Marketing chapter 2a ethics first

2

Chapter

Ethics First...
Then Customer Relationships

McGraw-Hill/Irwin
ABC’s of Selling, 10/e

Copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Chapter

2

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Main Topics
 Social, Ethical, Legal Influences
 Management’s Social Responsibilities
 What Influences Ethical Behavior?
 Are There any Ethical Guidelines?
 Management’s Ethical Responsibilities
 Ethics in Dealing with Salespeople

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Main Topics, cont...
 Salespeople’s Ethics when Dealing with Their Employers
 Ethics in Dealing with Customers
 The International Side of Ethics
 Managing Sales Ethics
 Ethics in Business and Sales
 The Tree of Business Life

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Management’s Social
Responsibilities
 Social responsibility is management’s
obligation to make choices and take actions
that contribute to the welfare and interests
of society as well as to those of the
organization

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Organizational Stakeholders
 A stakeholder is any group inside or outside the organization that has a stake in
the organization’s performance

 Stakeholders may have similar or different interests in the organization:
 Customers
 Community
 Creditors

 Owners

 Government

 Managers
 Employees
 Suppliers

 CCC GOMES
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Exhibit 2-2: Major Stakeholders in the Organization’s
Performance

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An Organization’s Main Responsibilities

 Economic - Be profitable.
 Legal - Obey the law.
 Ethical - Do what is right.
 Discretionary Contribute to community
and quality of life.

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Exhibit 2-3: An Organization’s Main Responsibilities

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What Influences Ethical Behavior?
 The Individual’s Role
 Level one: Preconventional – acts in own best interest

 A few operate here
 Level two: Conventional – upholds legal laws

 Most people operate here
 Level three: Principled – lives by own code

 Less than 20% reach level three
 The Organization’s Role
 At best, most employees in firm operate at level two
 How will the situation be handled if no policies and procedures are in place?

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Exhibit 2-4: What Is Your Level of
Moral Development?

 Principled - “What is the right thing to do?”

 Conventional - “What am I legally required to do?”

 Preconventional - “What can I get away with?”

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Exhibit 2-5: Moral Development
Bell Curve

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Are There Any Ethical Guidelines?
 What Does The Research Say?
 American adults said by a 3-to-1 margin that truth is always relative to a person’s
situation

 People are most likely to make their moral and ethical decisions based on:

whatever feels right or comfortable in a situation

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How Do You Make Your Moral-Right
or Wrong Choices? (Choose One)
 Whatever will bring you the most pleasing or satisfying results
 Whatever will make other people happy or minimize interpersonal conflict
 Values taught by your family
 Primarily from religious principles and teaching or Bible content
 Other

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Are There Ethical Guidelines?
 What Does One Do?
 What if you found a bank bag containing $125,000? Would you return it to the
bank?

 Is it fear of being caught?
 Not the right thing to do?

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Are There Ethical Guidelines?
 Out of class, is it okay to copy someone else’s homework assignment?
 What keeps you from cheating on an exam when the professor is out of the
room?
 Is it fear of being caught?
 Not the right thing to do?

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Are There Ethical Guidelines?
 Is Your Conscience Reliable?
 We all have an internal constant standard with which we measure right and wrong,
a “moral compass.”

 Most of us know we should return the $125,000 and not copy someone’s
homework.

 But what would we actually do?

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Are There Ethical Guidelines?
 Is Your Conscience Reliable? (Cont’d)
 If a person’s values are at “Level 2,” they may make decisions based on the
situation and what others say and do.
 Usually people rationalize their decisions; “I’ll only copy the homework this one
time.”

 Many people are so accustomed to doing things unethically that they think
nothing about it.

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Are There Ethical Guidelines?
 Sources of Significant Influence
 Do factors influencing our decisions include your friends, family, or things you see
on television or in the movies?

 Barna has found that the leading influences on American ethics are movies, TV, the
Internet, books, music, public policy, law, and family

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To Have Ethical Guidelines You Need
 A point of reference that:
 Is fixed – so that no one can change it
 Is separate from you
 No one else may influence

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The Fixed Point of Reference Must Be:
 Right whether people:
 Believe it or not
 Like it or not
 Know about it or not

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How Do You Know If What Someone Is Saying is True Or Not?
 Can it be a moral and ethical standard?
 There is no way for you to know if what I am saying is true unless you know
what is the truth.

 And there is no way to know what is the truth unless there is a truth you can
know.

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Exhibit 2-6: What Is a Fixed
Point of Reference?
 Stars can be used for navigation because they are a fixed point of reference
separate from you that no one can influence.

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Will The Golden Rule Help?
 The “Golden Rule” concept is present in virtually all faith-based principles.
 The Golden Rule does not involve reciprocity.
 “Could the Golden Rule serve as a universal, practical, helpful standard for the
businessperson’s conduct?” (Hartman 2004)

 Would you consider your faith a fixed point that is separate from you and
never changes?

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Exhibit 2-7: Examples of World Religions Which Embrace the Golden
Rule
 Hindu - “Do naught unto others what you would not have them do to you.”
 Confucius - “Do not do to others what you would not like yourself.”
 Buddhist - “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”
 Rabbi Hillel - “That which is hateful to you do not do unto your neighbor.”
 Jesus Christ - “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

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