Moral Guidelines for Marketing Good Corporate Conduct Online

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is highly valuable for transnational corporations, but entails special requirements of heightened honesty in the marketing of CSR as compared to other goods and services. Companies need help in finding appropriate venues for advertising CSR. The Internet is an ideal medium for advertising CSR because it affords a global reach and greater space than the confines of standard advertising venues. However, using the Internet also poses special challenges in terms of perceived epistemic criteria for truth in a company’s online presence. This chapter highlights both the problems and benefits of marketing good corporate conduct online and provides moral guidelines for marketers of good corporate conduct.

The Pragmatic and Ethical Barriers to Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: The Nike Case

“…Stoll (2002) clarifies this issue, writing that the ethics of marketing good corporate conduct have much higher expectations than what we find morally permissible in marketing products. Typical product marketing often employs creative license and exaggerated claims to create desire in potential customers for goods and services.…”

“…Stoll (2002) suggests that the reporting of good corporate conduct should coincide with openness to external financial audits, which help ensure a more complete record of company activity and provide third party credibility to the assertions. Additionally, much research has been conducted regarding the morality and effects of corporate codes of ethics, a common way companies express social responsibility intentions.…”

“…Promoting good conduct solely for profit is unacceptable because it exploits something of much higher value, right conduct, to promote something of lower value, money. Furthermore, if good conduct is deceptively advertised, the situation would be doubly repugnant because the company would deceive consumers with pretensions of responsible conduct to repair a reputation damaged by prior misdeeds (Stoll, 2002).…”

“…Although these persuasive tactics rely more on imagery than information leading customers to logical decisions, one might argue that some mild deception in product marketing is relatively harmless when our society acknowledges the use of puffery. Stoll (2002) argues, however, that the marketing of favorable corporate conduct must be held to a…”

A Preliminary Investigation into the Role of Positive Psychology in Consumer Sensitivity to Corporate Social Performance

“…While no studies have demonstrated a direct link between these consumer-oriented values and positive psychological dispositions, a considerable body of work establishes links between positive psychological domains such as spirituality (Cavanagh and Bandsuch, 2002;Epstein, 2002;Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2003;Jackson, 1999;Jurkiewicz and Giacalone, 2004), corporate character (Stoll, 2002), and minimizing self-interest (Carson, 2003) with business ethics. Nonetheless, there are strong theoretical reasons why positive psychology should be linked to CSCSP.…”