Business Commons^™

Legal And Ethical Implications Of Corporate Social Networks, Gundars Kaupins, Susan Park

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Corporate social networking sites provide employees and employers with considerable opportunity to share information and become friends. Unfortunately, American laws do not directly address social networking site usage. The National Labor Relations Act, civil rights laws, and various common law doctrines such as employment at-will and defamation provide the pattern for future social networking laws. Ethical considerations such as productivity, security, goodwill, privacy, accuracy, and discipline fairness also affect future laws. Corporate policies on corporate social networking should balance the employer‘s and employee‘s interests. Existing laws and ethical issues associated with social networking should impact social networking policies related to …

The Ethics Of Technology, David J. Cherrington

Faculty Publications

Earlier today, I used my credit card to pay for a purchase. As I handed my card to the merchant, he asked if I had used my card to purchase gas recently. When I said yes, he warned me that I should never do it again. He explained that technology experts have developed something that fits inside the credit card reader and copies your credit card information. Another customer overhearing our conversation nodded in agreement. The merchant acknowledged that carrying cash to make gas purchases was much less convenient, but he cautioned me that I should never again use a …

Identifying Potential Student Blood Donors By Personality Traits, Harold Ogden, Brian Mascarenhas, Milen Minchev, Emilie Pelletier, Ryan Slanley

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

A convenience sample of 149 university students was surveyed on their attitudes and behaviors toward blood donation and with a scale of twenty four personality trait items. These items reduced to a seven- factor structure. The data were divided into two groups of high and low-likelihood of blood donation which were compared on factor means. Differences were seen on the “Concern for Others” and the “Down to Earth” factors although not all items in a factor were different and differences were seen in some non- significant factors. Applications of these finding are suggested.

College Students' Choice Criteria Of Retail Banks, Charles Blankson, Trang Phuc Tran

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

The purpose of this research is to develop a scale identifying American college students’ choice criteria of retail banks. It is an exploratory study that complements extant studies on retail bank selection. The reliability of the scale was assessed using exploratory factor analysis and serves as a prelude to further empirical validation analysis. The results present four distinct factors important in the selection of retail banks, namely, "convenience", "competence”, “recommendation by parents" and "free banking - no bank charges". It concludes by discussing managerial contributions, limitations and future research directions.

The Role Of Cognitive Dissonance In A Service Setting, Young (Sally) K. Kim

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

While numerous studies used the theory of cognitive dissonance to explain consumer behavior, there is no study as of today that applied the theory to the service industry to investigate the role of cognitive dissonance in influencing important marketing-related variables such as perceived value and trust. This study examines the relationship between cognitive dissonance and relationship variables (trust and value) and proposes a model to understand how consumers process information facing a negative word-of-mouth message that is incongruent with their existing belief and how cognitive dissonance affects their behaviors. The proposed model is tested using data collected via mail survey …

Effectiveness Of Price Bundling In An Entertainment Setting, Raj Arora, Charles R. Stoner

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

This study examined the effectiveness of price bundling and whether that effectiveness varied by the discount format utilized. Exploring a movie-dining bundle in the entertainment setting, the study revealed that the bundle was preferred over individual item purchases. Mixed results were noted for the format preferences, and these are addressed in the discussion.

Organizational Ethics: The Ethical Beliefs Of Marketing Managers In Trinidad And Tobago, Mohammed Y. A. Rawwas

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

As a result of the recent corporate scandals involving Bernard Madoff, AIG, Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Health- South, Martha Stewart, and the Wall Street analysts and the accounting firms (such as Arthur Andersen) that supported them, a growing concern has emerged about the quality of today's marketing managers' ethical beliefs. Epistemologists contend that belief is an ethical process that is susceptible to the intellectual virtue or vice of one's own life and personal experiences. Open-mindedness, curiosity, careful thinking, creativity, and intellectual courage are the foundations of epistemic virtues. Closed-mindedness, intellectual overconfidence, intellectual conformity, and wishful thinking are among epistemic vices. The …

Ethics In Retail Buying And Sales: Perceptions Of Future Retail Personnel, David J. Burns

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

Unlike many other industries, collegiately educated individuals pursuing a career in retailing often find themselves involved in both buying and selling activities and/or interacting with those who do during their careers. As a result, policies enacted by a retailer which affects one of these two environments will likely affect the other. Perceptions of potentially ethically troublesome situations and practices in buying were found to be strongly related to perceptions of potentially ethically troublesome situations and practices in selling. The only exceptions concern socialization between retail salespeople and their peers and/or management, and whether vendors service small accounts. It appears that …

Projecting Integrity: Online Branding For Nonprofits, Lisa Witzig, Perry Haan

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

Internet usage has grown precipitously in the last decade, and the implications for marketing are deep and profound for nonprofit organizations. Web sites and online social networking are becoming increasingly important for nonprofits, and the concept of brand personality is another powerful marketing technique that enhances these organizations’ marketing strategies. This study examined the intersection of online branding, brand personalities, and nonprofit organizations, and assessed whether the presence of online branding techniques at a nonprofit’s Web site is associated with a donor’s perception of the nonprofit’s personality. The results of the study demonstrated that online branding is significantly important for …

At The Intersection Of Politics & Consumption: A Review Of Ethical Shopping In America, Julie M. Pharr

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

This paper condenses the existing literature on ethical shopping in the United States with the goal of providing an up-to-date review of the topic. It profiles the ethical shopper and distinguishes the various institutions and instruments of political consumerism evident in the Fair Trade movement. It also provides recommendations for more rigorous study of moral consumer behavior and implications for implementing fair trade marketing strategies.

Are Nonprofits Choosing The Right Type Of Website, Dave Mcmahon, Samuel Seaman

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

The authors review the issues confronting nonprofit organizations and describe the types of websites to consider by size of the organization and focus of the organization. An analysis is done on an initial population of 609 organizations. The managerial implications address possible ways to optimize the use of resources for small and larger organizations.

The Influence Of Increasing Transaction Price To Facilitate Direct Charitable Contribution On Consumer Product Choice, Michael Levens

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

The study of embedding direct charitable contributions into a purchase transaction through increasing product price can enhance opportunities for charitable organizations to proactively approach companies with cause marketing proposals. Typically the case for cause marketing is built on goodwill and the potential for future revenue or profits for the partner company. If increasing product price to include a direct donation can be shown to possess consumer utility, business cases for cause marketing activities are enhanced for all parties involved. The basis for this research is the convergence between the concepts of cause marketing, individual giving, donation behavior, the shopping process …

Attitudes Towards Consumer Transgressions In The Marketplace, Sam Fullerton, Larry Neale

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

A sample of 815 adults drawn from the general American population provided their perception of the appropriateness of 12 questionable consumer actions in the marketplace. The scenarios investigated ranged from illegal actions such as inflating one’s losses when filing an insurance claim to actions that while not illegal, may raise questions of ethics. The 12 scenarios exhibited a wide range of mean responses on the six-point scale thereby supporting an often stated premise that consumer ethics is situational in nature. An array of commonly employed demographic questions was also included on the Internet-based survey, and differences of opinion were documented …

Prisoner Recidivism: A Question For Social Marketing, Joseph R. Stasio Jr.

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

Our society is today grappling with a myriad of social, political and economic problems in a time of greatly reduced and very costly resources. All of these problems are connected, in some way, with each other. It is the very nature of societies and this interconnectedness must be understood and appreciated, because, if left unheeded, the consequences can be quite dramatic.

With the advent of social marketing, society now has proven methods of effectively attacking these problems to create many types of desired social changes. Prisoner recidivism is just such a problem. It has intense social, political and economic ties …

Stakeholder Theory: The State Of The Art, Bidhan L. Parmar, R. Edward Freeman, Jeffrey S. Harrison, Et Al.

Management Faculty Publications

A variety of forces are changing the way managers and executives make sense of their responsibilities. Globalization has brought a larger variety of participants into contemporary businesses, technological innovation has increased the pace of change, and managers are discovering that their actions have the potential to affect a broader range of people all over the globe (Clement, 2005). Additionally, the pursuit of corporate objectives can be easily disrupted by the actions of unexpected groups. These challenges, driven by change and interconnectedness, reveal a need for managers and academics to re-think the traditional ways of conceptualizing the responsibilities of the firm. …