Perceived risk, moral philosophy and marketing ethics: mediating influences on sales managers' ethical decision-making

Ethical Judgments: What Do We Know, Where Do We Go?

“…Nomenclature issues also return to the forefront here, as "magnitude of organizational effect" was called "attitude" by Cherry (2006), "consequential evaluations" by Cherry and Fraedrich (2002) and "teleological evaluations" by and Chan, Wong, and Leung (2008). The "teological evaluations" of Rallapalli, Vitell, and Barnes (1998, p. 161) asked respondents to evaluate provided alternatives simply in terms of how "good" or "bad" they were, and thus seems more closely to resemble ethical judgments.…”

“…One salient difference across 13 different versions of vignettes presented to each respondent was the monetary magnitude of consequences, and the greater the consequences, the more unethical activities were seen to be (Tsalikis et al, 2001, p. 241;Tsalikis, Seaton, and Tomaras, 2002, p. 289). Cherry and Fraedrich (2002) created multiple versions of a bribery vignette that differed in the degree of personal risk associated with the bribery, which was viewed as more ethically inappropriate in the high-risk situation. Shafer (2002), however, determined that ethical judgments did not differ based on either the amount of the fraud or the level of risk involved.…”

Dilemmas, Conspiracies, and Sophie’s Choice: Vignette Themes and Ethical Judgments

“…Without explanation or even acknowledgement, many vignette details differed across studies. Some examples are: 1) the presence or absence of severe time constraints, highly salient in Cherry (2006) but not mentioned in Barnett et al (1998); 2) the specific amount of the bribe, not provided in Cherry and Fraedrich (2002) but appearing in Barnett et al (1998; that is, half a million dollars); 3) the expected benefit to Rollfast from bribery, whether not mentioned (Cherry, 2006), five million dollars (Barnett et al, 1998), or five dollars (Barnett et al, 1994, p. 478, Vignette 8; likely a typographical error); and 4) precisely whose money was being spent, that is, the company's money or the employee's own money (Cherry, Lee, and Chien, 2003, p. 373).…”

“…On the surface, the case seems to describe a conspiracy. However, the identity of the vignette protagonist, whether company president (Barnett et al, 1994(Barnett et al, , 1998 or an employee with an unspecified job title but who seems not to be a member of senior management (Cherry, 2006;Cherry and Fraedrich, 2002;Cherry et al, 2003), may matter greatly to the ethical judgments that emerge because this detail blurs the line between Conspiracy and Dilemma themes. A protagonist who was "merely" an employee may feel compelled to pay the bribe money simply given the existence of a superior who likely would react favorably to increased profits and Vignette Themes (Revised) 19 who might dismiss an employee who passed up an opportunity for these.…”

Moral Philosophies Underlying Ethical Judgments

“…Several studies have been carried out to investigate the influence of deontology on ethical judgments indicating a significant relationship (Donoho et al, 2009;Cherry & Fraedrich, 2007;Marta, 2004). When faced with ethical dilemmas, individuals who use deontology is expected to be more likely to form ethical judgments.…”