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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the moral failure of a scandalized foreign brand afflicted with a product-harm crisis on competing brands (i.e. within the same product category) while taking into account the country of origin (COO) of the brands.

This paper presents the results of two studies. The first study uses an experimental design, while the second uses a survey to examine a real-life product-harm crisis.

The results indicate that the moral failure of a scandalized foreign brand has an indirect negative effect on the intention to purchase competing foreign brands from the COO of the scandalized foreign brand. This effect is, however, reversed for domestic brands, where moral failure has an indirect positive effect on the intention to purchase competing domestic brands.

The results of this research were based on an examination of how US consumers responded to the moral failure of Japanese and German brands. Future studies should examine brands from different COOs in different countries.

These results suggest that competing foreign brands from the COO of the scandalized brand should collaborate to quickly handle a product-harm crisis to prevent a spillover and that domestic competitors should capitalize on the opportunity to attract new customers.

This study represents a first attempt to examine the effect of a foreign brand’s moral failure in handling product-harm crisis on competing brands, both foreign and domestic.

The purpose of this study is to examine differences in the ethical decision‐making processes of Thai and American businesspeople, considering perceived moral intensity, corporate ethical values (CEV), and perceived importance of ethics.

Survey respondents were professional marketers in Thailand (n=605) and US (n=453). Results were analyzed using MANOVA and ANOVA. Scales have been used previously in the literature, so we report reliability.

American managers were more likely to perceive the unethical marketing behaviors to be more serious. American organizations were found to have higher CEV than Thai organizations. The results revealed no differences between the two groups of businesspeople, however, on their perceptions about the importance of ethics.

Limitations inherent in this research include the initial development of the development of the measurements in the US and some notable demographic differences between the samples.

As investment becomes more globalized, it is imperative that mangers understand that differing ethical perceptions can be a critical factor in working together successfully, and are occasionally an absolute limitations to establishing operations in a particular country.

The study should be especially useful to people who manage businesses in these two countries, but many of the implications will be valuable to anyone in international business situations, in dealing with differences in ethical perception.

A recent article pointed out that “past research has paid relatively little attention to the sources of individuals’ moral philosophies from either a conceptual or an empirical standpoint” and investigated the determinants of idealism and relativism among American marketers. A literature review indicates that there is even less theoretical and empirical cross‐cultural investigation of moral philosophies. As more and more companies are expanding into foreign markets, problems related to cross‐national ethics and social responsibility are becoming increasingly prevalent. Therefore, this study proposes a framework explaining the differences in the idealism and relativism of American, Malaysian, and Australian marketers based on: country differences (cultural differences and differences in economic and legal/political environment); corporate ethical values; and gender and age of the marketer. Results indicate that there are differences in the level of idealism and relativism exhibited by marketers from the three countries. Irrespective of country, corporate ethical values are positively related to the idealism and negatively related to the relativism of marketers. Also, irrespective of country, women are more idealistic than men, and relativism increases with age. Implications are offered and avenues for future research suggested.

Confirms the empirical test of Hunt and Vitell’s general theory of marketing ethics by Mayo and Marks across four cultures. Uses path analysis to show the core relationships of the general theory of marketing ethics were successfully replicated using over 1,500 students from seven universities in the USA, Canada, the Netherlands, and Australia. States that tomorrow’s managers appeared to use a more deontological approach to making ethical judgements about personal selling. Extends its original research by confirming the positive relationship between the probability and the desirability of consequences. Concludes that, although the model was originally intended to explain management ethical decision making, the study shows that it may be possible to generalize as to how individuals make ethical life decisions.

This study analyzes the marketing ethics decision‐making process of Middle‐Eastern marketers. In particular, it examines the relative influences of ethical perceptions, perceived importance of ethics, and age on ethical intentions of marketers in the Middle East. A self‐administered questionnaire was used as the data collection technique for this study. Perception of ethical problem and ethical intention were operationalized by means of two marketing ethics scenarios. Age of respondents was measured directly and perceived importance of ethics was measured by a scale that has been used a number of times in the literature. Convenience samples of marketers from three Middle‐Eastern countries, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, were used in this study. The survey results generally indicate that a perceived ethical problem is a positive factor of a Middle‐Eastern marketer's ethical intention, as hypothesized. The results also support the hypothesis regarding the influence of perceived importance of ethics, that Middle‐Eastern marketers who perceive ethics to be important are more likely to have an ethical intention than Middle‐Eastern marketers who do not perceive ethics to be important. The research hypothesis regarding the influence of age, however, is not supported. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Compares the personal ethical ideologies of idealism and relativism of American marketers with their South African counterparts. The perceptions of ethical problems, ethical intentions, and coporate ethical values of the parties are also contrasted. The findings indicate that South Africans were more idealistic and less relativistic than their American counterparts. The hypotheses that there will be no differences between South African and American marketers in terms of their ethical perceptions and intentions were not supported. The results generally indicate that South African marketers are more likely to perceive ethical problems than American marketers. However, the survey results revealed that South African marketers tend to be less ethical in their intentions to resolve an ethical problem than their American counterparts. Corporate citizens of South African firms were found to have slightly higher corporate ethical values than their American counterparts, as hypothesized.

Cultural differences in moral judgements are generally recognized by marketing ethicists. Attempts to investigate the issue of cross‐cultural ethical differences by comparing US marketers and Thai marketers with respect to their professional and personal values. A self‐administered questionnaire was used as the data collection technique. Results indicate that US marketers are significantly different from Thai marketers based on the combination of professional and personal values.

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether consumer values influence work-related attitudes. Employees often feel conflict among different aspects of their lives. Although most extant research has focused on the effect of family values on work attitudes, we investigate whether a fit between employees’ socially responsible consumption orientation (SRCO) and firm corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences employee higher-order quality of work life.

Survey data from 112 members of an engineering association in Australia.

The results show that employees’ consumer life roles can influence their work-related perceptions. However, contrary to expectations, the positive influence of CSR on higher-order quality of work life is weaker for employees who are more socially responsible consumers.

Further research should examine other industry contexts and cultures. Also, because the SRCO construct is very broad, further research should examine specific social issues.

CSR can be an important strategy for retaining employees, even those with lower SRCO.

This research shows that customer values influence important work-related attitudes, such as higher-order quality of work life and organizational commitment. Furthermore, we show that “fit” between consumption orientation responsibility and firm CSR does not necessarily enhance work-related attitudes because employees high in SRCO likely hold the firm to a different standard of social responsibility.

States that in the present era of global marketing, as more companies enter international markets, ethical problems are likely to increase. As companies and their managers deal with their counterparts in different countries, there is a need to understand the latter’s ethical decision‐making processes. Divergence in ethical behavior and attitudes of marketing professionals across cultures can be explained by, among other variables, differences in perceptions regarding the importance of ethics and social responsibility in achieving organizational effectiveness. This study investigates the variation in those perceptions among marketing professionals from Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, and the USA. The variation is explained by country differences (cultural differences, differences in the economic environment, and differences in legal/political environment), organizational ethical climate, and selected demographic characteristics of the marketer (gender and age).

Given the ever‐increasing globalization of economies, growing numbers of marketing firms are expecting more of their profits to be derived from international sales. Global competition is ferocious; thus, developing long‐term partner relationships often becomes a significant competitive advantage. Corporate ethics are of pivotal importance in global business, though globalization also complicates ethical questions, because an individual’s culture affects his/her ethical decision making. Failures to account for the effects of differences in consumers’ culturally‐based ethical values will hinder a marketer’s efforts to expand internationally. Compares consumers from Malaysia and the USA in terms of their perceptions of marketing ethics situations, their attitudes toward business and salespeople, and their personal moral philosophies. The survey results reveal some significant differences between the consumers from these two countries.