Ethical Decision-Making by Consumers: The Roles of Product Harm and Consumer Vulnerability |
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Authors: | Jones Jeri Lynn Middleton Karen L |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Marketing, Meinders School of Business, Oklahoma City University, 2501 N. Blackwelder, Oklahoma City, OK 73106, USA;(2) Department of Management and Marketing, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, 6300 Ocean Drive, 78412 Corpus Christi, TX, USA |
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Abstract: | The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of perceptions of product harm and consumer vulnerability on
ethical evaluations of target marketing strategies. We first established whether subjects are able to accurately judge the
harmfulness of a product through labeling alone, and whether they could differentiate consumers who were more or less vulnerable.
The results suggest that without the presence of a prime, subjects who depended on implicit memory or guess were able to detect
differences in “sin” and “non-sin” products and consumer vulnerability, but were far less likely to be able to distinguish
among high and low levels of product harm and consumer vulnerability. The inability to accurately identify high and low levels
of product harm and consumer vulnerability impacted their perceptions of the ethicality of target marketing strategies, such
that only four out of 18 target marketing strategies were judged as unethical. Thus, our findings contradict previous research
that found subjects judged many more of the integrated strategies as unethical Smith and Cooper-Martin, J Market 61(1997) 1]. Our results suggest that assessing ethical evaluations of strategies varying in product harm, and consumer vulnerability
may only be relevant if consumers can accurately identify product harm. |
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Keywords: | consumer vulnerability ethical evaluations product harm sin products target vulnerability vulnerable consumers vulnerable groups |
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