Fostering ethical marketing decisions

This paper begins by examining several potentially unethical recent marketing practices. Since most marketing managers face ethical dilemmas during their careers, it is essential to study the moral consequences of these decisions. A typology of ways that managers might confront ethical issues is proposed. The significant organizational, personal and societal costs emanting from unethical behavior are also discussed. Both relatively simple frameworks and more comprehensive models for evaluating ethical decisions in marketing are summarized. Finally, the fact that organizational commitment to fostering ethical marketing decisions can be accomplished by top management leadership, codes of ethics, ethics seminars/programs and ethical audits is examined. Gene R. Laczniak is Professor of Business at Marquette University. He has written extensively in the field of marketing and business ethics. He is coeditor of Marketing Ethics: Guidelines for Managers, Lexington Books, 1985 and coauthor of The Higher Road: A Path to Ethical Marketing Decisions, Allyn & Bacon, 1992 (both with P. E. Murphy). Professor Laczniak's research interests focus on the social and ethical influence of marketing activities on society as well as marketing strategy. Patrick E. Murphy is Professor of Marketing in the College of Business Administration at the University of Notre Dame. His articles on business and marketing ethics have appeared in several periodicals. He currently serves as editor of Journal of Public Policy & Marketing and is coeditor of Marketing and Advertising Regulation: The Federal Trade Commission in the 1990s, Notre Dame Press, 1990 (with W. L. Wilkie). His research interests focus on the ethical and public policy issues facing business.This article is based on material forthcoming in The Higher Road: A Path to Ethical Marketing Decisions, Allyn & Bacon, 1992.     

HIGHWAY SAFETY AND THE 65-mph SPEED LIMIT

A Federal Highway Bill was enacted in 1987 in response to many state governments' increasing concerns that the 55-mph national maximum speed limit was unduly restrictive. The bill permitted states to raise the maximum speed limit to 65 mph on most rural interstate highways, which historically have been the safest. The state of Indiana reacted promptly to the enabling legislation by raising the maximum speed limit on its rural interstate highways to 65 mph as of June 1, 1987. This paper uses cross-section/time-series data to estimate a model of highway safety. The primary empirical finding is that the higher speed limit on rural interstates has increased the incidence of total and injury interstate accidents but not of fatal interstate accidents. However, for the state as a whole, the relaxed speed limit has reduced total and injury accidents with no effect on fatal accidents. This indicates that the impact of speed limit legislation on non-interstate roads has more than offset its effect on interstate highways.     

The Effect Of Stock Splits On Liquidity And Excess Returns: Evidence From Shareholder Ownership Composition

We examine the influence of firm ownership composition on both the abnormal returns at the announcement of a stock split and liquidity changes following a stock split. We find three results. First, the largest post‐split increase in institutional ownership occurs for firms that had low institutional ownership before the split. Second, changes in liquidity are negatively related to the level of institutional ownership before the split. Last, the abnormal return following a split is negatively related to the level of institutional ownership before the split. These findings are important as they shed new light on the source of stock split announcement returns.     

Regoo plots as a regression diagnostic tool

Given the widespread use of regression methods in the social sciences, the recent concern with regression diagnostics is timely and important. Every diagnosis must be followed by an appropriate data analytic procedure: diagnosis and treatment are complementary and interdependent tasks. We propose a graphical diagnostic procedure for use in ordinary least squares contexts, several data analytic treatments, and illustrate them in an extant data set.     

THE DECOMPOSITION OF INCOME INEQUALITY: AN ANALYSIS BASED ON THE NORTHERN IRELAND FAMILY EXPENDITURE SURVEY FOR 1985

This paper conducts an empirical investigation into the issue of inequality decomposition, using the 1985 FES micro data tapes for Northern Ireland. It is hoped that it makes three contributions. First, by using the raw data, it permits a fairly rich disaggregation of individuals. The disaggregation employed in this paper viz. by individuals belonging to different'family types'and individuals of different'economic status'seems particularly relevant to social policy. Second the data also permits a disaggregation of total income by type of income: this permits one to assess, for example, how much of total inequality is caused by inequality in the distribution of income from different sources. Finally, the analysis is consistent with the existing theoretical literature on inequality decomposition.
The main results may be summarized briefly. When the FES sample was divided by subgroups of family type or economic status, then, in 1985, most of income inequality in NI was due to within group rather than to between group inequality. When total income was disaggregated by income type, then inequalities in the distribution of wages and salaries made the largest contribution to the inequality of total income. Prosperous families in NI tended to contain within them a far greater proportion of secondary workers than did the less well off families. It was not implausible therefore that the distribution of employment between families made a major contribution to wage inequalities between them.     

Management reporting incentives and classification credibility: The effects of reporting discretion and reputation

In this study we investigate how the level of discretion in the reporting environment and management’s reporting reputation influence the extent to which management’s reporting incentives are important in determining the perceived credibility of management’s classification choices. Consistent with prior research, we show that users view incentive-inconsistent classifications as more credible than incentive-consistent classifications. We extend this finding by showing that the strength of this relationship (i.e., the extent to which users consider the consistency between the classification and management’s reporting incentives) depends on the level of discretion in the reporting environment and management’s reporting reputation. We find that users rely less (more) on the consistency between management’s reporting incentives and the classification in a mandated (discretionary) reporting environment and when managers have a good (poor) reporting reputation. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and potential future research.     

Equal opportunity and poverty reduction: How should aid be allocated?

This paper analyzes a model of aid allocation equalizing the opportunity between recipient countries to reach a common poverty reduction goal. We propose a fair and efficient aid allocation based on a multicriteria principle. The model considers structural handicaps in recipient countries in terms of lack of human capital and economic vulnerability, their initial poverty, and the natural gap between the growth rate required to reach a development goal and the observed one. We show that our proposed aid allocation favors poor and vulnerable countries with our multicriteria principle. It substantially differs from the observed allocation. Analyses also shed light on the impact of the donors' aversion to the low natural growth gap in recipient countries on the optimal aid allocation and the marginal efficiency of aid.     

Modelling stochastic crop response to fertilisation when carry-over matters

Soils in a large part of Niger's agricultural area are sandy and very low in nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and organic matter. This low soil fertility combined with low and erratic rainfall constitutes a severe constraint on food cropping in the area. Although agronomists have advised chemical fertilization as a means of improving soil fertility, little fertilizer has been used in this area of the world. The economic management of soil fertility in the agricultural area of Niger is analyzed using a dynamic model of farmer decision-making under uncertainty. The model is based on agronomic principles of plant growth and accounts for the carry over of P, an immobile nutrient. At current input prices, a soil P content of at least 14 ppm is found to be desirable. This target is above the natural soil fertility level of about 3 ppm. It can be maintained with a moderate annual application (12 kg P₂O₅ ha^?1) of simple superphosphate. Results also suggests that returns to N fertilization are too low and variable to warrant the use of this input.