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RME0010.1177/2051570717701414Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English Edition)Murphy

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DOI: 10.1177/2051570717701414
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Patrick E Murphy
University of Notre Dame, USA

Abstract
This article discusses both longstanding and emergent research themes in marketing ethics. It begins with a
section on definitions and moves to an examination of research on: consumer ethics, product issues, pricing
questions, channels challenges, and two emerging trends having to do with advertising and promotion. A
latter part of the article provides a number of suggestions for junior scholars in conducting research on
topics in marketing ethics. It concludes with a few thoughts on teaching marketing ethics and a mention of
privacy as an area of growing ethical concern in marketing.

Keywords
ethical consumption, ethical marketing, marketing ethics, native advertising, research suggestions

Introduction end, two definitions are proposed here. In early

Marketing ethics is an important topic to academics
and practitioners alike. Research and Applications in
Marketing is to be commended for devoting a special
issue to publishing the newest work in this area. This
brief article examines several background and emerg-
ing issues. We begin with definitions – what is meant
by marketing ethics? Then, several specific focal
avenues for potential research are discussed by con-
centrating on consumers and the four Ps. The article
concludes with research suggestions for junior schol-
ars and ideas for the teaching of marketing ethics.
Definitions
This writer finds it helpful to the reader to be explicit
regarding the major term used in any article. To that
writing on the field, Laczniak and Murphy (1993)
defined marketing ethics as “Marketing ethics is
the systematic study of how moral standards are
applied to marketing decisions, behaviors, and
institutions” (p. x). This definition focuses on the
notion that marketing ethics is applied to various
decisions such as product safety, pricing practices,
high pressure selling, and a number of other areas.
The behavior pertains to all levels of marketing
from the Chief Marketing Officer to the summer
intern working in the advertising department. The
various institutions span the range from small and
medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to multinational
corporations (MNCs) to the nonprofit (NFP) world
and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
The expansiveness of marketing is captured in this
definition.

Corresponding author:
Patrick E Murphy, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
Email: Patrick.E.Murphy.72@nd.edu
2 Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English Edition) 
In later work (Murphy et al., 2005, 2017), the
focus has shifted to an emphasis on ethical, rather
than unethical, marketing:
Ethical marketing refers to practices that emphasize
transparent, trustworthy, and responsible personal
and/or organizational marketing policies and actions
that exhibit integrity as well as fairness to consumers
and other stakeholders.
This definition and approach is primarily norma-
tive and accentuates the ideals to which marketers
should aspire. Both the use of words such as trans-
parency, trustworthiness, responsibility, integrity,
and fairness as well as the aspirational nature of the
definition highlight that this takes virtue-ethics
approach (Murphy, 1999; Murphy et al., 2007). The
centrality of stakeholders, both consumers and
many others, is also noted. Corporate examples
from Europe and the United States that seem to
practice ethical marketing are Auchan (French
retailer), Costco (US retailer), Tom’s of Maine (US
subsidiary of Colgate Palmolive and maker of all
natural personal care products) and Unilever (with
its Sustainable Living Plan but not its Axe ads).
The second definition presupposes a higher level
of ethical and societally responsible actions on the
part of marketers in their dealings with consumers
and other stakeholders. During the last few years,
marketing organizations are being held to a height-
ened standard compared to earlier times, and this defi-
nition is in keeping with the escalating expectations.
Consumers
Although there are many aspects of consumers and
their relationship with marketers that fall within the
purview of marketing ethics, we will discuss two
that are increasingly important in the 21st century.
One is the topic of ethical consumption, where con-
sumers use their purchasing power to select prod-
ucts that are more socially and environmentally
positive (Brunk, 2010; Lewis and Potter, 2011). The
recent use of the term “ethical consumption” is the
latest manifestation of what was labeled socially
conscious consumers some 40 years ago (for review
of early literature, see Leigh et al., 1988). The sec-
ond aspect focuses on the poor and vulnerable seg-
ments of the market. Children, older individuals,
immigrants, and market illiterates are historical
examples. The most recent work on these segments
has tended to concentrate on the global “base of the
pyramid” individuals (Martin and Hill, 2015; Santos
et al., 2015; Santos and Laczniak, 2012). The
responsibility of marketers and researchers to do a
better job of both understanding and satisfying this
growing market is one of the biggest challenges fac-
ing the field.
Products
From an ethical perspective, sin products (i.e.
tobacco, alcohol, firearms, pornography, and gam-
bling/gaming), as discussed by Kirk Davidson
(2003), continue to receive ethical scrutiny with
more graphic labels being proposed for cigarettes
by a number of countries. In fact, tobacco products
are unique because they are the only products that,
when used as directed, will kill/harm you while the
others cause damage when misused. Alcohol and
tobacco remain controversial products and are
examined in one of the articles in this special issue
as well as an extensive chapter in a recent book
(Eagle et al., 2015). The health and safety associ-
ated with some products such as foodstuffs seem to
be causing greater concern because of a lengthier
supply chain or lack of government or corporate
scrutiny on products that consumers ingest. Another
ongoing ethical issue is product counterfeiting
(Cesareo and Stottinger, 2015). Given the global
demand for highly regarded brands, the size and
magnitude of this problem will likely escalate. On a
more positive note, the growth of sustainable prod-
ucts and research on both sustainable consumption
and evaluation of products using triple bottom line
criteria is an example of fruitful areas of academic
research and improved practice by industry.
Price
The basic ethical question that is asked about the
pricing of any product: is it a fair price? Irrespective
of whether the price is high, moderate, or low, the
key consideration concerns the value of the product
to the market as well as whether the price accurately
represents such value. With the growth of dynamic
pricing in airlines and hospitality industries and
variable prices for sporting and cultural events,
Murphy 3
technology makes these price variations possible
but the perception of some consumers may be that
these are not ethical practices. An article in this spe-
cial issue goes into depth on the ethical implications
of dynamic pricing. One area where consumers
may be willing to pay higher prices is for environ-
mentally friendly, organic, or Fair Trade products
because they perceive such prices as fair (Dekhili
and Achabou, 2013; Ozcaglar-Toulouse et al.,
2010). In the United States, Walmart, known for its
low price strategy, has added a number of green
products in its stores and is putting downward pres-
sure on prices.
Channel/place
Within the channel of distribution, several over-
arching ethical concerns remain relevant to the sell-
ing of a wide variety of products. They are the
power-responsibility equilibrium which states that
the most powerful members of the channel should
bear the greatest responsibility, gift-giving/bribery
especially in developing markets, price setting by
retailers, the advertising of prices so that they are
clear to consumers and, finally, competition in the
retail sector which is now more intense (Murphy
et al., 2005). These ethical issues are most germane
to store-based retailing.
The growth of non-store/online retailing in recent
years has brought on several new and unanticipated
ethical issues as it relates to the channel. The dynamic
pricing model has been used by Amazon and others
in the past and has drawn scrutiny from critics.
Another emerging problem is the “mountain of card-
board, creating environmental concerns and some
guilt” (Ritchel, 2016) that is used in packing and
shipping online purchases to consumers.
Another channel-related issue that has received
much more attention in recent years is the supply
chain for manufacturers and retailers. Firms such as
Apple, Nike, and fashion retailers like the Gap,
H&M, and Zara have been criticized for not doing a
better job of policing the supply chain practices of
their contractors. Employee safety as well as wages
and working condition problems are often associ-
ated with the manufacture of a wide range of prod-
ucts. Since the global brands are the most powerful
players in the supply chain, they have received jus-
tified criticism about these practices.
Promotion
While advertising has long been associated with
ethical problems (Garrett, 1961), the 21st century
has brought some unique challenges to this area.
The growth of online advertising is one of the big-
gest developments in recent years. Online behavio-
ral targeting (OBT), tracking a consumer’s online
actions to create a profile of the individual, is a
practice that has advantages for both consumers and
marketers, but it also “has the technological poten-
tial to violate consumers’ privacy rights to an
unprecedented degree … and is often nontranspar-
ent and deceptive” (Nill and Aalberts, 2014: 126).
After examining the ethical and legal challenges to
OBT, these authors concluded by stating,
While advertisers and their stakeholder might not
agree on what is ethical, “Disagreement is not the
problem; avoidance of the topic and/or failure to
engage in a collaborative dialogue is” (Drumwright
and Murphy, 2009: 13). Indeed an open dialogue …
between consumers, online advertisers, regulators and
all other affected parties can help to devise mutually
acceptable norms for regulating OBT. (Nill and
Aalberts, 2014: 143)
Another recent development in advertising that
is causing a new set of ethical challenges is the
growth of “native advertising” – the practice of
blurring the line between editorial and advertising
in the media. The growth of online publication of
even traditional products such as magazines allows
ads to be embedded in what was traditionally
thought to be strictly editorial content. While there
are different types of native advertising such as
advertorials and branded content, the ethical issue
surfaces when consumers are unaware or misled
into thinking that they are reading a news story
rather than a paid ad.
Suggestions for junior
scholars in conducting
research on marketing ethics1
As a long-time observer and participant in marketing
ethics research, several suggestions come to mind on
how best to undertake research in this field. Before
moving to the positive developments, a number of
trends that this author has identified earlier (Murphy,
4 Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English Edition) 
2002) as being “not so positive” should be addressed.
One troubling development in empirical research on
marketing ethics is the continued and even growing
use of student samples. Ethical decisions are made in
companies and in the transaction situation (whether
online or in the physical store). Thus, sole reliance on
students as surrogate consumers or managers seems
misguided. Of course, an exception is executive
MBA students who are usually practicing managers
during the time of their program. I also advocate
for ethics-based cross-cultural investigations where
researchers have strong theoretical reasons for
administering the same instrument to respondents in
multiple countries. For those research efforts that do
employ such techniques, and especially those that
rely on secondary data programs, rigorous evidence
of cross-national comparability and measurement
invariance is a must.
Ethics-based empirical research has long relied
on the use of a variety of scenarios to put respond-
ents in an ethical decision making frame of mind.
The criticism here is not with the technique, but
that we often see scenarios that are too many (one
study had 20 scenarios) or too few (one or two) or
too old (scenarios developed 10 or 20 years ago).
If the researcher uses scenarios in an experimental
fashion, valuable and generalizable information
can be gained. Such experimentation might study
recent ethical issues like online selling, privacy on
the web, and online surveys. A final area of con-
cern is the testing of narrow theoretical proposi-
tions. In the 1990s, much empirical research was
undertaken to test various aspects of the Hunt and
Vitell (1986) model. Some of this research focused
too narrowly on a single aspect of that or other
models. The assessment made several years ago
bears repeating here:
While it is quite difficult to operationalize generalized
theories and models, some marketing scholars have
been content to investigate such narrow propositions
and theories that the outcome of their work is
marginalized. The field of marketing ethics seems
increasingly to be using the same narrow lens that has
characterized much of the consumer behavior research
over a prolonged period … The work of marketing
ethics can impact the practice of marketing if
researchers keep in mind that they are not engaged in
just a narrow academic exercise. (Murphy, 2002: 171)
The quote above leads to the type of research
that this writer believes is most effective. First, even
for junior scholars, it is possible to publish impor-
tant theoretical and conceptual articles on market-
ing ethics. Future researchers are encouraged to not
be intimidated by this somewhat daunting task of
contributing to the theoretical base of this field.
Second, theory testing is needed especially for the
new, more global theories of marketing ethics. As
noted in the quote above, the task of operationaliz-
ing the concepts in marketing ethics will likely take
a significant investment in scale construction and
validation. The article in this issue on scale devel-
opment for ethical sensitivity is a good example of
scale development in marketing ethics. Furthermore,
a sample of managers would most likely need to be
studied in order to draw conclusions about which
aspects of these models are most applicable to mar-
keting practice. Third, depth interviews of manag-
ers are one (but certainly not the only) method to
study marketing practitioners. Some of the insights
gained by the consumer culture theory (CCT)
researchers may be valuable for those interested in
studying both consumer and marketer behavior.
This individual has been involved with two projects
in marketing ethics where depth interviews were
conducted (Drumwright and Murphy, 2004, 2009),
and though the process of interviewing executives
is arduous, the insights gained are valuable.
Fourth, a thrust of current ethics research, espe-
cially in Europe, appears to be on consumer ethics
and responsible consumption (Brinkmann, 2004;
Brunk, 2010). Several of the caveats mentioned
above regarding avoiding student samples and nar-
row cross-cultural studies should be heeded here as
well. The notion of responsible consumption is
important from a marketing, sustainability, and
societal perspective, but the projects that will make
the greatest contribution will likely be those that are
the hardest to carry out. Finally, another fruitful
area is to examine marketing ethics from the stand-
point of another foundational discipline. The highly
cited Gundlach and Murphy (1993) article on the
intersection between law and ethics is an illustration
of this type of endeavor. Certainly, dissertations are
not meant to be a life work, but slicing the project
“too thin” means that the future impact of the
research will be affected.
Murphy 5
For junior scholars interested in pursuing
research in marketing ethics, there are a number of
useful resources that can be consulted and/or uti-
lized in any project. The most extensive is the five-
volume series of 90 significant journal articles on
marketing ethics (Smith and Murphy, 2012,
Volumes I-V). Two recent anthologies contain arti-
cles on both corporate social responsibility in mar-
keting (Hill and Langan, 2014) and marketing ethics
(Nill, 2015). A special issue of the Journal of
Business Research (2013) featured 17 articles on
corporate social responsibility and irresponsibility.
Marketing Theory: A Student Text contains a chap-
ter on marketing ethics (Murphy and Martin, 2016)
that reviews the normative literature in the field
during the last 30 years and proposes areas of
needed research.
Thoughts on teaching
marketing ethics
The position of this writer is that schools should fol-
low a “both and” model rather than an “either or”
one when teaching marketing ethics topics. This
means that both a standalone course in marketing
ethics and an integration of these topics into princi-
ples, marketing research, advertising, and other
courses into the marketing curriculum is most desir-
able. The “either or” philosophy takes the position
that only a designated course or integration into
other classes is sufficient. For those interested in
either devoting a full-term course to marketing eth-
ics or as part of a broader marketing and society
class, two recent texts offer different approaches to
covering the material. Eagle and Dahl (2015) edited
a 12-chapter book on topics such as criticisms of
marketing, ethics in social marketing, and market-
ing to the young and vulnerable. The text has an
excellent set of references for each chapter and
would lend itself to in-depth coverage of several
topics. The other recent text (Murphy et al., 2017) is
the second edition of an earlier casebook and fea-
tures 20 internationally based cases on companies
such as Coke, Facebook, Toms Shoes, and Zara
covering a broad range of ethical issues in market-
ing. The book also contains two theoretical chapters
(expanded from Laczniak and Murphy’s (2006)
article) that provide the foundation for the case
analyses. For instructors who only employ the inte-
gration approach, the popular business press fea-
tures, almost daily, examples that can be used to
demonstrate usually unethical (rather than ethical)
marketing practices.
Conclusion
A number of potential research opportunities in the
area of marketing ethics were noted above. The
field is in need of continued scholarship on its many
dimensions. One emerging topic that was not dis-
cussed previously is privacy in marketing (Martin
and Murphy, 2016). With the growth of sophisti-
cated technology in online tracking, big data collec-
tion, and targeted advertising, the ethical issues
associated with these practices will continue to
mushroom, making it a fruitful area of further
research. In the abbreviated discussion here, no
doubt several worthwhile areas of potential research
opportunities were missed. Nevertheless, it is this
writer’s hope that this overview will spur new
scholarship in marketing ethics.
Note
1. This section was drawn largely from Murphy and
Martin (2016: 102–103).
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