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J Bus Ethics (2012) 109:463481 DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-1140-2
Managerial and Public Attitudes Toward Ethics in Marketing Research
Praveen Aggarwal Rajiv Vaidyanathan
Stephen Castleberry
Received: 21 April 2011 / Accepted: 4 December 2011 / Published online: 15 December 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract This research updates and signicantly extends Akaah and Riordons (J Market Res 26:112120, 1989) evaluation of ethical perceptions of marketing research misconduct among marketing research professionals. In addition to examining changes in perceptions toward key marketing research practices over time, we assess professionals judgments on the ethicality, importance, and occurrence of a variety of new marketing research ethics situations in both online and ofine contexts. In a second study, we assess ethical judgments of the public at large using a representative sample of US consumerskey stakeholders ignored in prior research on unethical marketing research practices. Generally speaking, disapproval of unethical research conduct has grown across the board in the last 20 years for both managers and marketing researchers. The same misconduct elicits a stronger disapproval in the online environment compared to the ofine environment. Compared to marketing researchers, managers tend to think that unethical research conduct occurs more frequently.
Those who conduct marketing research or use its ndings(i.e., marketing researchers and managers) are less tolerant of unethical research conduct than the general public.
Keywords Marketing research Ethics Managers
Researchers Professionals Misconduct
Ethical judgments
By its very nature, the practice of marketing often presents ethical dilemmas. In addition, marketing professionals are often near the bottom in terms of ethical conduct and honesty ratings (Nussbaum 2002). Within the broader discipline of marketing, marketing research has been cited as one of the most troubling in this regard (Lund 2001). Discussions about the ethicality of various marketing research tactics and the misuse of research data are often in the news (Phillips 2010).
A seminal study examining attitudes toward marketing research practices was published over 40 years ago (Crawford 1970). Twenty years later, Akaah and Riordan (1989) conducted a follow-up study to track changes in attitudes towards marketing research practices. They emphasized the need to replicate results of previous studies to not only uncover any shifts in the ethical judgments of decision-makers over time, but also to capture changes in peoples sensitivity to ethical conduct over time....