Relationship marketing—establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relational exchanges—constitutes a major shift in marketing theory and practice. After conceptualizing relationship marketing and discussing its ten forms, the authors (1) theorize that successful relationship marketing requires relationship commitment and trust, (2) model relationship commitment and trust as key mediating variables, (3) test this key mediating variable model using data from automobile tire retailers, and (4) compare their model with a rival that does not allow relationship commitment and trust to function as mediating variables. Given the favorable test results for the key mediating variable model, suggestions for further explicating and testing it are offered.

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Almost all the theoretical efforts in the area of marketing ethics have been normative, not positive. Th1at is, almost all theoretical works have focused on developing guidelines or rules to assist marketers in their efforts to behave in an ethical fashion. In contrast, the model developed in this article is descriptive, not prescriptive. It attempts to explain the decision-making process for problem situations having ethical con-tent. The article begins with a discussion and evaluation of the two major normative ethical theories in moral philosophy. deontological theories and teleological theories. Although these theories are normative, to the extent that people actually follow their prescriptions, any positive theory of marketing ethics must incorporate them. The article then develops a positive theory of marketing ethics and uses that theory to help explain some of the empirical research that has been conducted in the area of marketing ethics

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The general theory of marketing ethics, first published in the Journal of Macromarketing by Hunt and Vitell (1986)