An empirical investigation of international marketing ethics: Problems encountered by Australian firms

This study identifies and categorises ethical problems in terms of frequency of occurrence and importance to a sample of Australian international business managers. The study determined that the most frequently cited ethical problem is gifts/favours/entertainment and that this problem may be related to the culture where the international business is being conducted. The most important ethical problem is large-scale bribery. When the frequency of occurrence and importance means are compared in a scatter plot, cultural differences, pricing practices and questionable commissions were catagorised in the high frequency/high importance quadrant. The Australian general managers stated that managerial action will be taken to control unethical behavior among their international marketing managers. It was conjectured that managers were not as firm in their attitudes concerning the necessity to compromise one's ethics to succeed in international business.Dr. Robert Armstrong is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Murdoch University. He has concentrated his research activities toward international and service marketing. He has published several papers in both subject areas. Currently, he is studying: International Marketing Ethics in the Asia-Pacific region. The long-range study seeks to make cross-cultural comparisons of Southeast Asian and Australian business executives perceptions of the international marketing environments. He is also doing research for an international marketing text for Australia and Southeast Asia.I would like to thank Jane Seman for her assistance in the collection of data and references for this study. I would also like to thank the reviewer(s) for insightful recommendations and suggestions on the draft of the article.