Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility Flashcards
What is the primary dilemma that businesses face when it comes to Ethics & CSR?
How to balance shareholder interests with the needs of society
- Businesses cannot just focus solely on profit anymore
What is the main risk that businesses face from solely focusing on profit and not acting responsibly?
In the long term, if customers believe that they can’t trust a company, or that the company is not acting responsibly, they will no longer support it by purchasing its products or investing in it
Define Business Ethics
Business ethics is concerned with distinguishing between right and wrong actions and decisions that might arise in a business setting.
Define Marketing Ethics
Examines ethical situations that are specific to the domain of marketing, including societal, global, or individual consumer issues.
For instance, marketing shoddy products to society, or manipulating children in advertisments
What is the public perception of marketers and why is this important?
Surveys show that the majority of people see marketers as less favourable professions (in line with telemarketers and car salesmen)
Given that they interact directly eith the public, it is important that marketers maintain high ethical standards
What is true about Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility?
List 3 characteristics of E&CSR within a firm…
Everyone within the firm must share the same understanding of their values
The firm must develop a set of explicit rules that govern all the firm’s decisions
Top management must commit to establishing an ethical climate
To avoid unethical business practices, the short term goals of employees must be aligned with the…
long term goals of the firm
What are the 3 factors that funnel into understanding ethical behaviour
Business culture and industry practices
Corporate culture and expectations
Societal culture and norms
What is the most difficult zone of marketing to make decisions on?
Unethical decisions that are legal
Examples: Cigarettes, skin-lightening products, planned obsolescence
What are examples of Ethical Issues in pricing?
Bait and switch, predatory pricing, price discrimination, sales on artificially high priced products and price fixing
Define Corporate Social Responsibility
doing well by doing good
Succeeding financially while giving back to society:
Cheerios’ Bring Back the Bees campaign raised awareness for the declining bee population and boosted their sales
Define Social Marketing
The systematic application of marketing and other concepts or techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals for a social good
Benefits to society and others are primary
- Non profits, and government organizations
Consumerism - what is it?
a social movement that protects consumers from business practices that infringe upon their rights
Consumers increasingly seek to purchase products from companies with strong CSR practices in place
True or False - When one company in an industry leads the way toward CSR, other competitors have no choice but to follow, or run the risk of being left behind
True
What is the ethical climate of a firm
The set of values within a marketing firm, or in the marketing division of any firm, that guides decision making and behaviour
