Ethics in marketing research argumentative essays example

Introduction

There are various aspects that revolve around the ethic in marketing research, they offer detailed aspects on the various entities and the approaches revolving around a specific aspect. The marketing ethics normally address the various principles and the standards which defines the acceptable conduct in the market place. The various notions under this perspective occur under marketing context that normally occurs within an organizational. The unethical activities normally developed in the marketing due to pressure to meet the set organizational performance objectives (Ferrell, 2008). The most obvious ethical issues in the marketing field involve clear cut attempts to deceive or take advantage of the situation. The pressure from the management and other stakeholders on the employees to meet specific organizational objective can be attached to some of the reasons why some of the managers indulge themselves in unethical activities. Ethics in marketing requires a detailed approach by an organization in order to offer a clear insight on the various significant aspects that the employees should follow. There are various conceptual aspects that revolve around the respective aspects in relation to the ethics in marketing research; these aspects normally define the relationship and the effective approaches that the organization should set. According to various researchers, every organization aims at understanding and developing the most effective approaches on how to manage marketing ethics.
The study offers a detailed conceptual framework where the respective concepts and theories revolving around marketing research are analyzed. The study achieves this, through incorporating and encompassing the respective literature exploring the various variables under the study. The study further seeks to offer a detailed theoretical approach where the significance of the ethics in marketing research is explored. The study seeks to explore questions such as; what are the major ethical problems of marketing researchers? What is the significance of upholding ethics in marketing research? These questions among others will facilitate developing an argumentative analogy in relation to the study.

Literature review

Under this approach, an insight of the relevant literature are reviewed, this is aimed at ensuring that the study develops a clear conceptual framework in relation to the stipulated aspects. The essence of the literature review is diverse ranging from the vast entities attached to availing the study with a more dynamic and significant approaches in relation to ethics in the field of marketing. One of the significant aspects under the literature review is on the need to analyse the various significant aspects on why organizations need to develop or device schemes to ensure ethical approaches or strategies within the organization. According to (Pride, 2008), organizations are facing significant threats from ethical misconduct and illegal behavior from employees and managers on daily operations of the business or the organization. Researchers emphasize that well meaning marketers often develop schemes or strategies which normally appear ethical though they are ethically flawed. These normally yield in scandals and legal entanglements leading to loss of the organizational reputation hence losses of the organizational assets. According to (Bell, 2007), the dynamism in the market environment is facilitating some of the unethical activities that some of the employees and the managers are indulging themselves.
Researchers recommend the need to develop approaches that identifies the potential risks and also uncovers the existence of the activities or the events which normally relate to the misconducts. The most intriguing aspects about notion ethics in marketing, normally revolve around the sensitivity in some of the activities that the researchers may identify which based on their normal perception may be within their ethical aspects though in relation to the organizational and societal aspects it may not be entirely ethical. Such instances as analysed in the preceding sections tends to limit and question the extent or the boundaries under which these employees should indulge themselves. The analogy presented in the previous analysis indicated the fact that most of the employees normally indulge themselves in unethical misconducts based on the pressure from the organization towards achieving the set objectives. The notion presented under the stated concept depict that not all employees who indulge themselves to unethical issues due to greed and need to achieve their personal objectives but some of the reasons are based on the workplace pressure where the set objectives forces the employees to indulge in such activities. However, the most intriguing analogy lies under the stated concept where presumptions such as what to do with employees who have indulged in the unethical activities due to the pressure from the organization occur. Analogy on this aspect questions on who should take the blame is it an organization or the individual employee? Such as analogy can be attached to the various theories that seek to elaborate on the objectives or the goals set by the organization and how they should subject them to the employees. These theories guide the organization towards limiting the excess pressure on the employees towards achieving the set objectives. They also stipulate the policies, standards, and the guidelines under which the employees should follow or consider while executing some of the activities within their respective duties.
The most unethical activities normally include; overbilling clients, deceptive sales methods, various fraud activities, antitrust, and price fixing. These are some of the marketing ethics risks under which the employees indulge themselves towards within their daily activities within the organization. According to researchers, most of these unethical activities occurs due to the lack of a plan and infrastructural strategy which can be used to determine the occurrences and hence deal with them as soon as possible instead of covering them up, ignoring, and assuming that no one will ever discover the legal lapses and the ethical aspects. According to (Bryman, 2007), there is need to; discover, disclose, explore and develop strategic approaches that facilitate resolving of the misconducts as fast as they occurs. However, thought the stated approach sounds applicable and more rewarding to the organization, the organizational culture is not incorporated. The organizational culture mainly defines the specific aspects on how the organization deals with such instances. This indicates the possibility of the organizational culture established defining the success and the ability to embrace the stipulated notions. This is can be attached to the ways or approaches that the organization has enacted to deal with employees who have been discovered indulging in unethical activities. The way an organization handles the individuals who disclose and reports the activity plus how it deals with the employees who have been discovered to be involved in such activities can define the ability of the organization to eliminate the unethical activities by the employees in the workplace.
The essence of disclosing, averting and effectively dealing with events on marketing misconducts are essential towards achieving competitive advantage within the highly competitive environments. Lack of ethics in marketing research where the researchers fails to record the facts on the reality on the market or the industry can significantly cause losses to the organization. This is based on the fact that the organization is doomed to invest in an environment where they have little factual information on the trends. The organization develops strategies on market entrance through ineffective and inefficient information facilitated by unethical research. The consumers may be availed with products and services which they disregard damaging the organizational reputation while leading to hefty losses. The competitors may take the advantage of such occurrences to develop more strategic approaches acquiring more market share.
The ethical issues are normally attached to the legal systems. This may yield a negative publicity which can be associated with events which may hurt the reputation of the company more than the legal penalties that the organization may be imposed on by the regulatory bodies. These legal issues have a painful friendly civil litigation which can greatly damage the reputation and draw the need for intense scrutiny to a company.

Analysis

The stipulated aspects offer a clear insight on the entities that revolve around ethics in marketing research. They provide systematic factors attached to the ethics and how the organization can avert the costly experience faced when the employees indulge themselves in unethical activities, in marketing research. The major ethical problems as normally as depicted in a detailed analysis above limit the effectiveness and the efficiency in service delivery by the employees. Organizations are advised to develop approaches aimed at ensuring that they disclose and handle such occurrences before they spread (Sekaran, 2003). This can be achieved through encouraging employees to report such instances and avoid ignorance.
Organizations should encourage maintaining research integrity though it is one of the most difficult ethical issue of marketing research. The marketing researchers should have a clear description on their roles and how significant it is towards organizational growth. The dynamism in the market trends, industry, and pressure on the organization towards achieving the set objectives are some of the factors that lead to employees’ indulging in unethical issues (Sekaran, 2003). Outlining the major causes of such activities and developing reasons to avert consequences can greatly aid the organization towards damaging the reputation.

Conclusion

Maintaining research integrity calls for every stakeholder to incorporate efforts. The essence of developing an effective research team founded under integrity can enable the organization explore more market opportunities hence expansion through successful marketing entrance strategies. Though there are various intriguing aspects which revolve around ethics in marketing research, the benefits towards the organization and employee’s welfare is diverse. The conflicts which exist between the in house researchers which are mainly balancing the interests of the self against the interest parties, and balancing the interests of the company against the interests of other parties requires more closer attention by the involved stakeholders. The notion that the marketing researchers to believe that the unethical activities can attribute to success if marketing can be attached to one of the factors that facilitates such instances. This calls for the need to depict on these researchers the level of damage attached to such ignorance. The organizations need to develop either industry codes or corporate ethics and relate them to marketing research ethics to avert the various attached implications on unethical misconducts.

References

Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2007), Business Research Methods, 2nd edn., (London, Oxford University Press), chapter 5.
Erikson, K. T. (1967), A Comment on Disguised Observation in sociology, Social Problems, 14, 366-373.
Holliday, R. (1995), Investigating Small Firms: Nice Work? (London: Routledge)
Lee, C. K. (1998), Gender and the South China Miracle: Two Worlds of Factory Women (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press)
Pride, W. and Ferrell, O. C. (2008), Marketing, 14th edn. (New York, Houghton Mifflin Co.), Chapter 4.
Sekaran, U. (2003), Research Methods For Business: A Skill Building Approach, 4th edn., (New York: Wiley), chapter 10.
Zikmund, W. G. (2003), Business Research Methods, 7th edn, (Ohio-USA, Thomson, South Western), chapter 5.