Marketing Ethics: : An International Perspective

Citation

Murphy, P.E. (1999), "Marketing Ethics: : An International Perspective", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 33 No. 1/2, pp. 219-220. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm.1999.33.1_2.219.1

Bodo Schlegelmilch is uniquely qualified to write a book on international marketing ethics. He is German by birth, taught in the UK, and recently spent several years in the USA teaching primarily international students. Now back in Europe, he holds a chaired position in Vienna. His perspective is a unique and truly global one. This book, the fourth devoted exclusively to marketing ethics, can be characterized as an “all in one” text. It contains eight chapters written by Professor Schlegelmilch, four cases and eight previously published articles (two of which he coauthored). In addition, the book features a multi‐part appendix of business ethics resources.

The eight chapters that make up the “Fundamentals of marketing ethics” section include standard coverage of ethical theories with an emphasis throughout on stakeholders, and a chapter where he focusses on three distinct international areas ‐ Europe, Japan and the USA. This triad of regions is used in the balance of the book. Additional chapters focus on marketing research, product and pricing policies, distribution and promotion policies, implementation of ethics and a concluding chapter on “future ethical challenges” which deals with emerging and important topics such as cultural diversity, bribery and the overall responsibilities and leadership of multi‐national corporations. One problem with the final two chapters is that they focus more on business ethics than marketing ethics issues.

The book contains a number of supporting materials in each chapter to assist the reader. This reviewer particularly liked the exhibits (box material of approximately one paragraph) that provided examples and further elaboration on the topics discussed in the text. The organization was quite good with each chapter containing a brief introduction and a summary. The material in the chapters is extremely well referenced, but some of the references were not particularly current.

Within the substantive chapters devoted to marketing ethics, several areas were treated in an exemplary fashion. For example, the discussion of privacy and corporate intelligence gathering in the analysis of market opportunities chapter (e.g. marketing research) recognized the growth of these issues and government’s role as a stakeholder in the international marketplace. In product and pricing, product recalls and predatory pricing (dumping) are areas not covered adequately in similar books. Within the distribution and promotion policies chapter, the distribution section concentrated on direct marketing and privacy concerns (at the expense of some of the traditional channel issues), and the promotion section contains a good discussion of children’s advertising and manipulation. Unfortunately, the important topic of ethics in selling situations was not covered.

The four cases focus on several aspects of ethics in international marketing practice. The first case is on RU 486, the controversial birth control bill marketed in France. This one, along with the Levi Strauss Global Sourcing case, was a lengthy Harvard‐type case. The Levi Strauss case deals with the decision of Levi regarding doing business in China. Two shorter cases deal with the issues of bribery and the Audi of America case examining the safety of their automobiles.

The third section of the book contains eight articles examining international topics such as ethics in Japan, competitive intelligence gathering, bribery, pricing, codes of ethics and the need for moral champions. These articles represent a good complement to the cases and textual material. Finally, the book contains five appendices that list various centers and institutes of business ethics, World Wide Web sources on ethics, short examples of credos and codes, the Body Shop ethics audit and companies offering ethics consulting. In sum, this book is not only a solid textbook, but also a source book that provides valuable information to any professor interested in examining a single or broad range of ethics topics within his or her course.