Managerial and Peer Influence on Ethical Behavioral Intentions in a Personal Selling Context

Pettijohn, Charles E.; Keith, Nancy K.; Burnett, Melissa S.

doi:10.1080/10496491.2011.580694

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Some studies examined customer-driven behavior, such as asking for and expecting gifts, favors, or bribes (Forker and Janson 1990;Zhuang, Herndon, and Tsang 2012); sexual harassment (Fine, Shepherd, andJosephs 1994, 1999;Swift and Kent 1994); discrimination; and, facilitation of backdoor selling (Inks, Avila, and Chapman 2004). The unethical behaviors of competitors and co-workers, which are the same as those identified earlier for sales staff, include competitors stealing the leads of another company's salesforce (Carter 2000;Pettijohn, Keith, and Burnett 2011) or co-workers taking credit for their colleagues' work or shifting blame (Lagace, Dahlstrom, and Gassenheimer 1991;Lee et al 2009;Mantel 2005).…”

Section: Other Actor-driven Unethical Behavior Towards Salespersonsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…With respect to competitors, salespersons have been criticized for using unethical and improper methods of gathering information about them, and even for using illegal means of spying to obtain competitors' information (Cooper and Nakabayashi 2010). Instances of spreading false and misleading comments about competitors or their products, staff, or agents are common examples of defamation (Cooper and Nakabayashi 2010;Pettijohn, Keith, and Burnett 2011).…”

Section: Salesperson-driven Unethical Behavior Towards Other Key Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Moving beyond ethical decision-making: a practice-based view to study unethical sales behavior

Ameer

Halinen

2019

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

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Changes in the business environment are rapidly transforming sales practice and pressuring the integrity of key actors in sales. Given that unethical sales behavior is a social activity produced and reproduced by various actors in a complex sales task environment, we introduce a novel research perspective to the study of unethical sales behavior, namely a practice-based view. With knowledge from a systematic literature review and a practice-based view from organization research, we suggest unethical behavior should be studied as a practice formed through socialization and interaction with relevant others. This view provides an important alternative as well as a complementary perspective to the ethical decision-making paradigm that has dominated the field for several decades. The study answers scholars' recent calls to strengthen the theoretical foundation of sales ethics research and further extend its perspective towards the social context of sales. With a focus on dynamics, social relations, and the enactment of practices, the practicebased view produces new types of knowledge on unethical behavior, and potential new means for addressing it. The paper makes suggestions for future practice-based research and proposes several theories for use in studying unethical behavior in currently important sales contexts.

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Section: Other Actor-driven Unethical Behavior Towards Salespersonsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Salesperson-driven Unethical Behavior Towards Other Key Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving beyond ethical decision-making: a practice-based view to study unethical sales behavior

Ameer

Halinen

2019

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

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“…Although unethical behavior is a problem that is encountered in all organizations, it is particularly vexing in a sales setting (Pettijohn et al, 2011). After all, the sales segment appears to be particularly susceptible to the development of troublesome ethical situations (Donoho et al, 2003).…”

Section: Marketing Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of religiosity on retail salespeople's ethical perceptions: the case in Iran

Karami

Olfati

Dubinsky

2014

Journal of Islamic Marketing

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Purpose – The main purpose of this research was to investigate whether there is a relationship between religiosity and ethical behavior of salespeople. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate this association, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used; also, both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were undertaken to examine a scale measuring salespeople's ethical behaviors. The context in which the study was conducted was in Iranian retail specialty stores. Findings – The results revealed for the first time the impact of religiosity on ethical behavior of the seller, a key entity in the buyer-seller dyad, that had been virtually ignored in extant empirical work. Research limitations/implications – The study focused solely on retail salespeople in Iran. Future research should examine the religiosity-ethical behavior nexus using other kinds of sales personnel and those practicing other kinds of religion than the Shia Muslim faith investigated here. The investigation examined the association between religiosity and ethical behavior. Future work could include additional measures of religion (e.g. religious orientation) as well other individual, cultural, and organizational factors that may have an influence on salespeople's ethical conduct. Practical implications – Sales managers should try to convince salespeople to behave ethically. Also, sales managers should not establish unachievable sales objectives for salespeople and try to employ more religious individuals as salespeople. Multinational corporations (MNCs) should treat Shia Muslim salespersons with the utmost of respect, relying on their word. Similarly, MNCs should incorporate ethical guidelines into their training classes in order to be able to communicate conveniently with local salespeople and persuade them to act more ethically. Originality/value – The authors believe that this research can arouse managers in retail stores to set specific plans for evaluating their ethical behaviors. This research also has managerial and research implications for designing and formulating operations strategy in providing ethical standards for sales force.

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“…Dellaportas (2006) demonstrated improved moral reasoning in an accounting course through peer dialogue. Moreover, moral reasoning improvements using peer discussion have also been found in organizations, including managers (Trevino, 1986), auditors (Thorne & Hartwick, 2001), new employees (Keith et al, 2003), and salespersons (Pettijohn et al, 2011).…”

Section: Peer Influence In Business Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vygotskian Business Ethics: The Influence of Peers on Moral Reasoning in Business Ethics Education

Ohreen

Sundararajan

Trifts

et al. 2021

Journal of Management Education

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The Russian developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky provides important theoretical underpinnings for an alternative to business ethics pedagogy. Although Vygotsky’s constructivist approach has been applied to other disciplines, such as cognitive development, moral development, and network analysis and learning, its application to business ethics education is virtually nonexistent. Vygotsky’s focus on language and peer influence provides a novel approach to ethics education. Although many business ethics instructors already use group discussion in their classes, we provide evidence that will reinforce such techniques as a crucial pedagogical method. This study is an exploratory application of Vygotsky’s developmental theory to business ethics education. Data were gathered in business ethics and management courses, with experimental and control groups, and analyzed using the Defining Issues Test and thematic-coded journal entries. Results indicated that discussions created a zone of proximal development improving the moral reasoning for most students giving them multiple perspectives and providing support to engage in deliberations and peer dialogue when discussing ethical frameworks, ethical scenarios, and ethical decision making.

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Managerial and Peer Influence on Ethical Behavioral Intentions in a Personal Selling Context

Cited by 6 publications

References 11 publications

Moving beyond ethical decision-making: a practice-based view to study unethical sales behavior

Moving beyond ethical decision-making: a practice-based view to study unethical sales behavior

Influence of religiosity on retail salespeople's ethical perceptions: the case in Iran

Vygotskian Business Ethics: The Influence of Peers on Moral Reasoning in Business Ethics Education

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