Relationship marketing as an ethical approach:

philosophical and managerial considerations

Journal: Management Decision

Relationship building and management, or what has been labelled “relationship

marketing” (RM), is a new approach which has now entered the marketing literature.
First, we provide a brief review of the marketing ethics literature with an emphasis on
traditional marketing ethical problems and factors that influence ethical decision making
and then examine the influence of RM theory for its moderating effect on ethical
behaviour.

Traditional marketing ethical problems

There are five out of eight most important ethical problems have to do with
marketing activities. Chonko and Hunt (1985) empirically delineated both the nature and
extent of marketing management ethical problems and examined the effectiveness of top
management actions and codes of ethics in promoting ethical behaviour. The most
important ethical problem to Australian managers was large-scale bribery.

Conflicting ethical duties

As we have discussed above, ethical conflicts reported in the marketing literature

attempted to balance a number of inconsistencies between two or more parties such as
corporation, self, customer, competitor, etc. Figure 1 displays a summary of ethical
conflicts as they relate to ethical problems and ethical factors in marketing and
graphically identifies the suggested link between the above constructs and the RM
philosophy. We suggest that RM inputs can positively affect ethical behaviour by
affecting categories of ethical factors and preventing a number of ethical problems from
arising in the first place.

Ethical decision-making factors

Given the increasingly favourable view of the RM business philosophy, we

propose that it should be examined for its effect on ethical problems and ethical decision
making in marketing and possibly considered as a means for enhancing more ethical
behaviour in organisations.
The advent of relationship marketing

Christopher et al. (1991), as well as Morgan and Hunt (1994), perceive marketing
engaging in valued relationships not only within customer markets but also in supplier
markets, employee markets, referral, influence and internal markets. Marketing, as a
result, is more a management issue than a function, and marketing management, or
market-oriented management as marketing is frequently called, normally has to be built
on relationships rather than transactions. Moreover, a number of key ethical constructs
are deliberately included in the definition in order to highlight RM’s inherent ethical
character.

Relationship marketing as an ethical business philosophy

Ethical concerns are part of the routine practices of marketing management and
are characterised less frequently by legal issues than by concerns about relationships and
responsibilities. Overall, direct references to the ethical underpinnings of RM have been
limited. Murphy et al. (1996), by equating relationship marketing with ethical marketing
in their paper’s title, indicated that relationship marketing is inherently a concept with
strong ethical roots. Takala and Uusitalo (1996), based on normative ethical theories
proposed a conceptual framework for evaluating RM from an ethical perspective.
Specifically, trust was one of the ethical concepts that assumed a central role in
relationship marketing’s theoretical and empirical development – its influence being
emphasised on constructs central to building ethical long-term collaborative relationships
(Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Heide, 1994).

The moderating effect of relationship marketing

Relationship marketing is about healthy relationships characterised by trust,

equity, responsibility, and commitment – or, in other words, organisational climates –
which proactively set the conditions that may influence ethical behaviour. Figure 1
graphically considers the traditional ethical problems, ethical conflicts and ethical factors,
as they appear in the ethics literature under a moderating relational focus. Moreover, the
current emphasis on internal marketing is directly associated with more ethical behaviour
and attempts to bridge inconsistencies between top management and employees as the
market inside the firm becomes equally important to the outside market. This view of
marketing is based on a totally different philosophy from the marketing mix management
approach. Despite the strong ethical foundations of RM, reports of questionable activities
relating to marketing practice continue to appear regularly in the press. This paper has
sought to stimulate discussion concerning ethics in relationship marketing contexts. We
have suggested that, although RM’s inherent ethical dimensions can indeed have a
moderating effect on marketing ethical problems and conflicts, there is a need to separate
rhetoric from reality.
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