Theoretical models of marketing ethics propose that people first must perceive the presence of an ethical issue before the process of ethical decision making can begin. Through the concept of ethical sensitivity, the authors explore why some marketing researchers and not others recognize and ascribe importance to the ethical content in their decision situations. The authors examine two rival definitions of ethical sensitivity and develop a measurement procedure capable of discriminating between them. The procedure then is tested on two populations (marketing students and marketing research practitioners), and several determinants of ethical sensitivity are investigated. Results indicate that the two definitions of ethical sensitivity are empirically equivalent. Furthermore, results show that the ethical sensitivity of marketing researchers is a positive function of organizational socialization and perspective taking, but a negative function of relativism and formal training in ethics.

SummaryMultilevel marketing organizations (MLMs) are a rapidly growing organizational type enlisting nearly 10 million members and producing over 20 billion dollars in sales annually. Despite their remarkable recent growth, few studies have examined these unusual organizations, and none of these have addressed issues of transformational leadership. In MLMs, the key leadership relationships are those between individual member distributors and the members who recruited them into the organization (i.e., their`sponsors'). Although sponsors are expected to provide leadership to the members they recruit, they possess no direct supervisory resultingÐauthority in an uncertain`quasi-leadership' role. Using a sample of 736 female MLM members, the present study empirically tests an important explanatory component of transformational leadership theory: that belief in the higher purpose of one's work is a mechanism through which transformational leadership achieves its positive outcomes on cohesion, satisfaction, effort, and performance. The results offer support to the notion that transformational leadership indeed transforms' followers by encouraging them to see the higher purposes in their work. Additionally, the results show positive relationships between belief in a higher purpose of one's work and job satisfaction, unit cohesion, and effort.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 131.183.72.12 on Mon, Theoretical models of marketing ethics propose that people first must perceive the presence of an ethical issue before the process of ethical decision making can begin. Through the concept of ethical sensitivity, the authors explore why some marketing researchers and not others recognize and ascribe importance to the ethical content in their decision situations. The authors examine two rival definitions of ethical sensitivity and develop a measurement procedure capable of discriminating between them. The procedure then is tested on two populations (marketing students and marketing research practitioners), and several determinants of ethical sensitivity are investigated. Results indicate that the two definitions of ethical sensitivity are empirically equivalent. Furthermore, results show that the ethical sensitivity of marketing researchers is a positive function of organizational socialization and perspective taking, but a negative function of relativism and formal training in ethics. W hy do people make different ethical choices in similar ethical situations? That is, what factors account for the variance in ethical behavior? In marketing, empirical research has focused on the organizational factors that affect ethical decision making (Akaah1993; Ferrell and Skinner 1988; Hunt, Wood, and Chonko 1989), the process of judging research practices (Akaah and Riordan 1989; Singhapakdi and Vitell 1993), the impact of supervisory actions (Belizzi and Hite 1989; Hunt and Vasquez-Parraga 1993), the effect of Machiavellianism (Hunt and Chonko 1984; Sparks 1994), the influence of cognitive moral development (Castleberry, French, and Carlin 1993; Goolsby and Hunt 1992), the role of deontological norms (Mayo and Marks 1990; Singhapakdi and Vitell 1991), and the role of importance and moral intensity of ethical issues (Robin, Reidenbach, and Forrest 1996; Singhapakdi, Vitell, and Kraft 1996).No empirical research in marketing has focused on recognition, which, interestingly enough, is a factor that is shared by theories of ethical decision making in marketing Our study conceptualizes ethical sensitivity in marketing research and begins the process of studying it empirically. Drawing on Hunt and Vitell's (1992) theory of marketing ethics, we first examine two competing views of ethical sensitivity. We then (1) develop a procedure for measuring ethical sensitivity that is capable of discriminating empirically between the two views, (2) test the alternative measures in two populations (marketing research practitioners and students), and (3) explore several determinants of ethical sensitivity in marketing research. Background on Ethical Sensitivity...

ethical judgments, definition, research agenda,

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Powerless language involves the use of various linguistic markers (i.e., hedges, intensifiers, deictic phrases, overly polite language, tag questions, and verbal and nonverbal hesitations), which signify relatively low social status in a given communication context. Powerful language suggests higher social status and is characterized largely by the absence of these markers. The results of a laboratory experiment indicated that language power influenced attitudes toward a hypothetical new consumer electronics product, regardless of whether the communication was presented in print versus videotape. For both print and video modalities, speakers using powerful language were more persuasive than speakers using powerless language. However, powerless language had the additional effect of generating more thoughts about the speaker. These results are discussed in terms of the multiple roles postulate of the elaboration-likelihood mode. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.The idea that language reflects social power is a not a new one. Over three decades ago Lakoff (1975) explored language and gender, and proposed that certain patterns of speech constituted a "female register," which was associated with low social power. Subsequent research on language and social power examined how particular language markers convey the impression of speaker social power, and the subsequent effects