Consumer Interests and the Ethical Implications of Marketing: A Contingency Framework

Abstract

The increasing efforts by marketers to target diverse groups of consumers call for a closer examination of the ethical implications of market segmentation and differentiated marketing. Previous research suggests that marketers and consumers often differ in their perceptions of marketing ethics. Based on contingency theory, this research proposes an integrated framework—which includes the nature of the product, consumer characteristics, and market selection—to analyze the ethical complexities of the marketing exchange. Interactions among these factors lead to various contingencies with different ethical implications for marketing managers and public policy makers. Marketers should assess consumer interests and the ethics of marketing programs before their implementation

How Does Consumers' Financial Vulnerability Relate to Positive and Negative Financial Outcomes? The Mediating Role of Individual Psychological Characteristics

“…The FCA, in a report on consumer credit and consumers in vulnerable circumstances, considers vulnerable consumers as individuals who, due to personal circumstances, are especially susceptible to financial detriment. Although neither of these reports introduces a formal scale to measure the extent to which individual consumers are financially vulnerable, they do list a set of common risk factors of vulnerability, which is supported by previous consumer and public policy research (Cui and Choudhury ; Griffiths and Harmon ; Moschis, Mosteller, and Fatt ; Wang ; e.g., Anderson, Strand, and Collins ; Gentry et al ; Kaufman‐Scarborough and Childers ; Litt et al ; Rinaldo ). This set of risk factors forms the basis of the financial vulnerability measure we develop in this paper.…”

Leaders without ethics in global business: Corporate psychopaths

“…Researchers have identified various organizational mechanisms that allow psychopaths to rise relatively unchallenged and unopposed within organizations (Pech and Slade, 2007). The adverse consequences of having corporations operate at a psychopathic level have also been noted (Daneke, 1985; Economist, 2004; Assadourian, 2005).…”

Environment-quality management coalignment across industrial contexts: An empirical investigation of performance implications

“…The application of contingency theory to research in marketing is not new (Ruekert, Walker, & Roering, 1985;Zeithaml, Vararajan, & Zeithaml, 1988). Since these studies, its use has been generalized for the study of many issues related to marketing, such as the ethics of marketing practices (Cui & Choudhury, 2003), salesperson performance (Baldauf & Cravens, 2002), the relationship between export assistance and export performance (Lages & Montgomery, 2005), and the relative importance of creative marketing and marketing strategy implementation (Slater, Hult, & Olson, 2010). The study by Olson, Slater, and Hult (2005) is especially relevant for our work, since it considers the importance of business orientation as a variable moderating the relationship between marketing organizational structure and behavior.…”