Ethical İssues İn Marketing: An Application For Understanding Ethical Decision Making

Abstract

In recent years business ethics and social responsibility have gained great importance in marketing practices, especially in societal marketing practices. Businesses infinitely struggle to indicate their contributions to society. Consumers consciously evaluate this contribution. Manipulated consumer choices and unethical marketing applications can affect purchasing behavior. Particularly intense competition, globalization and societal consciousness transform businesses into social organizations and lead them into marketing efforts offering social value. Although business ethics and social responsibility of businesses have gained more attention in recent years, defining consumers’ perceptions on ethical issues is still minimal. This study presents an empirical research of consumer perceptions on ethical issues. Reflection of this perception on purchasing behavior is also another important issue to be considered. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors related with ethical issues in marketing practices and to reveal possible influences of these factors on consumers’ ethical decision making. The main objective of the study is to find out consumers’ perceptions on businesses’ ethical issues such as misleading advertising, deceptive packaging and to reveal the impact of these issues on their ethical purchasing behavior or ethical decision making. It also reveals which criteria is more important for ethical decision making. This study reveals that consumers reflect their ethical perceptions on their purchasing behavior. Each ethical issue has been found to be a positive effect on purchasing behavior. Businesses’ practices on packaging has been indicated as the most effective ethical issue on purchasing behavior. The study is considered to be a significant outcome for businesses to direct their advertising, packaging and other activities.