A Framework For Analyzing Ethical Issues in Marketing

Abstract

The need for understanding the diverse nature of ethical dilemmas con fronting the field of marketing is attested to by the growing number of articles on the subject (e.g., Bartels 1967; Baumhart 1961; Brenner and Molander 1977; Cavanaugh 1981; Dubinsky et. al 1981; Ferrell and Gre sham 1985). What is needed, but has not been forthcoming from these analyses, is a useful comprehensive, decision-oriented framework to aid marketers in thinking about the different ethical dilemmas. The devel opment of an appropriate structure would allow for a more systematic investigation of the different ethical issues and facilitate the integration of existing knowledge. The related processes of classification, analysis and generalization ultimately can provide the basis for developing a more systematic approach to the study of marketing ethics. Other writers in the area of marketing ethics (e.g., Ferrell and Gresham 1985; Hunt and Vitell 1986) have attempted to develop frameworks but, while useful, their systems have generally failed to help integrate knowledge about the subject in a way that can aid in solving ethical problems. It is the intention of the authors to briefly discuss two dominant ethical perspectives so that they may act as guides in the presentation of a frame work for classifying different marketing decisions that have ethical conse quences. The article continues by demonstrating how such a framework can be useful to both academics and practitioners in analyzing ethical dilemmas. The early introduction of ethical perspectives in this article should make the examples used in the classification framework more meaningful. Fur ther, the questions raised by each perspective becomes the focus of the analysis when illustrating how the framework is used in the last section of the article. Applying the framework to marketing decision making is, of

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