Consumer transgressions in the marketplace: Consumers' perspectives

✍ Scribed by H. Robert Dodge; Elizabeth A. Edwards; Sam Fullerton

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 961 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0742-6046
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6793(199612)13:8<821::aid-mar7>3.0.co;2-h

✦ Synopsis

A national sample of 532 consumers was assessed on 15 different scenarios that reflect questionable behaviors by consumers. The results indicate that consumers are ethically predisposed as they generally express little tolerance for behavioral transgressions on the part of the customer. Factor analysis identified two latent dimensions for the scenarios: direct economic consequences and indirect economic consequences. Respondents expressed greater intolerance of those actions that comprise the indirect economic consequences factor. One-way analysis of variance identified several instances where age, gender, education, and income were related to specific responses. 01996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Discussion of business ethics usually resolves itself into one of marketing ethics. Marketing is the most visible functional area and those marketing practices that create the most controversy, such as personal selling, advertising, pricing, and packaging are subject to continuous review and scrutiny by consumers as well as the general public, and when a marketer is judged to have committed a breach of ethics, public outcry and condemnation are likely to follow (Murphy & Laczniak, 1981; Tsalikis & Fritzsche, 1989). For example, the unfair and unethical price gouging by local merchants that seems to accompany natural