advanced theory and practice in sport marketing - Marshalls University

ETHICS IN GLOBAL MARKETING: MORAL
CHAMPIONS – Continued
“familial amoralism” in Italy, “national amoralism” in Japan, and “ethical
imperialism” in the USA. This reminds us that there is no commonly accepted
global code of ethics that applies to business (Buller et al., 1991). Clearly,
managers operating abroad must make some accommodation to the nature of
the foreign environment in which they are operating. However, as Shue
(1981, p. 600) stated, “No institution, including the corporation, has a general
license to inflict harm,” even in places where local laws do not specifically
outlaw such behavior.
Competition is a key feature of the global market environment. Wotruba
(1990) comments that “competitors’ actions seem intuitively to be a possible
moderator of ethical decision making since questionable behaviors may be
considered more necessary under intense competition.” Unfortunately, as
Wotruba points out, research on this topic is lacking. In the global arena
competitors bring different national ethical standards into play. Thus a manager
may feel compelled to compromise ethical standards learned at home in
order to “follow the crowd” and not lose ground in a foreign market.
With regard to the global company as an institution made up of peer
groups, research has been conducted to assess managers’ perceptions of their
peers’ ethical behavior. In the 1970s managers were reported to perceive
their peers as being less ethical than themselves (Newstrom and Ruch, 1975;
Weaver and Ferrell, 1977); in the 1980s few managers believed that their
peers actually engaged in unethical behaviour (Chonko and Hunt, 1985).
Zey-Ferrell et al. (1979) reported that marketing managers’ perceptions of
what their peers did had a greater influence on their behaviour than their
own personal ethical beliefs. More recent research by Vitell et al. (1993,
p. 336) reached the opposite conclusion.
The ethical climate seemed to have little effect on one’s acceptance of various
norms. Apparently, this is an area where individual factors dominate
and whether or not one’s firm espouses the importance of ethical behavior is
irrelevant. On the other hand, a sense of idealism and income level were both
closely linked to acceptance of all the norms tested. Since income may be a
surrogate measure of success, the results may indicate that those who were
more successful tended to have stronger marketing-related norms.
This last speculation does not seem to be borne out in real life if one recalls
the ethical lapses of highly successful individuals like Ivan Boesky, Michael
Milken, Frank Lorenzo, and most recently, Dan Rostenkowski. Moreover, contrary
to Vitell et al.’s (1993) conclusion, Nichols and Day (1982) reported that
individuals interacting in a group produce group decisions at a higher level of
moral reasoning than the average of the individual members acting alone. Thus,
at the present time it is difficult to determine on the evidence available whether
managers in global companies are more or less likely to reach ethical decisions.
Continued
INTERNATIONAL AND GLOBAL MARKETING IN SPORT 355