations and Structural Conditions of Ethical Training in Business Schools

There is an extensive body of work that has previously examined the teaching of ethics in business schools whereby it is hoped that the values and behaviours of students might be provoked to show positive and enduring change. Rather than dealing with the content issues of particular business ethics courses per se, this article explores the philosophical foundations and the structural conditions for developing ethical training programs in business schools. It is informed by historical analysis, specifically, an examination of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies that inspires virtue ethics, and together provides four conditions for consideration: respect for law, dialectics, imitation and deliberation. We outline the necessary structural conditions for implementing these requirements as well as suggesting the necessary pedagogical protocol applicable to all courses. It is argued that reference to our two ancient Greek philosophers provide many valuable and insightful lessons for the implementation of ethical training today including choice of theoretical content and the approach towards learning. Further, the enactment of a pedagogical protocol requires a policy of recruiting and managing business school teachers-instructors that takes into account, and consciously encourages, intellectual, relational and spiritual pedagogical qualities.     

Ethical Standards and Ideology Among Korean Public Relations Practitioners

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Korean public relations practitioners' perceptions toward ethical issues, individual practices, and ethical standards in the context of ethical ideology. The survey was conducted with the Korean public relations practitioners. A 2 (Relativism: High/Low) × 2 (Idealism: High/Low) factorial design was devised for the analysis.The MANOVA results showed that ethical ideology (idealism and relativism) had significant effects on ethical decision-making. Idealistic ideology had a main effect on ethical issues, individual practices, and ethical standards. However, relativistic ideology only affected the decision-making process related to ethical issues. No interaction effects were detected. This study indicated that the individual's ethical ideology could be an important variable in explaining the outcomes of the individual's ethical decision-making among Korean public relations practitioners.     

Environmental problems and ethical jurisdiction: the case concerning Texaco in Ecuador

Determining the ethical standards to apply to environmental issues presents a difficult dilemma for many managers. The many stakeholders to whom managers must answer tend to view environmental issues quite differently. Multinational corporations often encounter attitudes toward environmental protection in other countries that are quite different from those found in their domestic market. Corporate policy makers must address the national differences in values when determining ethically acceptable behavior. Using the case of Texaco and its alleged contamination of Ecuador's Amazon jungle as an example, this paper applies the framework of Integrative Social Contract Theory to address issues of ethical jurisdiction and environmental protection.     

Virtue ethics and customer relationship management: towards a more holistic approach for the development of ‘best practice’

This paper focuses much‐needed attention on the ethical nature of customer relationship management (CRM) strategies in organisations. The research uses an in‐depth case study to reflect on the design, implementation and use of ‘best practice’ associated with CRM. We argue that conventional CRM philosophy is based on a fairly narrow construct that fails to consider ethical issues appropriately. We highlight why ethical considerations are important when organisations use CRM and how a more holistic approach incorporating some of Alasdair MacIntyre's ideas on virtue ethics could be relevant.