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Book part
Publication date: 2 September 2019

Philip Balsiger and Simone Schiller-Merkens

Moral struggles in and around markets abound in contemporary societies where markets have become the dominant form of economic coordination. Reviewing research on morality and

Abstract

Moral struggles in and around markets abound in contemporary societies where markets have become the dominant form of economic coordination. Reviewing research on morality and markets across disciplinary boundaries, this introductory essay suggests that a moral turn can currently be observed in scholarship, and draws a direct connection to recent developments in the sociology of morality. The authors introduce the chapters in the present volume “The Contested Moralities of Markets.” In doing so, the authors distinguish three types of moral struggles in and around markets: struggles around morally contested markets where the exchange of certain goods on markets is contested; struggles within organizations that are related to an organization’s embeddedness in complex institutional environments with competing logics and orders of worth; and moral struggles in markets where moral justifications are mobilized by a variety of field members who act as moral entrepreneurs in their striving for moralizing the economy. Finally, the authors highlight three properties of moral struggles in contemporary markets: They (1) arise over different objects, (2) constitute political struggles, and (3) are related to two broader social processes: market moralization and market expansion. The introduction concludes by discussing some of the theoretical approaches that allow particular insights into struggles over morality in markets. Collectively, the contributions in this volume advance our current understanding of the contested moralities of markets by highlighting the sources, processes, and outcomes of moral struggles in and around markets, both through tracing the creation, reproduction, and change of underlying moral orders and through reflecting the status and power differentials, alliances, and political strategies as well as the general cultural, social, and political contexts in which the struggles unfold.

Details

The Contested Moralities of Markets
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-120-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 May 2019

Attila Yaprak and Melvin Prince

The literature on consumer morality and consumption is spread widely across many research streams and would benefit from grouping under selected themes so that scholars’ work can…

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Abstract

Purpose

The literature on consumer morality and consumption is spread widely across many research streams and would benefit from grouping under selected themes so that scholars’ work can be guided by the compass of these themes. It is also important to add studies to each of these themes to serve as gateways that will guide new research. The aim of this special issue of the Journal of Consumer Marketing was to achieve precisely this purpose. The purpose of this paper is to open the gate to the exploration of the themes that today describe this landscape.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper assesses the contributions made in each of several domains to better understand, why and how moral consumption works, what its ingredients are and how it may grow in the future. There are at least four domains of morality and moral consumption studies as follows: the formation of the moral self and moral identity; moral identity and ethical consumption; moral reasoning (cognitive processes) and moral choice; and the moral self and marketing. Each of these domains of work provides insight into the moral consumption phenomenon.

Findings

The authors highlight the development of the moral self and underscore the significance of the relationship between identity development and the individual’s moral actions and by extension the significance of that relationship in moral consumption. Also, the paper adds to the current discussion on morality and ethical consumption by underscoring their interlinked nature and how that linkage can drive consumption behavior, highlight the cognitive processes involved in moral choices and how consumers reason to arrive at those choices. Finally, the authors provide examples of the workings of moral identity and reasoning in consumption contexts more directly.

Originality/value

Each of these morality and moral consumption domains of work provides unique insights into the moral consumption phenomenon; thus, it is important to disseminate the contributions made in each domain to better understand, why and how moral consumption works, what its ingredients are and how it may grow in the future. In this paper, the authors offer contemporary original samples of key contributions to each of these domains.

Details

Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 36 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0736-3761

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 May 2005

Glenn L. Johnson

Busch focuses on what he regards as the three broad causes of immorality in the modern world: scientism, statism, and marketism. He views these three “isms” pejoratively and

Abstract

Busch focuses on what he regards as the three broad causes of immorality in the modern world: scientism, statism, and marketism. He views these three “isms” pejoratively and originating respectively with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith. Each is treated as a “leviathan” spewing immorality from its multiple heads in the form of undue faith in the three different kinds of social order they generate.

Details

A Research Annual
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-316-7

Book part
Publication date: 16 September 2014

Sarah A. Tobin

This paper uses the case of Islamic banking in Amman, Jordan, to assess the wide moral range of expectations, levels of satisfaction, and means of evaluating banks’ “Islamicness.”

Abstract

Purpose

This paper uses the case of Islamic banking in Amman, Jordan, to assess the wide moral range of expectations, levels of satisfaction, and means of evaluating banks’ “Islamicness.”

Design/methodology/approach

The information is gathered from interviews conducted during over 21 months of ethnographic research and one month in participant observation and research access as an intern at the Middle East Islamic Bank (MEIB) in Amman, Jordan.

Findings

I found three modes for evaluating “Islamicness” when actors decide whether or not to become customers of Islamic banks.

Research implications

These modes demonstrate that Islamic banking is no longer the cultural protectionism of a relatively homogeneous community of Muslims. Rather it is a fraught and tense field for actors’ debates about types of moralities in the markets and modes of moral assessments of “Islamicness.”

Originality/value

The amplification of the individual and individual choice and authority in the moral assessments of Islamic banking may ultimately serve to unseat prior dichotomous theoretical framings of morality’s presence or absence as “Islamic” or “not Islamic” and “good” and “bad.” By unleashing to individuals the construction of morality in the markets, moral rights and wrongs, and moral evaluations, fragmentation of moral consensus in market practices will occur.

Details

Production, Consumption, Business and the Economy: Structural Ideals and Moral Realities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-055-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 19 June 2019

Demet Ş. Dinler

By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted amongst waste-pickers and recycling traders in the waste paper, plastic and scrap metal sectors, and engaging with literature from…

Abstract

By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted amongst waste-pickers and recycling traders in the waste paper, plastic and scrap metal sectors, and engaging with literature from economic anthropology and history, as well as archival sources, this paper documents changing perceptions of just price, morality and fairness in the Turkish recycling market. The paper suggests that multiple markets imply multiple prices, which are contingent and contested. When dealing with price mechanisms largely outside their control, actors tend to associate a fair price with the going market price, rather than factors such as state regulation. Approaches to morality and assessments of fairness become more ambiguous when prices are mediated by actors’ own practices. These range from gift relations to paternalism, envy and deception.

Details

The Politics and Ethics of the Just Price
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-573-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 September 2019

Matías Dewey

With only a few exceptions, economic sociology scholarship remains almost silent about illegality and crime in the economy. The implicit premise in the literature on market

Abstract

With only a few exceptions, economic sociology scholarship remains almost silent about illegality and crime in the economy. The implicit premise in the literature on market sociology is that institutional structures and exchanges taking place in markets are law abiding in nature. As a consequence of this legality bias the study of morality in markets has so far only addressed commodities – like human organs, gambling, drugs, alcohol, or tobacco – whose legal status depends on broad social agreements and has excluded markets whose workings are dependent on formally legitimized institutions like property rights, trademark laws, or copyrights. Drawing on seven months of ethnographic research, this chapter addresses the phenomenon of emerging moral justifications in the context of a marketplace for counterfeit and sweatshop-produced garments. In line with Anteby’s proposal on a “practice-based view of moral markets,” it argues that despite the broad moral consensus around trademark laws and the absence of professionals who advocate for legalization, moral justifications views arise from rising aspirations in such illegal markets. The case expands existing understandings of morality and contestation in economic sociology literature and shows its relevance in the context of recent academic scholarship on perceptions of the future as a source of moral justification of market exchanges.

Details

The Contested Moralities of Markets
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-120-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 December 2021

Maria Raciti, Foluké Abigail Badejo, Josephine Previte and Michael Schuetz

This commentary extends our 2020 11th SERVSIG Panel The moral limits of service markets: Just because we can, should we?, inspired by Michael J. Sandel’s book What Money Can’t Buy

Abstract

Purpose

This commentary extends our 2020 11th SERVSIG Panel The moral limits of service markets: Just because we can, should we?, inspired by Michael J. Sandel’s book What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. In Sandel’s (2012) book, the pursuit of “the good life” is a common motivation for pushing the moral boundaries of markets and “the good life” is dominated by service consumption.

Design/methodology/approach

Like Sandel (2012), this commentary begins with a provocation regarding the need for moral development in services marketing. Next, we present three real-life case studies about a modern slavery survivor service, aged care services and health-care services as examples of moral limits, failings and tensions.

Findings

The commentary proposes four guidelines and a research agenda. As service marketers, we must reignite conversations about ethics and morality. Taking charge of our professional moral development, exercising moral reflexivity, promoting an ethics of care and taking a bird’s-eye perspective of moral ecologies are our recommended guidelines. Morality is an essential condition – a sine qua non – for service marketers. Hence, our proposed research agenda focuses first on the service marketer and embeds a moral gaze as a universal professional protocol to engender collective moral elevation.

Originality/value

This commentary highlights the need for a moral refresh in services marketing and proposes ways to achieve this end.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 36 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 2 April 2019

Orlando Gomes and João Frade

This paper aims to provide an overall review and assessment of the virtues and flaws of decentralized self-regulated markets, discussing in particular the extent to which…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide an overall review and assessment of the virtues and flaws of decentralized self-regulated markets, discussing in particular the extent to which deceiving attitudes by some market participants might be potentially diluted and contradicted.

Design/methodology/approach

To approach deception and morality in markets, the paper follows two paths. First, the relevant recent literature on the theme is reviewed, examined and debated, and second, one constructs a simulation model equipped with the required elements to discuss the immediate and long-term impacts of deceiving behaviour over market outcomes.

Findings

The discussion and the model allow for highlighting the main drivers of the purchasing decisions of consumers and for evaluating how they react to manipulating behaviour by firms in the market. Agents pursuing short-run gains through unfair market practices are likely to be punished as fooled agents spread the word about the malpractices they were allegedly subject to.

Research limitations/implications

Markets are complex entities, where large numbers of individual agents typically establish local and direct contact with one another. These agents differ in many respects and interact in unpredictable ways. Assembling a concise model capable of addressing such complexity is a difficult task. The framework proposed in this paper points in the intended direction.

Originality/value

The debate in this paper contributes to a stronger perception on the mechanisms that attribute robustness and vitality to markets.

Details

Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Science, vol. 24 no. 48
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2077-1886

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 February 2020

Nitika Sharma and Madan Lal

This study aims to presents the article regarding the influential role of moral inefficacy and moral disengagement to address green intention and behaviour gap among consumers, and

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to presents the article regarding the influential role of moral inefficacy and moral disengagement to address green intention and behaviour gap among consumers, and how they attain self-exoneration because of the moral dilemma if any exist.

Design/methodology/approach

The present study is based on semi-structured interviews, using constructivist grounded theory, which offers a platform to investigate, explore and discover psychosocial mechanism that operates among the consumers regarding the dimension of morality and green practices. In-depth exhaustive dialogues with Indian green consumers are set up to stimulate dialogue on the study.

Findings

Findings of the study shed light on the moral dilemma arising from internal and external inefficacy of consumers and disengagement of morality to save consumers from self-condemnation. Also, the study proffers the potential conceptual framework of moral inefficacy, moral disengagement and green buying behaviour of consumers. Eventually, the study mapped the morality matrix to explore the consequents of moral inefficacy and moral disengagement.

Research limitations/implications

The idiographic nature of qualitative research, particularly grounded theory may be considered as a research limitation as it follows limited generalizability. Moreover, the present research work is exploratory in nature and depends on the candour of researchers’ reactivity and understanding.

Practical implications

The study subjectively concludes the green behaviour of consumers and discusses the rationality behind green intentions and behaviour gap. Marketers can strategize consumer morality as an approach to enhance green buying behaviour of consumers by removing moral inefficacies and disengagements.

Social implications

It is crucial for marketers and society to understand the reasons behind non-green consumerism and accordingly cope up with the situation.

Originality/value

The study has been designed in a way to discuss the philosophy of morality and psychology of consumers on green consumption. To elicit the crux and conceptualization of morality and green purchasing framework using constructivist grounded theory is the exclusivity of this study. This paper explores green consumption pattern using moral orientation and processes in detail.

Details

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 23 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-2752

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 January 2021

Vivien E. Jancenelle

This paper aims to investigate whether cues of morality can mitigate stock sell-offs in the face of earnings uncertainty prior to earnings conference calls and draws on moral…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate whether cues of morality can mitigate stock sell-offs in the face of earnings uncertainty prior to earnings conference calls and draws on moral foundations theory to study the effect of universal moral cues (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity rhetoric) and primarily conservative moral cues (ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity rhetoric) on market performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The study relies on a longitudinal data set of 1,920 firm-quarter observations corresponding to calls held by firms listed on the S&P 500 in 2015 and relies on computer-assisted-text-analysis and event-study methodology to test hypotheses.

Findings

The results suggest that cues of universal moral foundations have a mitigating effect on stock sell-offs and are able to create firm value; while cues primarily conservative moral foundations are not found to have an effect on market performance.

Originality/value

This investigation highlights why earnings conference calls may serve as a valuable tool for communicating a firm’s moral inclination and why universal morality may appeal to a wider range of shareholders than primarily conservative morality.

Details

International Journal of Organizational Analysis, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1934-8835

Keywords

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