What are Marketing Ethics?

Marketing Ethics: The Marketers standards of conduct and moral values. The 5 areas of ethical concerns for Marketers are: Marketing Research – ex: Gathering marketing information in exchange for money or free offers. Product Strategy – ex: Product quality, planned obsolescence, packaging. Distribution – ex: Determining the appropriate degree of control over a channel. Promotion – ex: Gifts and Bribes Pricing – Most unethical pricing behaviours are also illegal. Social Responsibility: involves marketing philosophies, policies, procedures, and actions whose primary objective is the enhancement of society. The 4 levels of Social Responsibility are: Economic – Be Profitable; the foundation upon which all others rest Legal – Obey The Law; Play by the rules of the game Ethical – Be Ethical; Obligation to do what is right, just, and fair. Philanthropic – Be a Good Corporate Citizen; Contribute resources to the community, improve quality of life.

This being despite the recession of 2008, we are witnessing an increasingly cooperative and sophisticated international business working environment. While it faces scrutiny in congress currently, the agreement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty was reached in October, 2015; the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership treaty is also seemingly achievable with the revival of American economy in the near future. These new agreements will set up a worldwide business rule structure that will be fulfilled by many major economies. Within this new structure, businessmen and women will face ethical issues globally despite continuing cultural and regional factors still playing a big role within these issues and decisions being made. Learning and analyzing business ethical issues within the case competition will not only assist us to become global business leaders with a deep understanding of corporate social responsibilities but also prepare us to make better decisions for our

The Hawaiian culture is both diverse and unique, with its own language, traditions, and beliefs. Despite these multi-faceted characteristics, certain broad stereotypes about the culture persist in the non-Hawaiian population. My paper will explore where race, prejudice and cultural stereotypes come from and how both Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian cultures reinforce these stereotypes.

“The attraction of Hawai’i is stimulated by slick Hollywood movies, saccharine Andy Williams music, and the constant psychological deprivations of maniacal American life,” states Trask. “Tourists flock to my Native land for escape, but they are escaping into a state of mind while participating in the destruction of a host people in a Native place.”

Ethics must be global, not local. In order to build a truly great global business the leaders need to bring forward a global standard of ethical practices.

Hawaiians have experienced difficulty with understanding their identity since the arrival of the first haoles. Since then, with the promise of labor and tropical paradise, people of all different races and cultures have flocked to the islands. Before the arrival, the language, beliefs, and traditions that solidified their culture had already been established and practiced solely by the Hawaiian people for generations.

Ethics is generally defined as “the standard of behavior by which conduct is judged”. In other words, individuals execute actions in different ways based on their ethical beliefs which are obtained by their personal moral principles. While we usually associate this notion to people, it can also be used for businesses. The latter can judged by potential customers, other firms, and many other different actors. Marketing plays an essential role in communicating and building judgements regarding a particular company. It generally showcases a company’s beliefs and values. It upholds them to their social responsibilities.

However, tourism is one of the factors that is affecting Hawaii and the native people negatively. Touristy is associated with cultural diversity. Although it has its advantages, there are also some drawbacks that makes the idea of tourism in Hawaii a negative thing. Every place in Hawaii is sacred to Hawaiians but sadly, they no longer have the power to protect every single land. The number of Hawaiians are decreasing and it is hard for them to object to the things that are replacing these lands. The territories their ancestors used to own now holds; buildings, hotels, houses, shopping malls, and many more. With the continuous development of the economy, many Hawaiians are struggling to preserve their culture. This is not the only thing that Native Hawaiians had to give up. After being annexed by the United States, it became harder for them to remain in tact with their culture. When the first Europeans came in contact with Hawaii, Hawaiians were banned from doing anything related to their culture, including; dancing hula, speaking the language, and a few other things. The Hawaiian language is a necessity owned by many native Hawaiians but, “The English language also become dominant due to the Missionary schools and acted as a unifier in educating many different immigrant groups” (“Introduction”, para 2). Not only did they have to suffer from the lack of cultural appreciation from foreigners,

There are many questions surrounding the moral responsibility of corporations, but how can a resolution be reached? Currently, the moral and ethical responsibilities at Timothy & Thomas North America are being characterized as reckless. One may question their sense of global values and ethical responsibility based on their actions to date. In the case study for Timothy & Thomas North America, three models of ethical standards will be explored. From the Stakeholders article, decision-making guidelines will need to be understood for Jonathan Stein, the new Vice President (VP) of International Contracts of Timothy & Thomas North America to have a clear vision of the company’s stakeholders’ values. Exemplified in the article, The Responsibilities of Corporations and Their Owners, Timothy & Thomas North America has an ethical duty to manage social problems, public welfare, and corporate responsibilities to strive for moral purity in Pakistan. Specified in the article, The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact, the leaders of Timothy & Thomas should consider using these guidelines to measure how well they treat each other and the

Since Hawaii became a part of the U.S., it has been portrayed as an alternate reality in order to escape the problems that we face in our daily lives (Trask, 1999). This portrayal has forced the Hawaiian people to perform and exploit their culture for the benefit of the tourism industry. Some aspects of their beliefs, traditions, and practices have been promoted for the benefit of the industry and the satisfaction of tourists (Trask, 1999 & Conley, 2015). Therefore, even though it is good to learn the traditional culture in order to understand and increase our knowledge, I believe that the merge of the touristic side and the traditional side now encompass the culture of Hawaii.

Jane Desmond’s “Let’s Lū`au,” a chapter in her book Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World, discusses the development of the “destination image,” the staged attempts to give visitors a sense of Hawaiian culture, as well as contrasts between dancing hula for a performance and as a lifestyle. She claims that visual preconceptions of Hawai`i, along with the environment that is staged for the tourist, has created and perpetuated the concept of “soft primitivism,” a way of describing the gentleness and innocence of the Hawaiian locals. Similarly, Mimi Sheller’s “Natural Hedonism: The Invention of Caribbean Islands as Tropical Playgrounds,” a chapter in her book Beyond the Blood, the Beach, and the Banana, discusses how the Caribbean has been romanticized through the naturalization of the native islanders. She argues that touristic desire for hedonism and the preconceived notions about Caribbean Islanders are rooted in the colonization of the land, as well as descriptions that originate from European literature and art. While Desmond briefly hints at history being connected to the modern tourist’s assumed ideas about Hawai`i, by looking at her argument with Sheller’s perspective in mind, it is clear that the cause of the “destination image” in Hawai`i, as in the Caribbean, is rooted in the establishment of European ideals and influence. Those influences have left a significant in the islands and touristic

International business ethics challenges the corporate world to deal with questions of what to do in situations where ethical standards come into conflict as a result of the different cultural practices in the nation. Since, there is this dilemma that has progressively troubled the large multinational corporations, international business ethics has arisen to help address these adhesive subject matters. There are several international business ethics discussions on the question of how to act in the home country as opposed to the host country is at the central point of most international corporations. The argument in question is how companies should practice their business according

Although the contents of business ethics are to an extent informed by the legal framework (including laws and regulatory policy), it is important to distinguish the legal from the ethical concerns. Besides, not all nations have the same laws governing the issues that ethics concerns itself with. Companies may take advantage of lax legal situations in certain countries, especially the developing world, to conduct unethical business. Yet, all companies, wherever part of the globe they are, have the obligation to take these issues seriously: discrimination based on race, gender, culture, sexual orientation, religion, age; poor or unsafe labor conditions and pay; bribery and corruption; thievery of land, money and other natural resources and/or intellectual property; pollution; national discrimination based on trade partnerships (tariffs, barriers, embargos); currency manipulation; price-fixing; product-safety; national security; stakeholder importance, among many others.

All companies have certain ethical and moral responsibilities that they should uphold. For most companies figuring out these ethical responsibilities is done through a combination of the owner’s and/or shareholder’s moral and ethical views on their responsibilities, laws set for by the government one is working under, and the cultural traditions of the area one operates their business from. Multinational companies have a much harder time deciding where they stand on some ethical issues because they may operate out of many different cultural areas and countries with very different laws. Nike is one such multinational company and the focus of this paper.

Marketing ethics deals with the moral principles behind the operation and regulation of marketing. Possible fundamental frameworks of analysis for marketing audit are: