Moral philosophies of marketing managers: A cpmparison of American, Australian, and Malaysian cultures

A recent article pointed out that `̀ past research has paid relatively little attention to the sources of individuals’ moral philosophies from either a conceptual or an empirical standpoint’’ and investigated the determinants of idealism and relativism among American marketers. A literature review indicates that there is even less theoretical and empirical crosscultural investigation of moral philosophies. As more and more companies are expanding into foreign markets, problems related to cross-national ethics and social responsibility are becoming increasingly prevalent. Therefore, this study proposes a framework explaining the differences in the idealism and relativism of American, Malaysian, and Australian marketers based on: country differences (cultural differences and differences in economic and legal/political environment); corporate ethical values; and gender and age of the marketer. Results indicate that there are differences in the level of idealism and relativism exhibited by marketers from the three countries. Irrespective of country, corporate ethical values are positively related to the idealism and negatively related to the relativism of marketers. Also, irrespective of country, women are more idealistic than men, and relativism increases with age. Implications are offered and avenues for future research suggested. Introduction Globalization forces have been sweeping global and individual country economies. This emerging economic order has made it imperative for many businesses to deal with overseas market environments. Issues such as global warming, child labor, green marketing, software piracy, protection of intellectual property rights, and patent infringement have acquired increased prominence as a consequence of these globalization trends (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 1998). However, these issues do not have the same importance in every country. Vast differences exist across countries in terms of their economic development, cultural standards, legal/political systems, expectations regarding business conduct (Wotruba, 1997), and enforcement of policies (Mittelstaedt and Mittelstaedt, 1997). The research register for this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregisters The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0566.htm The authors thank Mohd. Rashid Ahmed and Zabid Md. Rashid, Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, Malaysia; and Muris Cicic, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia for their assistance in the data collection for this study. They also thank Janet Marta fo her comments. Philosophies of marketing managers 769 Consequently, what may be considered illegal in one country may be customary or even acceptable in others (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 1998). Under such circumstances, understanding how marketers in different countries make ethical judgments about business situations involving ethical dilemmas is important. It is well accepted in the business ethics literature that managers apply ethical guidelines based on their personal moral philosophies when confronted with ethical issues (Singhapakdi et al., 1999). Moral philosophy refers to the principles or rules that people use to decide what is right or wrong (Ferrell and Fraedrich, 1997). Personal moral philosophy is depicted as one of the important factors influencing ethical decision making in established models of business ethics (e.g. Hunt and Vitell, 1986; Trevino, 1986; Ferrell and Gresham, 1985). Ethical judgments may be explained parsimoniously by two aspects of personal moral philosophies, idealism and relativism (see also Schlenker and Forsyth, 1977). These two dimensions of moral philosophies have been extensively used in the business ethics literature and have been shown to influence important variables in ethical decision making such as perceived ethical problem (Hunt and Vitell, 1986), ethical intention (Singhapakdi et al., 1999), ethical sensitivity (Sparks and Hunt, 1998), perceived importance of ethics and social responsibility (Singhapakdi et al., 1995), ethical judgement (Vitell and Singhapakdi, 1993), and perceived moral intensity (Singhapakdi et al., 1999). In a recent article, Singhapakdi et al. (1999, p. 22) commented that `̀ past research has paid relatively little attention to the sources of individuals’ moral philosophies from either a conceptual or an empirical standpoint’’ and they investigated the determinants of idealism and relativism among American marketers. There is even less theoretical and empirical cross-cultural investigation of moral philosophies. The present study focuses on crossnational differences in idealism and relativism, and proposes a framework explaining the variation in idealism and relativism of Australian, American, and Malaysian marketers by country differences (including cultural differences and differences in economic and legal/political environment), corporate ethical values, and gender and age of the marketer. From a managerial perspective, an understanding of the extent to which marketers from different countries apply the rules of idealism and relativism, and why they apply these rules to a varying degree across countries, is useful. It helps managers comprehend the underlying thinking (philosophy) of marketers from different countries in evaluating ethical actions. In the international context, such an understanding can be used by corporate managers to develop training programs as well as develop codes of ethics that will enhance the ethical environment in corporations. This study also provides input on how corporate ethical values are related to the idealism and relativism of marketers, and how gender and age influence the extent to which one is idealistic and relativistic, which has implications in terms of developing management policies/organizational culture, and planning of ethics training programs. European Journal of Marketing 36,7/8 770 This research is organized as follows: first, we review the literature on moral philosophies. In the second section, we present the theoretical foundation of the study and develop the hypotheses. In the third section on methodology, details about the sample, the measures (including their reliability and validity), as well as measurement equivalence of the idealism, relativism, and the corporate ethical values scales (Steenkamp and Baumgartner, 1998) are provided. Next, results are discussed. In the fifth section, managerial implications are provided, and finally, limitations of the study and recommendations for future research are given. Literature review Business ethics theorists generally agree that when faced with decision situations having ethical content, managers apply ethical guidelines based on moral philosophies (e.g. Ferrell and Gresham, 1985; Hunt and Vitell, 1986). Social psychologists also consider moral philosophies or `̀ personal ethical systems’’ to be important factors influencing an individual’s ethical judgements. In particular, Forsyth (1980) identified two aspects of moral philosophy, relativism and idealism, as important predictors of moral judgement. Relativism `̀ rejects the possibility of formulating or relying on universal moral rules when drawing conclusions about moral questions’’ (Forsyth, 1980, pp. 175-6). According to Forsyth (1992): Relativists generally feel that moral actions depend upon the nature of the situation and the individuals involved, and when judging others they weigh the circumstances more than the ethical principal that was violated. Those who exhibit high relativism can be described as skeptics, and they generally feel that moral actions depend upon the nature of the situation and the principle involved. On the other hand, those who exhibit low relativism believe that morality requires acting in ways that are consistent with moral principles, norms, or laws. Idealism is defined as the degree to which individuals `̀ assume that desirable consequences can, with the right action, always be obtained’’ (p. 175). Idealism describes the individual’s concern for the welfare of others. Highly idealistic individuals believe that harming others is always avoidable, and they would rather not choose between the lesser of two evils that will lead to negative consequences for other people. Those who are less idealistic feel that harm is sometimes necessary to produce good (Forsyth, 1980, 1992). Idealism is not based on an embrace of moral absolutes; rather, it involves values related to altruism and a sense of optimism in considering responses to moral issues (Singhapakdi et al., 1999). Therefore, idealism and relativism are conceptually independent, and individuals may be high or low on either dimension (Forsyth, 1992). It is important to highlight how idealism and relativism reconcile with many of the schools of thought related to moral philosophy that researchers have developed over the last several decades (for example, teleology, ethical Philosophies of marketing managers 771 skepticism, ethical egoism, utilitarianism, and deontology), as well as other frameworks of moral thought (e.g. `̀ Survey of ethical attitudes’’ by Hogan (1970, 1973) and cognitive moral development by Kohlberg (1976)). Forsyth (1980) argued that idealism and relativism together capture many other conceptualizations of moral philosophy. For example, high relativism-low idealism individuals exhibit ethical egoism, which espouses that no moral standards are valid except in reference to one’s own behavior, and defines right or acceptable actions as those that maximize a particular person’s self-interest as defined by the individual. High relativism-high idealism individuals exhibit idealistic skepticism which argues that morality should focus on `̀ a contextual appropriateness – not the `good’ or the `right’ but the `fitting’ with all actions based on love of others’’ (Fletcher, 1973, p. 186). Low relativism-high idealism individuals exhibit the moral philosophy of deontology, which focuses on the preservation of individual rights and on the intentions associated with a particular behavior rather than on its consequences. In deontological philosophy, there is some universal moral rule that is absolute in determining right from wrong. The statements endorsed by low relativism-low idealism individuals are similar to the teleological thought, which stipulates that acts are morally right or acceptable if they produce some desired result, such as the realization of self-interest or utility. Low relativism-low idealism thought is also compatible with utilitarianism, which defines right or acceptable actions as those that maximize total utility, or the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Forsyth (1980) also argued that the relativism scale shared a common foundation with another frequently used measure of moral thought – Hogan’s `̀ Survey of ethical attitudes’’ (Hogan, 1970, 1973). Further, he also stated that while Kohlberg’s (1976) cognitive moral development approach relies on the stage of moral development based on self-generated thoughts, the idealismrelativism approach takes advantage of completely different criteria – idealism in evaluating consequences, and moral relativism – when describing variations in moral thought (Forsyth, 1980). Therefore, an individual who displays postconventional moral reasoning as classified by Kohlberg could endorse any one of the philosophies characterized by any of the four combinations of idealism and relativism. Many ethics studies testify to the fact that idealism and relativism affect different aspects of ethical decision making. Forsyth (1992) proposed that idealism and relativism can influence business ethical decisions. Sparks and Hunt (1998) found that relativism was negatively related to ethical sensitivity of marketing research professionals where ethical sensitivity is the ability to recognize that a decision-making situation has ethical content. Singhapakdi et al. (1999) found that among marketing professionals idealism has a positive effect and relativism a negative effect on perceived moral intensity. In another related study, more idealistic and less relativistic marketers were found to perceive ethics and social responsibility to be more important than did their counterparts (Singhapakdi et al., 1995). Empirical research has also shown that European Journal of Marketing 36,7/8 772 more idealistic and less relativistic marketers tend to exhibit higher honesty and integrity than less idealistic and more relativistic marketers (Vitell et al., 1993). Further, the deontological norms of marketers are influenced positively by idealism and negatively by relativism (Vitell and Singhapakdi, 1993). In summary, there is extensive literature demonstrating that idealism and relativism influence ethical decision making. Theoretical foundation and hypotheses In this section, it is proposed that the variation in idealism and relativism of marketers is explained by country differences (including cultural differences and differences in economic and legal/political environment), corporate ethical values, and individual characteristics of gender and age. Figure 1 summarizes the proposed framework. Country differences Cultural differences. In this section, cultural differences among the three countries and their influence on idealism and relativism are described based upon Hofstede’s (1983) and Hofstede and Bond’s (1988) five dimensions of culture. Hofstede’s typology is relevant for our study because it captures culture along five different dimensions, and has been widely used in studying marketing and managerial issues, and specifically ethical decision making (e.g. Vitell et al., 1993; Singhapakdi et al., 1994). Individualism/collectivism. Individualism implies: A loosely knit social framework in which people are supposed to take care of themselves and of their immediate families only; while collectivism is characterized by a tight social framework in which people distinguish between in-groups and out-groups; they expect their in-group (relatives, clan, organizations) to look after them, and in exchange for that they feel absolute loyalty to it (Hofstede, 1980, p. 45). In other words, individualism indicates the extent of non-dependence on the organization. Marketers in collectivistic countries (such as Malaysia) would be expected to be more loyal to their organizations because of greater dependence, and therefore concerned for their organization’s wellbeing when making decisions. Idealistic individuals assume that desirable consequences can, with the right action, always be obtained, feel that harming others is always avoidable, and would rather not choose between the lesser of two evils that will lead to negative consequences for other people (Forsyth, 1992). In other words, in trying to make the right decisions, idealistic individuals are likely to look after the welfare of others and society in general, and consequently, marketers from individualistic countries are likely to be less idealistic than those from collectivistic countries. Alternatively, collectivistic managers, in order to protect the organization, might be tempted to act in ways that will harm others, thus influencing idealism negatively. In other words, individualism could impact idealism in both directions. Philosophies of marketing managers