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This paper aims to present a synthesized conceptual model for ethical decision-making in marketing that accommodates both humanistic and religious aspects.

A religious–humanistic approach is adopted on synthesizing. “Ferrell and Gresham’s (1985) contingency framework for ethical decision-making in marketing” and “Al-Ghazali’s ethical philosophy” are considered to be the theoretical base for the synthesized model.

Al-Ghazali’s ethical philosophy that stands for the religious dimension in this study was found appropriate for incorporating into the Ferrell and Gresham contingency framework for ethical decision-making in marketing. The approach (religious-humanistic) adopted for synthesizing the two aspects into one model was justified accordingly.

A newly synthesized model is only conceptually validated. Statistical validity is required based on the variables included in the conceptual model. Future studies are recommended to attain the model fit.

The scale and model developed in the study should help the marketing-department authorities to assess and evaluate ethical aspects of existing individuals in the organization and potential candidates under the selection stage for employment. The research output derived by way of using the newly synthesized conceptual model should be able to pave the way for more in-depth research on actual ethical practices of “marketing practitioners” in the organization. To some extent, understanding of ethical standing of employees should help in improving efficiency and reduce costs from unethical behaviour. This should be able to improve governance from the top- to the lower-level management.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no literature has conceptualized a model that accommodates both materialistic and religious aspects into a single model to explain ethical decision-making of individuals in organizations. This is an initial and a humble attempt to conceptualize a model that incorporates ethical philosophy in Islam, with special reference to Al-Ghazali’s ethical philosophy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of moral philosophy on the ethical beliefs of auditors. The paper argues that an individual's moral philosophy is the key factor in how one views ethical issues and largely determines the ethical choices one makes. The paper also seeks to discover the influence of personal values on the reasoning processes associated with ethics and to explore whether the personal value preferences of auditors, as a manifestation of their moral philosophy, influence their ethical beliefs and (presumably) their subsequent actions.

The authors designed a survey instrument to assess the value preferences, moral philosophies, and reactions of practicing auditors to judgment dilemmas. They then employed structural equation modeling to examine the sensitivity of auditors to the competence and integrity of clients with the aim of gaining insight into the ethical beliefs of auditors in general.

These results show that value preferences alone fail as predictors of ethical beliefs. Instead, personal values have an indirect influence on ethical beliefs via moral philosophy. Moreover, auditors strongly motivated by values based on self‐enhancement were negatively associated with idealism in ethics and positively associated with relativism. Therefore, it can be concluded that idealist auditors were more likely to condemn the actions of clients that violated moral norms, while relativist auditors were more permissive.

The results identify the role of moral philosophy as a mediator for the personal values and ethical beliefs of auditors, shedding light on how personal values can influence ethical sensitivity.

Ethical decisions determine which individuals and/or groups benefit, and which suffer. Such decisions by executives impact front-line providers directly and customers indirectly; they are important because repercussions in service interactions feel personal. The purpose of this paper is to fill an important gap in the service literature by exploring how high-level executives make ethical decisions, creating values and culture within an organization; the results include testable propositions.

The research used a grounded theory approach, wherein high-level executives in successful service organizations responded through in-depth interviews. Complete interview transcripts were analyzed using standard qualitative methodology, including open coding to better understand and categorize the data, axial coding to seek out crucial relationships between concepts, and selective coding to develop research propositions.

Data analysis revealed two groups of interviewees, one more outcome-oriented in decision making and the other more process-oriented. The organizations led by more outcome-oriented executives have strong family-like (or paternalistic) cultures, whereas the organizations led by more process-oriented executives value adaptability and diversity.

The executives interviewed are quite successful; therefore, it is not possible to make inferences about unsuccessful executives or those leading poorly performing organizations. Propositions developed relate that process-oriented executives use both analytical measures and intuition in decision making, whereas outcome-oriented respondents rely more heavily on analytical measures.

Service executives apparently make ethical decisions while focusing either on processes or on outcomes; members of these two groups use different evaluative criteria to identify a successful decision. Decisions relating to people within the organization are perceived by the executives to be especially salient, apparently owing to interpersonal interaction in services.

There are inherent social implications when ethical decisions are made, because these decisions determine which individuals or groups benefit, and which suffer.

This research is among the first to interview high-level service executives about their ethical decision making when their choices define culture and values within their organizations. Findings offer a new look at how differences between executives that focus on processes and those that focus on outcomes may shape organizational cultures and lead to consideration of different criteria in making and evaluating decisions.

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.

The purpose of this study is to determine if members of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) use the IMA Code of Ethics in recognizing and resolving ethical dilemmas. We accomplish this objective by examining the relationship between the IMA members’ rating of IMA code elements as “possible guiding principles” and IMA members’ ethical perception and judgment. This study also determines the relationships between IMA members’ personal ethical philosophy, corporate ethical values, age, and certification, and IMA members’ ethical perception and judgment. Thus the study uses an atomistic‐deontological approach to ethics as classified by Baker. The results indicate that a statistically significant relationship exists between IMA members’ rating of IMA code elements and IMA members’ ethical perception and judgment. Further, the study found only weak associations among IMA members’ ethical perception and judgment, and personal ethical philosophy, corporate ethical values, age and certification.

This paper aims to develop and validate scale for ethical decision-making model in marketing that confirms religious–humanistic approach with special reference to ethical philosophy in Islam. Synthesized model of Ferrell and Gresham contingency framework for ethical decision-making in marketing and Al-Ghazali’s ethical philosophy are considered as theoretical background of this study.

“Content validity test” and “factor analysis” are used to refine measurement items and define as well as validate the scale, respectively. A total of 362 samples were collected from Islamic banking practitioners in the United Arab Emirates.

Item scale of the constructs comprised in the conceptual model defined and validated by using content validity test (CVT). Underlying theoretical dimensions of the constructs were extracted through exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and evidence of validation of scale/construct reported through CFA.

The scope of this paper is limited to development and validation of scale. Future studies are suggested to use the newly validated scale/construct in descriptive model, and examine the hypotheses prescribed in the model. Further, explanations on theoretical background of this paper is limited as the main objective of this paper is to statistically validate the conceptual model adopted.

Proper application of validated scale of ethical decision-making model in marketing should enable concerned authorities of marketing department to gauge and understand the ethical aspects of individuals in the organizations. Apparently, apprehension of ethical perception of workforces in organizations should benefit in enhancing competence and minimize the costs from unethical behaviour, and, thus, better governance in whole level of management.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is an initial attempt to develop and validate the scale of ethical decision-making model in marketing that accommodates both religious and humanistic aspects into a single model to examine the decision-making behaviour related to ethical issues of individuals in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the role managers and peers play in shaping salespeople's ethical behaviour. The model specifies that sales manager personal moral philosophies, whether sales managers themselves are rewarded according to the outcomes or behaviours of their salespeople, sales team job security, intra‐team cooperation, and sales team tactical performance all influence sales team ethical standards. In turn, ethical standards influence the probability that sales team members will behave (un)ethically when faced with ethical dilemmas.

The model is tested on a sample of 154 Finnish sales managers. Data were collected via mail survey. Analysis was undertaken using structural equation modelling.

Ethical standards appear to be shaped by several factors; behaviour‐based management controls increase ethical standards, relativist managers tend to manage less ethically‐minded sales teams, job insecurity impedes the development of ethical standards, and sales teams' cooperation activity increases ethical standards. Sales teams are less likely to engage in unethical behaviour when the teams have strong ethical standards.

Cross‐sectional data limits generalisability; single country data may limit the ability to generalise to different sales environments; additional measure development is needed; identification of additional antecedent factors would be beneficial.

Sales managers should consciously develop high ethical standards in sales teams if they wish to reduce unethical behaviour. Ethical standards can be improved if sales managers change their own outward behaviour (exhibit a less relativistic ethical philosophy), foster cooperation amongst salespeople, and develop perceptions of job security. How sales managers are rewarded may shape how they approach the management of ethical behaviour in their sales teams.

This paper appears to be the first to simultaneously examine both sales manager‐specific and sales team‐specific antecedents to sales team ethical standards and behaviours. As such, it provides an important base for research in this critical area.

Given the strong religious background of India, it is quite surprising that the country is ranked as the most corrupt nation in the Asia Pacific region in 2017. This prompts the authors to investigate the role of religiosity in shaping an individual’s preference for ethical behavior. The purpose of this paper is to explore the conceptual linkage between religiosity and attitude towards business ethics (ATBE) and also assess the role of gender and profession in shaping it.

Using a cross-sectional survey on two divergent professional groups, management students and working professionals, this study explores the causal role of religiosity on ATBE using pre-validated religious commitment inventory (RCI-10) and ATBE through multiple regression. The difference between ATBE owing to the difference in gender and profession is investigated using independent sample t-test and Levene’s F-test. Multiple analysis of variance and multiple analysis of covariance are used to test the difference in ethical business philosophies.

The findings of the study indicate that gender and profession do not influence ATBE, though religious individuals have an ethical approach towards business issues. The significant causal relationship between composite religiosity and ATBE is documented. Further, assessing the predictor role of intra- and inter-personal religiosity on ATBE, the authors see that only intra-personal religiosity, which measures individual’s meta-physical belief is found as a significant predictor of ATBE.

Individuals with higher intrapersonal religiosity would exhibit superior ethical conduct. For a developing country like India, such conduct at both private and public organizations would lead to reduced scams or frauds, stimulating economic growth.

Religion plays a significant role in the life of Indian people but its meaning and understanding differ from person to person. Evidence supports that people with strong religious beliefs whether management students or working professionals, tend to have a strong ethical attitude towards different situations in decision-making.

As the thoughts and actions of marketers focus on the philosophy of relationship marketing (RM), the purpose of this paper is to broaden our understanding of the concept for its effect on ethical behaviour in organisations. Whilst there is evidence of strong ethical inputs in the theory formation of RM, there is also a need to separate rhetoric from reality. In this paper we argue that despite the evidence that RM is inherently a concept with strong ethical roots, there is a gap between the theory of RM and its actual practice. Indeed, major changes in values and ethics may be required if RM is to be truly adopted. Otherwise there is a danger of allowing RM’s ethical inputs (commitment, trust, etc.) to become axiomatic without being subjected to sufficient critical scrutiny at the practical level. We believe that the RM philosophy is capable not only of contributing genuinely to the strategic discourse of contemporary organisations, but also of playing the role of the social advocate by fostering mechanisms which will generate ethical introspection and promote ethical decision making.

Examines the influence which the Institute of Internal Auditors′ Code of Ethics has on its members′ ethical perceptions. Also determines whether this influence is greater than members′ personal moral philosophies (i.e. idealism and relativism), and corporate ethical values. Data for the study were obtained by questionnaires sent to 1,000 members of the Institute of Internal Auditors, located in the Southeastern United States. The results generally indicate that professional values, as operationalized by the members′ use of the code of ethics, influence their perceptions of ethical problems in a positive way. However, no significant linkages were found to exist between the internal auditors′ personal moral philosophies or corporate ethical values and their perceptions of ethical problems.