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Of all the management fields, marketing is probably that which seems the most paradoxical when it comes time to consider its ethical aspect. This paradox stems from the fact that the main objective of marketing is to respond to the needs of consumers. Yet these same consumers often take marketing to task out of a concern for certain of its manifestations, such as advertising or pricing. Since they endeavour to satisfy consumers’ needs, marketing managers often take it for granted that their actions are ethical. Underlying this position is an essentially utilitarian approach to ethics. Attempts to determine to what extent marketing fulfils the basic principles of the utilitarian ethic. Adopting the position that the utilitarian and the deontological approach ‐ a belief that certain things are inherently good to do (also referred as duty‐based ethics) ‐ do not have to be mutually exclusive, proposes a third direction, that is a combination of both of these approaches. Concludes by suggesting the necessity for managers to integrate a deontological dimension in their practices.

Describes a study performed in Canada to develop a reliable and valid scale for the measurement of the perceived service quality of bank services. A sample of retail banking customers was questioned. The proposed scale is called banking service quality (BSQ) and comprises 31 items which span six dimensions: effectiveness and assurance; access; price; tangibles; services portfolio and reliability.

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of reading a web site's privacy statement on the perceptions of control over privacy and trust in a cyber merchant.

Two experiments were designed to monitor the actual reading of the privacy statement. Study one compares the influence of actual reading with self‐reported claims. Study two manipulated the format of the privacy statement (opt‐in or opt‐out) and included a control condition to assess the influence of the presence of a privacy statement and the influence of the format on the dependent variables.

The findings show that the mere presence of a privacy statement has a positive influence on perceived control. However, reading the privacy statement does not necessarily have a positive influence on perceived control and trust, contrary to commonly held assumptions. Participants who read the opt‐in format felt significantly more control and trust than the participants who read the opt‐out format. The opt‐out format decreases perceived control compared with the group that did not read the privacy statement when it was available.

The sample size for both experiments was relatively modest, which limits the generalisability of the findings.

Cyber merchants should devote particular attention to the strategic role of the format of the privacy statement.

In contrast to other studies that relied on surveys, this paper assesses the impact of the actual reading of the privacy statement via an experimental approach. Moreover, the impact of the format of the privacy statement has been empirically tested.

The purpose of this study is to frame digital transformation (DT) within municipalities to improve the life cycles of urban infrastructure.

The study provides the results from a systematic review of the literature on concepts of DT and its implications for municipalities, barriers and challenges to DT, as well existing DT frameworks for municipalities and their built assets. This literature review leads to the development of a DT framework to help cities conduct a planned and federated DT beforehand. Then, workshops are conducted with two major Canadian municipalities.

The results of these studies point to the need for a dedicated DT framework for municipalities because of their particular context and their role and proximity to citizens. The theoretical framework develops 22 elements, which are divided among 6 categories. Through its application, the framework helps to identify and target the predominant issues hindering the DT of municipalities, specifically “legacy practices” and “data management.”

Limitations include limited experimental conditions and small sample size. Further work is needed to validate the framework. Other approaches are advocated to complement the data collection and analysis to generate more convincing results.

The theoretical framework was validated through two case studies on two large Canadian municipalities.

Municipalities maximize the value they provide to citizens and to be at the forefront of resilience and sustainability concerns. The use of technology, digital processes and initiatives helps cities to improve planning, optimize works and provide better services to citizens.

The framework is original in that it specifically aligns assets management with DT in a municipal context.

There is intense competition and increasing globalisation in financial markets. Bank management must develop customer‐oriented strategies in order to compete successfully in the competitive retail banking environment. The longer a bank can retain a customer, the greater revenue and cost savings from that customer. China's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has resulted in the liberalisation and deregulation of China's financial services market. Chinese customers now have greater choices between domestic and foreign banks. This study aims to identify and analyse the factors that influence bank customers' switching behaviour in the Chinese retail banking industry.

The data for this analysis was obtained using a convenience sample of 421 bank customers in Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, China. The decision to switch banks is hypothesised to be a function of price, reputation, service quality, effective advertising competition, involuntary switching, distance, switching costs, distance, and demographic characteristics. Factor analysis and logistic regression are used to analyse the data and identify and rank the factors that impact on the bank switching behaviour of customers.

The research findings reveal that price, reputation, service quality, effective advertising, involuntary switching, distance, and switching costs impact on customers' bank switching behaviour. The findings also reveal that the young and high‐income groups are more likely to switch banks.

The results of this research allow service marketers and practitioners to develop and implement service marketing strategies to decrease customer defection rates, and in turn, increase bank profits. Furthermore, this research provides useful information for future researchers investigating customer switching behaviour in the retail banking industry.

This paper provides an empirical analysis of Chinese bank switching behaviour and provides a framework for future studies on the behaviour of bank customers.

Recent survey data suggest that salespeople's organisational deviant behaviours such as fudging an expense report, putting off work-related duties to attend to personal things etc. are growing uncontrollably out in the field. Directed towards the goal of mitigating these behaviours, this research attempts to apply the novel perspective of workplace spirituality. Jurkiewicz and Giacalone's value framework of workplace spirituality which consists of ten values (benevolence, generativity, humanism, integrity, justice, mutuality, receptivity, respect, responsibility and trust) is used to propose the theoretical linkages with salespeople's organisational deviant behaviours. The paper concludes with directions for further research, managerial implications and teaching implications.

The paper is a conceptual work, which derives research propositions from an extended literature review.

It is proposed that the ten values (benevolence, generativity, humanism, integrity, justice, mutuality, receptivity, respect, responsibility and trust) of value framework of workplace spirituality negatively affect salespeople's organizational deviant behaviours.

Future research can extend the conceptual framework to salespeople's interpersonal and frontline deviant behaviours.

First, this paper attempts to help sales managers to fight out the epidemic of deviant behaviours by suggesting that adopting workplace spirituality could reduce salespeople's organisational deviant behaviours. Second, by proposing negative effect on organisational deviant behaviours, this paper extends the list of potential benefits of workplace spirituality in sales organisation to suggest that adopting workplace spirituality could be a sound sales strategy.

This is the first study in marketing literature which attempts to integrate workplace spirituality and salespeople's negative (deviant) behaviours.