Dr Katharina J Srnka.

Dr Katharina J Srnka, Assistant Professor of Marketing at University of Vienna, Austria. 2003 Visiting Professor at MBA Solvay Business gymnasium Universit?© Libre des Bruxelles, Belgium. 2001/02 Visiting Professor at the Institute of Marketing and Retailing, University of St.? Gallen, Switzerland. Major Fields of Research: Marketing Ethics, Consumer Behavior, Cross-Cultural and Qualitative Marketing Research. Address for correspondence: University of Vienna, Department of Marketing, Bruenner Str 72 A-1210 Vienna, Austria; Tel: (++43-1) 4277 -38020; Fax: -38014; E-mail:? katharina.srnka@univie.ac.at; URL:? http://www.bwl.univie.ac.at/bwl/mark/srnka.htm. The author would like to thank the Special Issue Editor John B Ford and the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable annotations and suggestions. Further, I thank my colleagues Dr Claus Ebster and Dr Katja Meier-Pesti at University of Vienna for their helpful explanations on earlier versions of this paper. This article is part of a special issue upon "Conceptual/Theoretical Issues in Marketing in a Cross-Cultural Context" edited by means of John B. Ford.

Culture's part in Marketers' Ethical Decision Making: An Integrated Theoretical Framework

In the past decades, an increasing amount of attention has been devot to ethics in business in general and marketing in particular (Malhotra and Miller 1998:263) Marketing managers have become ethically more sensitive, and they are largely convinced that customers and the public await them to act in a morally acceptable way. principally marketers express their moral commitment as well as the conviction that ethical bearing is mandatory to establish trust (Srnka 1997:96ff) This is consistent with general marketing theory, which occupys that all exchanges are based forward trust (Kotler 2003:8f), and that conflicts are likely to accrue if buyer and seller are not in agreement with think highly of to their ethical mindsets (Lee 1981:58) Where conflicts exist, trust will not make progress Without trust, in turn, the exchange proces ceases and marketing relationships cannot bring to maturity (Morgan and Hunt 1994:32). Compatibility of ethical values held according to the exchange partners is thus a central prerequisite for trust and persistent relationships (Ahmed, Chung and Eichenseher 2003:89; Ferrell Gresham, and Fraedrich 1989:55; Schlegelmilch 1998:11ff; Schlegelmilch and Goetze 1999:27) Given fierce competition and rising richnesss of customer acquisition, enduring relationships based onward mutual trust have become more important than at any time before. Consequently, the relevance of ethics in marketing has surg throughout the last three decades.

Even more attention has lately been paid to ethical issues in the multicultural marketing words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following Essentially, the cross-cultural perspective of value-compatibility has become important across the past years (Bergemann and Sourrisseaux 1996:1) repeatedly enough, decision makers within their concede cultural boundaries do not know which is the in the greatest degree ethical alternative. The problem of choosing an ethical option is uniform exacerbated, when the decision maker is bring into the presence ofed with differing cultural values and ethical expectations (Ahmed, Chung and Eichenseher 2003:89) Today, marketers are increasingly faced with exchange partners from improvements different from their own background (not barely with respect to nationality on the other hand also regarding political and particularly economic aspects, in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as industrialization, standard of living, etc) In view of the continuing integration into world markets of countries with rapid economic progression in a continuously ascending gradation - particularly in Asia and Eastern Europe - the ne to consider cultural aspects in marketing ethics as well as the demand for a conception of refinement that embraces more than simply the "nationality" dimension have significantly increased.

The assumption that cultural norms and values influence individual decision making is lustily based in the marketing literature (eg Engel and Blackwell 1982) It is more or les consistently acknowledged that different tillages produce different expectations, which become speaked in distinct ethical norms. These, in divert influence decision making and may issue in dissimilar behaviors (Ferrell an Gresham 1985:89) However, a comprehensive understanding of civilization values, and social norms as moderators of ethical decision making looks still to be missing. There does not on the same level exist a generally accepted terminology of improvement or a consistent conception of the proces of ethical decision making in the marketing ethics literature (Dubinsky and Loken 1989:103) The lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework forward culture's role in marketers' ethical decision making has inhibited the systematic progressive growth of a research agenda (Trevino, 1986:601) and outcomeed in empirical research that simply documents the existence of different ethical good senses among various populations but does not investigate their causes (Hunt and Vitell 1986:768) A well-developed theoretical design explaining how various cultural factors impact ethical decisions in the marketing connection should provide a richer understanding and better guidance for empirical research in marketing ethics (Hunt and Vitell 1991:780; Ferrell Gresham, and Fraedrich 1989:56; Bommer et al. 1987:265)