CH-8 Ethics and Marketing – Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility : Chapter Notes

Chapter 8: Ethics and Marketing Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to: 1. Apply an ethical framework to marketing issues. 2. Describe the three key concerns of ethical analysis of marketing issues. 3. Describe three interpretations of responsibility and apply them to the topic of product safety. 4. Explain contractual standards for establishing business’ responsibilities for safe products. 5. Articulate the tort standards for establishing business’ responsibilities for safe products. 6. Analyze the ethical arguments for and against strict product liability. 7. Discuss how to evaluate both ethical and unethical means by which to influence people through advertising. 8. Explain the ethical justification for advertising. 9. Trace debates about advertising’s influence on consumer autonomy. 10. Distinguish ethical from unethical target marketing, using marketing to vulnerable populations as an example. 11. Discuss business’ responsibilities for the activities of its supply chain. 12. Explain how marketing can contribute toward a more sustainable business model. Opening Decision Point Marketing Pharmaceuticals Pharmaceuticals provide an effective entry into many of the most important ethical issues of marketing. Because all drugs, but especially prescription drugs, involve health risks, marketing pharmaceuticals raise questions of safety and liability for harms caused by products. Warnings of side-effects, often provided in small print or barely perceptible quickly-spoken side-bars, raise questions of deception. Some marketing practices involving physicians and other health care providers have raised questions of bribery and manipulation. Television or magazine advertisements, called “direct to consumer” (DTC) advertising, has raised important questions of consumer autonomy and exploiting vulnerable populations. Consider the following aspects of pharmaceutical marketing that might give rise to ethical touch points. According to an AdAge whitepaper, pharmaceutical companies spent $4.3 billion in 2010 on advertising prescription drugs in the United States, an amount slightly lower than the previous year. And that’s just for traditional advertising. SK&A, a health care sales and marketing firm, reported that an estimated $29 billion was spent in 2011 on pharmaceutical marketing as a whole. Advertisements promoting prescription drugs have increased significantly within the United States since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) changed regulations in 1997 to allow DTC advertising. The most widely marketed drugs have been: Lipitor, Zocor, Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, Celebrex, Vioxx, Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac, Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, Propecia, and Zyban. These drug names, literally household names today, were unheard of before the turn of the century; yet, together, they accounted for over $21 billion in sales in 2002. The medications here treat the following conditions: ulcers and acid-reflux (Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium), high cholesterol (Lipitor, Zocor), arthritis pain (Celebrex, Vioxx), depression, panic attacks, and anxiety (Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac), “erectile dysfunction” (Viagra, Cialis, Levitra), hair loss (Propecia) ,and cigarette and nicotine withdrawal (Zyban). Ads for these drugs often appeal to such emotional considerations as embarrassment; fear; shame; social, sexual, and romantic inferiority; helplessness; vulnerability; and vanity. Many of these drugs are heavily advertised in women’s magazines or during televised sporting events. By definition, the consumers of prescription drugs have significant medical needs and, in some cases, they face life-threatening illnesses. This fact suggests that such consumers who are the targets for prescription drug advertising are vulnerable to exploitation by those who control access to drugs that promise help. The Boston Globe reported one controversial attempt to market pharmaceuticals in 2002 when sales representatives for TAP Pharmaceuticals, makers of Lupron Depot, an analgesic for treating pain associated with prostate cancer, were instructed to attend meetings of a prostate cancer support group to promote the drug directly to cancer patients. While pharmaceutical companies often provide support groups with financial assistance and informational materials, many critics believed that this action crossed the line of acceptable marketing by directly targeting a population of vulnerable people. (See question number 8 at the end of this chapter for additional activities in connection with marketing this medication). Of course, consumers can only obtain prescription drugs legally by first obtaining a prescription from a licensed health care provider. As a result, physicians are a major target for marketing pharmaceuticals; and the sales representatives who work for pharmaceutical companies spend significant time and money trying to persuade physicians to prescribe their company’s drugs. In the most egregious cases, marketing to doctors has included barely disguised instances of bribery in which physicians are paid fees as consultants and receive expensive gifts. But, most marketing to physicians has been more subtle, though no less effective. Small gifts of pens, pads, coffee mugs, mouse pads, calendars branded with the company or drug logo have been common gifts, as have free meals, paid travel to conferences, and various entertainment activities. Most importantly, pharmaceutical companies distribute large quantities of free drug samples to physicians. Pharmaceutical companies have always argues that these activities are part of an ongoing effort to educate and inform health care professionals about their drugs. Critics claim that they are attempts to unduly influence and manipulate physicians into writing more prescriptions. In an effort to respond to such criticisms, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) revised its code of conduct to tighten rules for how sales reps can interact with health care providers. The revised rules went into effect in January 2009 and they prohibit distribution of non-educational items such as pens, mugs and other “reminder” objects to health providers and their staff because such gifts “may foster misperceptions that company interactions with health care professionals are not based on informing them about medical and scientific issues.” The new code also prohibits providing “restaurant meals” to health care providers, but they allow providing occasional meals in the doctor’s office if they are part of an educational or informational presentation. Critics argue that the gifts themselves are not crucial factors in making this practice ethically suspect. Rather, the access to physicians and the personal relationships between sales reps and doctors are the more important factors. Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that sales reps regularly provide doctors with free samples of their prescription drugs, an easy and no-cost means for physicians to introduce their patients to specific drugs. In an effort to control access of the sales reps to physicians and avoid such conflicts of interest, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center instituted a ban in April 2009 on direct delivery by sales reps of drug samples to doctors’ offices in all of its 20 hospitals. The Medical Center had previously banned their physicians from accepting any gifts and meals from pharmaceutical company sales reps, but extended this policy to avoid actual or perceived conflicts of interest. Doctors can still request samples, and sales reps can provide them; but the transaction now occurs through a computerized system that prevents direct personal contact. “There is concern that personal relationships can influence decision making,” Dr. Barbara Barnes, the associate chancellor of the University of Pittsburg said when announcing the new policy. Students should consider the following questions when assessing this scenario: • What facts would you want to know before making a judgment on the ethical appropriateness of direct to consumer advertising of drugs? • What ethical issues are involved in marketing prescription drugs? • To what degree, if any, should drug manufacturers be held responsible for the side-effects caused by the drugs they sell? • Who are the stakeholders involved in direct to consumer advertising? • What are the costs and benefits of marketing prescription drugs directly to physicians? • What rights or duties might be involved when discussing issues relating to this subject area? • Are voluntary codes of conduct created by an industry group effective means for establishing and enforcing ethical guidelines? I. Introduction a. Definition of Marketing: Some believe that the very purpose of business is found within the marketing function. i. Marketing scholar, Theodore Levitt, explains the purpose of business as follows: “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer. To do that, you have to produce and deliver goods and services that people want and value at prices and under conditions that are reasonably attractive relative to those offered by others.” ii. The American Marketing Association defines marketing in a way that also suggests that it is at the heart of business activity, stating: “an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.” iii. The concept of an exchange between a seller and a buyer is central to the market economy and is the core idea behind marketing. 1. Marketing involves all aspects of creating a product or service and bringing it to market where an exchange can take place. 2. Marketing ethics, therefore, examines the responsibilities associated with bringing a product to the market, promoting it to buyers, and exchanging it with them. iv. Considerations: 1. Even before a product is created, a producer might first consider who, if anyone, is interested in purchasing it. 2. The product might then be redesigned or changed in light of what is learned about potential buyers from market research. 3. Once the product is ready for market, the producer mist decided on a price that will be mutually acceptable. 4. The asking price should, at minimum, be the production cost plus some reasonable profit. 5. However, the producer might consider who the buyers are and what they can afford, how much price might influence future purchases, how the price might affect distributors and retailers, and what competitors are charging before settling on a price. 6. The producer might also consider advertising the product to attract new potential purchasers and promote the product among buyers. 7. Lost production that results from the trip to the market should also be considered. 8. Producers might be more concerned with cash flow than profit and therefore may be willing to ask a price that is below production costs. The might also consider where and under what conditions the product is sold. 9. Throughout this entire process, the producer might conduct market research to gather information and use that information in production, pricing, promotion and placement decisions. b. The “Four Ps” of Marketing: All of the factors considered and each decision made throughout this process are elements of marketing. The four main elements to consider when marketing to consumers are: product, price, promotion, and placement. i. Each of the Four Ps raises important ethical questions: 1. Product: What responsibilities do producers have for the quality and safety of their products? Who is responsible for harms caused by a product? Are there some products that should not be produced, or does consumer demand decide all production questions? 2. Price: Is the consumer’s willingness to pay the only ethical constraint on fair pricing? Should the ability to pay be a factor in setting price? Do all customers deserve the same price, or can producers discriminate in favor of, or against, some consumers? What effects will price have on competitors? On retailers? 3. Promotion: Are deceptive or misleading ads ethical? What ethical constraints should be placed on sales promotions? 4. Placement: Is the information gathered in market research the property of the business that conducts the research? What privacy protections should be offered for marketing data? Is it ethical to target vulnerable populations such as children or the elderly? What responsibilities does a producer have when marketing in foreign countries? What responsibilities do producers have to retailers? To competitors? To suppliers? II. Marketing: An Ethical Framework *Chapter Objective 1 Addressed Below* a. Ethical Framework: The simple model of a single exchange between two individuals is a useful way to introduce an ethical framework for marketing ethics. This framework will assist the decision maker in arriving at an ethical decision, but will not point to the “correct” decision because it merely identifies rights, responsibilities, duties and obligations, causes and consequences. *Reference: Table 8.1 – Ethical Issues in Marketing: A Framework* i. This simple situation in which two parties come together and freely agree to an exchange is prima facie ethically legitimate. ii. The rights-based ethical tradition (described in Chapter 3) would see it as upholding respect for individuals by treating them as autonomous agents capable of pursuing their own ends. 1. This tradition presumes that each individual will abide by fundamental principles. 2. The utilitarian ethical tradition would take the two parties’ agreement as evidence that both are better off then they were prior to the exchange and thus conclude that overall happiness has been increased by any exchange freely entered into. iii. This assessment is only prima facie because, like all agreements, certain conditions must be met before we can conclude that autonomy has, in fact, been respected and mutual benefit has been achieved. 1. We would need to establish that the agreement resulted from an informed and voluntary consent, and that there was no fraud, deception, or coercion involved. 2. When these conditions are violated, autonomy is not respected, and mutual benefit is not attained. 3. Even when such conditions are met, other values may override the freedom of individuals to contract for mutually beneficial purposes. a. For example, the freedom of drug dealers to pursue mutually agreeable ends is overridden by society’s concern to maintain law and order. *Chapter Objective 2 Addressed Below* b. It will be helpful to keep three main concerns in mind as we approach any ethical issue in marketing: i. The rights-based ethical tradition would ask to what degree the participants are respected as free and autonomous agents rather than treated simply as means to the end of making a sale. ii. The utilitarian tradition would want to know the degree to which the transaction provided actual as opposed to merely apparent benefits. iii. Every ethical tradition would also wonder what other values might be at stake in the transaction. iv. Overall, the three issues to consider are: 1) the degree to which individuals freely participate in an exchange; 2) the benefits and costs of each exchange; 3) other values that are affected by the exchange. c. Respect in Marketing: It is not always easy to determine if someone is being treated with respect in marketing situations. i. One condition of respect is that the person must freely consent to the transaction. 1. Transactions under the threat of force are not voluntary and therefore are unethical. But, there are many degrees of voluntariness. 2. For example, the more consumers need a product, the less free they are to choose and therefore the more protection they deserve within the marketplace. 3. Example: The majority of computer users do not even choose the Windows operating system, it is their only option. 4. More dramatic examples of price gouging, price-fixing, and monopolistic pricing clearly raise the issue of freedom in marketing. ii. Practices aimed at vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly also raise questions of voluntariness. iii. An adequate analysis of marketing ethics challenges us to be sensitive to many ways in which consumer choice can be less than fully voluntary. *Reference: “Reality Check - Impulse Buying”* ** Teaching Note: A key question to ask, and against which to challenge the above theories, is what responsibility do we have for the impact of our communications, as individuals and as corporations or other institutions of society? Is there any difference? Instructors may wish to ask students to take a look at a few of the key issues relating to responsibility and its sources in order to explore the possible answer. Faculty might ask students to consider, as well, how the moral theories they have explored would resolve this challenge. Faculty could use the movie “Thank you for Smoking” (http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/thankyouforsmoking/trailer/) or advertisements/communications at www.afterthesemessages.com. d. Informed Consent: A second condition for respect requires that consent be voluntary as well as informed. i. Informed consent has received a great deal of attention in the medical ethics literature because patients are at a distinct informational disadvantage when dealing with healthcare professionals. 1. Outright deception and fraud clearly violate this condition and are unethical. 2. A consumer’s consent to purchase a product is not informed if that consumer is being misled or deceived about the product. ii. Serious ethical questions should be raised whenever marketing practices either deny consumers full information or rely on the fact that they lack relevant information or understanding. 1. The complexity of many consumer products and services can mean that consumers may not understand fully what they are purchasing. 2. While some businesses claim that “an informed consumer is our best customer,” many other companies view uninformed consumers as targets for quick profits. e. Alleged Benefits of Market Exchanges: i. Economists commonly assume that consumers benefit, almost by definition, whenever they make an exchange in the marketplace. However, many purchases do not result in actual benefit. 1. Example: Many marketing techniques that promote impulse buying and similar consumer behavior cannot be justified by appeal to satisfying consumer interests since these purchases can lead to over-spending and even bankruptcy. 2. Marketing may suggest that consumers can buy happiness, but the ever-increasing number of individual bankruptcies suggests that consumers cannot purchase happiness. 3. Studies provide evidence that greater consumption can actually lead to unhappiness, a condition that some call “affluenza.” *Reference: “Reality Check - Impulse Buying”* ii. Both parties to the marketing exchange are not benefited in situations in which one party is injured by the product. 1. Unsafe products do not further the utilitarian goal of maximizing overall happiness. 2. Consumers are not benefited if the desires that they seek to satisfy in the market are somehow contrived or manipulated by the seller. f. Other Values: An ethical analysis of marketing must consider values other than those served by the exchange itself. i. Primary social values such as fairness, justice, health, and safety are just some of the values that can be jeopardized by marketing practices. 1. Example: A bank that offers lower mortgage rates in affluent neighborhoods than it does in inner-city neighborhoods might be involved only in deals that are mutually beneficial since they do not, in fact, sell mortgages in the inner-city. Such contracts would violate the social norms of equal treatment and fairness. ii. Just because someone wants to buy something and someone is willing to sell it does not mean the transaction is ethically legitimate. 1. There is a market for children and organs and body parts and endangered species, but these are definitely not ethically legitimate markets. iii. An adequate ethical analysis of marketing must ask “who else might be affected by the transaction?” 1. How, if at all, are the interests of these others represented? 2. What social goods are promoted, and which are threatened, by marketing this product? iv. True costs: An adequate ethical analysis of marketing must consider externalities, those costs that are not integrated within the exchange between buyer and seller. 1. Externalities show that even if both parties to the exchange receive actual benefits from the exchange, other parties external to the exchange might be adversely affected. 2. Example: Consider the environmental or health impact of marketing products such as SUVs, pesticides, and tobacco. ** Teaching Note: Again, if we are to consider the obligation that a marketing professional might owe to society, perhaps we should first determine the nature of that responsibility and then we can begin to judge. • Are marketing professionals obligated to contribute to society (or even/at least consider it)? • What does it mean for their work (ads, other communications) to be “effective?” • To what standards do you hold them? • To what standards do you hold us? o i.e. let the “perceiver” beware with regard to deception (later discussion) III. Responsibility for Products: Safety and Liability *Chapter Objective 3 Addressed Below* a. Ethical Responsibility for Products and Services: Business has an ethical responsibility to design, manufacture, and promote its products in ways that avoid causing harm to consumers. i. Responsibility has several meanings: 1. In one sense, responsibility is to be identified as the cause of something. 2. In another sense, responsibility involves accountability. 3. A third sense involves assigning fault or liability for something. ii. Example: Hurricane Sandy was responsible for (caused) the damage in New York, but cannot be held responsible (accountable for paying for the damages), nor can it be faulted for it. 1. In other situations, such as an automobile crash, a careless driver would be identified as the cause of the accident and held accountable because he/she was at fault. *Reference: “Reality Check - The ‘Cause’ of Obesity, Free Choice and Marketing to Children”* iii. Both law and ethics rely on a similar framework when evaluating cases in which business products or services cause harm in the marketplace. iv. The focus for much of the discussion of business’s responsibility for product safety is on assigning liability (fault) for harms caused by unsafe products. v. The legal doctrine of strict liability is ethically controversial exactly because it holds a business accountable for paying damages whether or not it was at fault. 1. In a strict liability cases, no matter how careful the business is in its product or service, if harm results from use, the business is liable. b. Contractual Standards for Product Safety *Chapter Objective 4 Addressed Below* i. Caveat Emptor Approach: The standard of caveat emptor, or “let the buyer beware,” understands marketing on a simple model of a contractual exchange between a buyer and a seller. 1. This perspective assumes that every purchase involves the informed consent of the buyer and therefore it is assumed to be ethically legitimate. 2. Buyers have the responsibility to look out for their own interests and protect their own safety when buying a product. 3. From this perspective, business has only the responsibility to provide a good or service at an agreed-upon price. ii. The social contract model holds that all ethical responsibilities can be understood within a contractual model, and the only duties we have are those that we have freely taken on within a social contract. 1. Individual contracts and promises are the basis of ethical duties. 2. The implication of this within the business sphere is that unless a seller explicitly warrants a product as safe and promises to be liable for harms suffered by the buyer, then buyers are liable for any harms they suffer. iii. Even this simple mode of contractual market exchange places ethical constraints on the seller. 1. Sellers have a duty not to coerce, defraud, or deceive buyers. 2. Consumers who were injured by a product that was deceptively or fraudulently marketed would have legal recourse to recover damages from the seller. iv. Courts recognize an implicit promise, or implied warranty, that accompanies any product that is marketed. v. “Implied warranty of merchantability,” holds that in selling a product a business implicitly offers assurances that the product is reasonably suitable for its purpose. 1. Even without a verbal or written promise or contract, the law holds that business has a duty to insure that its products will accomplish their purpose. 2. How far does this duty reach? See the Reality Check “The ‘Cause’ of Obesity, Free Choice and Marketing to Children” for a discussion of this duty. c. Implied Ethics: The ethics implicit within the contract approach assumes that consumers adequately understand products well enough that they can reasonably be expected to protect themselves. i. Consumers don’t always understand products fully and they are not always free to choose not to purchase some things. 1. In effect, the implied warranty standard shifts the burden of proof from consumers to producers by allowing consumers to assume that products were safe for normal use. 2. Producers were implicitly promising that their products were safe under normal use. 3. The ethical basis for this decision is the assumption that consumers would not give their consent to a purchase if they had reason to believe that they would be harmed by it when used in a normal way. ii. If law will hold business liable for implicit promises, a prudent business will seek to limit its liability by explicitly disowning any promise or warranty. iii. Many businesses will issue a disclaimer of liability or offer an expressed and limited warranty. Most courts will not allow a business to completely disclaim the implied warranty of merchantability. d. Tort Standards for Product Safety *Chapter Objective 5 Addressed Below* i. The use of an implied warranty solved one set of problems with the contract law approach to product liability. 1. Consumers would not need complex contracts in order to protect themselves from all possible harms that products might cause. ii. If we hold business liable for only those promises made during the market exchange, then as the consumer gets further separated from the manufacturer by layers of suppliers and retailers, there may be no relationship at all between the consumer who gets harmed and the ultimate manufacturer or designer who was at fault. *Reference: “Reality Check – Child Labor in the Supply Chain” e. Negligence: A concept from the area of law known as torts, provides a second avenue for consumers to hold producers responsible for their products. i. Under a contract model, the only duties that a person owes are those that have been explicitly promised to another party. ii. The ethical perspective that underlies tort law holds that we all owe other people certain general duties, even if we have not explicitly and voluntarily assumed them. 1. I owe other people a general duty not to put them at unnecessary and avoidable risk. 2. Example: Although I have never explicitly promised anyone that I will drive carefully, I have an ethical duty not to drive recklessly down the street. iii. Negligence is a central component of tort law and involves a type of ethical neglect. Specifically it refers to neglecting one’s duty to exercise reasonable care not to harm other people. 1. Many of the ethical and legal issues surrounding manufacturers’ responsibilities for products can be understood as the attempt to specify what constitutes negligence in their design, production, and sale. iv. What duties, exactly, do producers owe consumers? 1. One can think of possible answers to this question falling along a continuum, on one end is social contract, on the other, strict liability. 2. Social contract answer: Producers owe only those things promised to consumers in the sales agreement. 3. Strict liability: Producers owe compensation to consumers for any harm caused by their products. 4. In between these two is a range of answers with different interpretations of negligence. Decision Point When Has a Company’s Action Caused Injuries to Its Customers? This Decision Point addresses one of the most influential cases in U.S. tort law, involving a railroad company being sued by a customer who was injured while waiting for a train. In Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, Helen Palsgraf was standing at a train station awaiting the arrival of her train. As an earlier train was leaving the station, another passenger ran to catch the moving train. In the process of being jostled by the employees, the man dropped his package on the tracks. The package contained fireworks for the upcoming 4th of July celebration, and they exploded, setting off a chain of events. IN the mayhem that followed, a scale at the end of the platform was knocked over, striking Helen Palsgraf and causing her injuries. Palsgraf sued to recover damages for her injuries. The court in this case faced two basic questions: Did the actions of the railroad employees cause her injuries? Were the railroad employees negligent in the way they treated customers and, if so, were they negligent to Mrs. Palsgraf? How would you have decided this case? Students should considering the following questions when assessing this scenario: • What facts would you want to know before deciding this case? • What alternatives would a jury face in deciding this case? • Who are the stakeholders of your decision? What is the impact of each alternative on each stakeholder you have identified? • What rights and duties are involved? • How would you decide the case? Is it mostly a matter of consequences, or are there important principles involved? v. Negligence can be characterized as a failure to exercise reasonable care or ordinary vigilance that results in an injury to another. 1. People have done an ethical wrong when they cause harm to others in ways that they can reasonably be expected to have avoided. 2. Negligence includes acts of both commission and omission. 3. One can be negligent by doing something that one ought not (e.g., speeding in a school zone) or by failing to do something that one ought to have done (e.g., neglecting to inspect a product before sending it to market). vi. Negligence involves foreseeing the consequences of our acts and failing to take steps to avoid the likely harmful consequences (See the Decision Point, “Liability for Spilt Coffee? A Double Latte!” vii. The standards of foreseeability raise interesting challenges 1. One standard of foreseeability would hold people liable only for those harms they actually foresaw occurring (actual foreseeability). But, if someone actually thinks that harms are likely to result from his acts and proceeds nonetheless, he has committed a serious wrong and deserves harsh punishment. a. This case seems more akin to recklessness, or even intentional harm, than negligence. 2. This standard also implies that thoughtless people cannot be negligent, since one escapes liability by not actually thinking about the consequences of one’s acts. “I never thought about that” would be an adequate defense if we used this standard of negligence. 3. Negligence is meant to encourage people to be thoughtful and to hold them liable when they are not. Decision Point Liability for Spilt Coffee? A Double Latte! This Decision Point addresses a 1992 case where a 70-year-old woman was severely burned when a cup of coffee she had just purchased at a McDonald’s drive-through window spilled on her lap. She apparently held the cup between her legs and tried to pry off the lid as she drove away. The coffee was hot enough (185 degrees) to cause third-degree burns that required skin grafts and long-term medical care. A jury awarded this woman $2.86 million, $160,000 for compensatory damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages. Should McDonald’s be held liable for these injuries? Was the restaurant negligent in serving such hot coffee at a drive-through window? Was the consumer negligent in her own actions? Students should considering the following questions when assessing this scenario: • What facts would you want to know before deciding whether this settlement was fair? • What alternatives would a jury face in deciding this case? • Who are the stakeholders of your decision? What is the impact of each alternative mentioned above on each stakeholder you have identified? • Should caveat emptor govern the situation? • What are the consequences of the jury’s decision? • What rights and duties are involved? • How would you decide the case? Is it mostly a matter of consequences, or are there important principles involved? In addition, an interesting and related case occurred in a 2006 case where a woman was awarded more than $300,000 by a jury when a Starbucks Coffee employee caused a cup of coffee to spill on to the woman’s foot. In fact, the barista (the coffee server at Starbucks) slid the coffee toward the woman; the coffee slipped over the edge of the counter; the top fell off; and the coffee spilled onto the woman’s sneaker-covered foot. Her foot suffered nerve damage from the scalding liquid. Starbucks’ public statement explained that, it regretted the injury to the woman but they did not believe they were responsible. Students should consider the following questions regarding the two scenarios: • Do you see a distinction between these two cases? • Is there any difference between the responsibility McDonald’s owes the woman in the first instance and the responsibility Starbucks owes the woman in the second situation, as described above? • Are the principles involved in the two cases any different? • Will the decisions in the two cases lead to different consequences? viii. A preferable standard would require people to avoid harms that, even if they haven’t actually thought about, they should have thought about had they been reasonable. 1. For example, in the Decision Point, “Liability for Spilt Coffee? A Double Latte!” presumably McDonald’s did not actually anticipate that customers would be severely burned by coffee. But, had its managers thought about what people who are served coffee at a drive-thru window might do to hold their cups when they drive away from the window, they could have foreseen the likelihood of spills. Moreover, the fact that McDonald’s had received more than 700 prior burn claims involving coffee over a 10-year period suggests that a reasonable person would have concluded that this was a dangerous practice. 2. This “reasonable person” standard is the one most often used in legal cases and seems to better capture the ethical goals of the very concept of negligence. 3. People are expected to act reasonably and are held liable when they do not. 4. When one has actual notice of a likelihood of harm, such as in the case of the burning hot coffee at McDonald’s, the reasonable person expectation is increased. 5. The issue of foreseeability comes up when a product might be misused. f. Reasonable Person Standard can be interpreted in various ways. i. A “reasonable” person does what we could expect the ordinary, average person to do. 1. The average person doesn’t always read, or understand, warning labels. The average, ordinary person may thoughtlessly place a cup of very hot coffee between her legs as she drives out of a parking lot and into traffic. 2. The “average person” standard, when applied to consumers, risks exempting many consumers from taking responsibility for their own acts. 3. When applied to producers, the average person standard sets the bar too low. We can expect more from a person who designs, manufacturers, and sells a product than average and ordinary vigilance. ii. A “reasonable” person assumes a standard of thoughtful, reflective, and judicious decision making. The problem with this assumption is that we may be asking more of average consumers than they are able to give. 1. This is particularly true if we think that the disadvantaged and vulnerable deserve greater protection from harm, we might conclude that this is too stringent a standard to be applied to consumer behavior. iii. On the other hand, given the fact that producers do have more expertise than the average person, this stronger standard seems more appropriate when applied to producers than to consumers. g. Strict Product Liability *Chapter Objective 6 Addressed Below* i. The negligence standard of tort law focuses on the sense of responsibility that involves liability or fault. As such, it asks what the business person involved had foreseen or should have foreseen. ii. There are also cases in which consumers can be injured by a product in which no negligence was involved and no one was at fault. In these cases, the question of accountability remains. 1. Who should pay for damages when consumers are injured by products and no one is at fault? 2. The legal doctrine of strict product liability holds manufacturers accountable in such cases. iii. See the Decision Point, “Who Should Pay for Asbestos-Cause Illness and Deaths?” for an example of such a case. Decision Point Who Should Pay for Asbestos-Caused Illness and Deaths? This Decision Point describes a major strict product liability case involving asbestos, a fibrous mineral used for decades for insulation and fire prevention in homes, industry, and consumer products. Over time, asbestos dust causes a variety of lung and respiratory diseases, including mesothelioma, a particularly fatal form of cancer. Millions of workers have been exposed to asbestos, especially during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Many of the diseases associated with asbestos, including mesothelioma, might take decades before they appear, thus, it is often difficult if not impossible to identify the exact source of the asbestos that caused the disease. In such cases, the liability focuses on any and all manufacturers of asbestos-products. They brought the product to market, the product proved defective, therefore they ought to be held accountable for the damages. One estimate suggests that 700,000 people have been involved in lawsuits against 8,000 corporations for asbestos-related injuries. Asbestos liability lawsuits have bankrupted several corporations, including the high-profile Johns-Manville. • Should manufacturers of asbestos be held accountable for the damages caused by the product they brought to market, even if no direct link can be established between the injury and any specific product they manufactured? Students should consider the following questions when assessing this scenario: • What facts would you need to know to make a fully informed judgment in this case? • What alternatives are available? If not the manufacturer, who should be accountable to pay for the damages caused by asbestos? • Who are the stakeholders who should be involved in this case? • What are the likely consequences of holding manufacturers strictly liable? Of holding the injured consumer accountable? Of having the government pay? • What duties do the manufacturers of asbestos have? What does the principle of fairness require in this case? • If you were on a jury and had to decide who should pay the costs of a worker’s mesothelioma, how would you decide? h. Ethical Debates on Product Liability: The business community is a strong critic of much of the legal standards of product liability. *Chapter Objective 6 Addressed Below* i. Within the United States, calls to reform product liability laws, and in particular to ease or eliminate the strict product liability standard have been common. But criticism of strict products liability has not been universal. 1. The European Union, for example, has adopted clear strict liability standards. 2. The EU concluded that “liability without fault [strict products liability] on the part of the producer is the sole means of adequately solving the problem, peculiar to our age of increasing technicality, of a fair apportionment of the risks inherent in modern technological production.” 3. The business community in the United States is a strong critic of much of the legal standards of product liability. ii. Liability standards, and the liability insurance costs in which they have resulted, have imposed significant costs on contemporary business. 1. Businesses believe that the standard is especially unfair to businesses because it holds business responsible for harms that were not the result of business negligence. iii. The rationale used to justify strict product liability is problematic. 1. Defenders of the strict product liability standard, including juries who decide in favor of injured consumers, often replay with two major claims: a. First: by holding business strictly liable for any harms their products cause, society creates a strong incentive for business to produce safer goods and services. b. Second: given that someone has to be accountable for the costs of injuries, holding business liable allocates the costs to the party best able to bear the financial burden. iv. The incentive argument seems to misunderstand the nature of strict liability. 1. Holding someone accountable for a harm can provide an incentive only if they could have done otherwise. 2. Strict liability is not negligence and the harms caused by products such as asbestos were not foreseeable. 3. Holding business liable for these harms cannot provide an incentive to better product consumers in the future. v. The second rationale basically claims that business is best able to pay for damages. Many businesses have been bankrupted by product liability claims. 1. If it is unfair to hold business accountable for harms caused by their products, it is equally if not more unfair to hold injured consumers accountable. Neither party is at fault, yet someone must pay for the injuries. vi. A third argument for holding business accountable might be more persuasive. Accountability focuses on those situations where no one is at fault, yet someone has to pay. 1. Accountability is not a matter of ethical principle in that no one deserves to pay for damages, but perhaps accountability is best understood as a matter of utilitarian efficiency rather than principle. 2. When business is held accountable, the costs for injuries will eventually fall on those consumers who buy the product through higher costs, especially higher insurance costs to business. 3. This amounts to the claim that external costs should be internalized and that the full costs of a product should be paid for by those who use the product. 4. Products that impose a cost on society through injuries will end up costing more to those who purchase them. 5. Companies that cannot afford to remain in business when the full costs of its products are taken into account perhaps ought not to remain in business. IV. Responsibility for Products: Advertising and Sales *Chapter Objective 7 Addressed Below* a. Advertising ethics has received significant legal and philosophical attention within business ethics. i. The goal of all marketing is the sale, the eventual exchange between seller and buyer. ii. A major element of marketing is sales promotion, the attempt to influence the buyer to complete a purchase. See the Decision Point, “Automobile Advertising” for an example. iii. Target marketing and marketing research are two important elements of product placement. iv. There are, of course, ethically good and bad ways to influence others. 1. Ethically commendable ways include persuading, asking, informing, and advising. 2. Unethical means include threats, coercion, deception, manipulation, and lying. 3. Unfortunately, all too often sales and advertising practices employ deceptive or manipulative means of influence or are aimed at audiences that are susceptible to manipulation or deception. 4. Perhaps the most infamous and maligned of all marketing fields is automotive sales, especially in used car markets. v. The concepts of manipulation, and its subset of deception, are central to ethical issues in marketing. ** Teaching Note: A valuable resource on the power of images is the Dove Soap “Real Beauty” and “Evolution” Campaigns. Students can find out more about the “Real Beauty” campaign at: http://www.dove.us/Social-Mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx. Manipulation by imagery is also explored at the Gender Ads Project, http://www.genderads.com/. Decision Point Automobile Advertising This Decision Point deals with the manipulative practices often involved in automobile advertising. Consider the following claims found in a local Sunday paper’s advertising section: “Below invoice prices.” “Cash-back incentives.” “Low monthly lease rate.” “Late model close-outs.” “$500 cash back.” “Manufacturer’s suggested retail price.” “Sticker price.” “Factory rebates.” “Absolute lowest price guaranteed.” “0% interest on selected vehicles.” “Factory authorized clearance.” “Extended service contracts.” “No money down.” “Certified pre-owned vehicles.” “No reasonable offer refused.” “Huge discounts. Save thousands.” “We sell wholesale to the public!” “We are dealing. Save $$$.” “Credit problems? No problem. Your approval is guaranteed or we’ll give you $1,000.” “No games, no gimmicks.” All of these claims were found in just a few pages of one local Sunday newspaper. They point to the extraordinary difficulty that consumers face in purchasing a car. Perhaps no other industry suffers as bad a reputation in pricing and sales as the automobile industry. Do you find any of these claims misleading? Confusing? Deceptive? Which are easily understood? Which are least clear? Who is being targeted by these ads? Students should consider the following questions in assessing this scenario: • What facts would you want to know before making a judgment about these ads? • Which ads, if any, raise ethical questions? • Who are the stakeholders in automobile advertising? What are the potential benefits and potential harms of such advertising? • What ethical principles have you used in making your judgments? • What type of people do you think are involved in automobile advertising and automobile sales? b. Manipulation: To manipulate something is to guide or direct its behavior. i. Manipulation need not involve total control, and in fact it more likely suggests a process of subtle direction or management. ii. Manipulating people implies working behind the scenes, guiding their behavior without their explicit consent or conscious understanding. 1. In this way, manipulation is contrasted with persuasion and other forms of rational influence. iii. When manipulating someone, you seek to bypass an individual’s autonomy. 1. One of the ways in which we can manipulate someone is through deception, one form of which is an outright lie. 2. We can also manipulate someone without deception, through feelings of guilt, pity, a desire to please, anxiety, fear, low self-esteem, pride, and conformity can all be powerful motivators. 3. These examples raise a very crucial point because they suggest that the more I know about your psychology – your motivations, interests, desires, beliefs, dispositions, etc. – the better able I will be to manipulate your behavior. iv. Critics charge that many marketing practices manipulate consumers. Clearly, many advertisements are deceptive, and some are outright lies. v. We can also see how marketing research plays into this. The more one learns about customer psychology, the better able one will be able to satisfy their desires, but the better one will also be able to manipulate their behavior. vi. Critics argue that some marketing practices target populations that are particularly susceptible to manipulation and deception. V. Ethical Issues in Advertising *Chapter Objective 8 Addressed Below* a. Ethical Defense of Advertising: The general ethical defense of advertising reflects both utilitarian and Kantian ethical standards. i. Advertising provides information for market exchanges and therefore contributes to market efficiency and to the overall happiness. ii. Advertising information also contributes to the information necessary for autonomous individuals to make informed choices. iii. Each of these rationales assumes that the information is true and accurate. b. Objections to Manipulation: The rights-based tradition in ethics would have the strongest objections to manipulation. i. Manipulation treats a person as a means to an end, as an object to be used rather than as an autonomous person in his or her own right. 1. This is a clear example of disrespect for persons since it bypasses their own rational decision making. 2. Because the evil rests with the intention to use another as a means, even unsuccessful manipulations are guilty of this ethical wrong. ii. The utilitarian tradition offers a more conditional critique of manipulation, depending on the consequences. 1. There surely can be cases of paternalistic manipulation, in which someone is manipulated for their own good. But even in such cases, unforeseen harms can occur. 2. Manipulation tends to erode bonds of trust and respect between persons. It can erode one’s self-confidence and hinder the development of responsible choice among those manipulated. 3. In general, because most manipulation is done to further the manipulator’s own ends at the expense of the manipulated, utilitarians would be inclined to think that manipulation lessens overall happiness. 4. Example: A general practice of manipulation, as critics would charge occurs in many sales practices, can undermine the very social practices (e.g., sales) that it is thought to promote as the reputation of sales is lowered. The used car sales example is a good one to illustrate this situation. iii. A particularly egregious form of manipulation occurs when vulnerable people are targeted for abuse. 1. Cigarette advertising aimed at children is one example that has received major criticism over the years. 2. Marketing practices targeted at elderly populations for such goods and services as insurance (particularly Medicare supplemental insurance), casinos and gambling, nursing homes, and funerals have been subjected to similar criticisms. c. General Guidelines for Marketing Practices: i. Marketing practices that seek to discover which consumers might already and independently be predisposed to purchasing a product are ethically legitimate. 1. Sending a targeted direct mail pieces to everyone within an area who matches particular criteria seems an ethically legitimate marketing practice. 2. Marketing practices that seek to identify populations that can be easily influenced and manipulated, on the other hand, are not. ii. Sales and marketing that appeal to fear, anxiety, or other non-rational motivations are ethically improper. 1. For example, an automobile dealer who knows that an unmarried or widowed woman is anxious about the purchase and who uses this anxiety as a way to sell extended warranty insurance, disability insurance, theft protection products, and the like, is unethical. iii. Marketing research seeks to learn something about the psychology of potential customers. But not all psychological categories are alike. Some are more cognitive and rational than others. 1. Targeting the considered and rational desires of consumers is one thing; targeting their fears, anxiety, and whims is another. 2. For discussion of online, viral and other timely marketing techniques, see Reading 8-1 “The Friendship of Buzz, Blog and Swag,” by Kalynne Pudner. *Reference: “Reality Check - New Challenges to Old Problems: From Redlining to E-lining”* ** Teaching Note: One option for a student project at this point is to offer the following assignment: For our class discussion on ethics in marketing, you will need to attach to your response paper two advertisements: One advertisement should be one that you felt very good about, for whatever reason. The second advertisement should be an ad that you do not feel very good about, for whatever reason. Your response paper for this week should articulate why you felt good or bad about the advertisements and what implications this might have for the firms/stakeholders/organizations/issues involved. For both, what kind of audience do you believe they were directed toward? Which of the ethical theories we have discussed have a direct bearing on your assessment of each piece, in what way? VI. Marketing Ethics and Consumer Advocacy *Chapter Objective 9 Addressed Below a. Contribution to the Economy: Defenders of advertising argue that, despite cases of deceptive practices, overall advertising contributes much to the economy. i. The majority of advertisements provide information to consumers, information that contributes to an efficient function of economic markets. ii. These defenders argue that over time, market forces will weed out deceptive ads and practices. In fact, the most effective counter to a deceptive ad is a competitor’s ad calling attention to that deception. b. Effects of Advertising: Beyond the question of what advertising does for people, a second important ethical question asks what advertising, specifically, and marketing in general, does to people. i. People may well benefit from business’s marketing of its products. They learn about products they may need or want, they get information that helps them make responsible choices, sometimes they are even entertained. ii. But marketing helps shape culture and the individuals who develop and are socialized within that culture. iii. Marketing can have direct and indirect influence on the very persons we become. 1. How it does that, and the kind of people we become as a result, is of fundamental ethical importance. 2. Critics of such claims either deny that marketing can have such influence or maintain that marketing is only a mirror of the culture of which it is a part. c. In his1958 book, The Affluent Society, economist John Kenneth Galbraith claimed that advertising and marketing was creating the very consumer demand that production then aimed to satisfy. i. Dubbed “the dependence effect,” this assertion held that consumer demand depended upon what producers had to sell. This fact had three major and unwelcome implications: 1. By creating wants, advertising stands the “law” of supply and demand on its head. a. Rather than supply being a function of demand, demand turns out to be a function of supply. 2. Second, advertising and marketing tends to create irrational and trivial consumer wants and this distorts the entire economy. a. The “affluent” society of consumer products and creature comforts is in many ways worse off than so-called “undeveloped” economies because resources devoted to contrived, private consumer goods are therefore denied to more important public goods and consumer needs. b. Taxpayers deny school districts small tax increases to provide essential funding while parents drop their children off at school in $40,000 SUVs. c. A society that cannot guarantee vaccinations and minimal health care to poor children spends millions annually for cosmetic surgery to keep its youthful appearance. 3. Finally, by creating consumer wants, advertising and other marketing practices violate consumer autonomy. a. Consumers, who consider themselves free because they were able to purchase what they want, are not in fact free if those wants are created by marketing. b. In short, consumers are being manipulated by advertising. d. Ethically, the crucial point is the assertion that advertising violates consumer autonomy. i. The law of supply and demand is reversed, and the economy of the affluent society is contrived and distorted, only if consumer autonomy can be violated, and consumers manipulated, by advertising’s ability to create wants. 1. But can advertising actually violate consumer autonomy and, if it can, does this occur? 2. Consider the annual investment in this effort referenced in the Reality Check, “Advertising Spending.” Given the large business investment in advertising, what does advertising do to people and to society? *Reference: “Reality Check - Advertising Spending”* ii. An initial thesis in this debate claims that advertising controls consumer behavior. 1. Autonomy involves making reasoned and voluntary choices, and the claim that advertising violates autonomy might mean that advertising controls consumer choice. 2. Psychological behaviorists and critics of subliminal advertising would claim that advertising can control consumer behavior in this way. However, this seems to be an empirical claim and the evidence suggests that it is false. 3. Example: Some studies show that more than half of all new products introduced in the market fail, a fact that should not be true if consumer behavior could be controlled by marketing. 4. Consumers certainly don’t seem controlled by advertising in any obvious sense of that word. iii. Consumer autonomy might be violated in a more subtle way. Perhaps advertising creates the wants and desires on the basis of which consumers act. 1. The focus here becomes the concept of autonomous desires rather than autonomous behavior. 2. Consumer autonomy is violated by advertising’s ability to create non-autonomous desires. iv. To understand how desires might be non-autonomous, think about the reasons why people consume the way they do and why, in general, people go shopping. After certain basic needs are met, this is a valid question. 1. People buy things for many reasons, including the desire to appear fashionable, for status, to feel good, because everyone else is buying something, etc. 2. The interesting ethical question at this point is where did consumers’ desires originate? How much has marketing influenced these non-necessity purchases? 3. Some of these questions/issues are addressed in the Decision Point, “Advertising for Erectile Dysfunction.” Decision Point Advertising for Erectile Dysfunction This Decision Point deals with advertisements promoting prescription erectile dysfunction drugs. Perhaps no marketing campaign has received as much critical attention as the Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra campaign to counteract erectile dysfunction. Much of the criticism has focused on the ad placements, particularly in places where young children would see them, such as during prime time television and during high-profile sporting events. Other criticisms suggest that although these drugs can be used to treat real medical conditions, they are being marketed as little more than recreational drugs and sex toys. Erectile dysfunction can be a problem for older men, and especially for men recovering from such medical treatments as prostate surgery. But, for younger and otherwise healthy men, the primary causes of erectile dysfunction are alcohol consumption, obesity, lack of exercise, smoking, and the use of other prescription drugs. All these causes are either easily addressed without reliance on pharmaceuticals or, as is the case with alcohol abuse, erectile dysfunction drugs are potentially unsafe. Arguments in support of direct-to-consumer marketing of prescription drugs are that it provides information to consumers, respects consumer choice, encourages those who are reluctant to seek medical care to do so, gets more people into the health care system, addresses real public health issues, and increases competition and efficiency in the pharmaceutical industry. Opponents claim that these ads increase the unnecessary use of drugs; increase public harms, because all drugs have harmful side effects; manipulate and exploit vulnerable consumers; often provide misleading and incomplete information; alienate patients from physicians by bypassing the gatekeeper function of medical professionals; and treat social and behavior problems with medical and chemical solutions. What is your judgment about the ethics of advertising Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra? Do the reasons for advertising prescription drugs in general apply equally well to these three drugs? Students should consider the following questions in their assessment of the scenario: • What alternatives exist for marketing prescription drugs? • Who are the stakeholders of drug marketing? • What are the consequences of alternative marketing strategies? • What rights and duties are involved? VII. Marketing to Vulnerable Populations *Chapter Objective 10 Addressed Below* a. Consider two examples of Target Marketing: i. One targeted campaign: Is based on market research supplied by the manufacturer, an automobile retailer learns that the typical customer is a single woman, between the ages of 30 and 40 years old with annual income over $30,000, who enjoys outdoor sports and recreation. 1. Knowing this information, the dealer targets advertising and direct mail to this audience. 2. Ads depict attractive and active young people using their product and enjoying outdoors activities. ii. A second targeted campaign: Is aimed at selling an emergency call device to elderly widows who live alone. 1. This marketing campaign depicts an elderly woman at the bottom of a stairway crying out “I’ve fallen and can’t get up!” 2. These ads are placed in media that elderly women are likely to see or hear. iii. Challenge: Are these marketing campaigns on an equal ethical footing? 1. The first marketing strategy appeals to the considered judgments which consumers, presumably, have settled on over the courses of their lives. a. People with similar backgrounds tend to have similar beliefs, desires, and values and often make similar judgments about consumer purchasing. b. Target marketing in this sense is simply a means for identifying likely customers based on common beliefs and values. 2. The second strategy, marketing to the elderly woman, seems ethically offensive. This campaign aims to sell the product by exploiting the real fear and anxiety that many older people experience. a. This marketing strategy tries to manipulate people by appealing to non-rational factors such as fear or anxiety rather than relying on straightforward informative ads. 3. Is there anything to the claim that elderly women living alone are more “vulnerable” than younger women and that this vulnerability creates greater responsibility for marketers? In general, do marketers have special responsibility to the vulnerable? b. Who is Vulnerable? i. In one sense, a person is vulnerable as a consumer by being unable in some way to participate as a fully informed and voluntary participant in the market exchange. ii. Valid market exchanges assume that the participants understand what they are doing, that they have considered their choice, and that they are free to decide. iii. Consumer vulnerability: occurs when a person has an impaired ability to make an informed consent to the market exchange. 1. A vulnerable consumer: lacks the intellectual capacities, psychological ability, or maturity to make informed and considered consumer judgments. 2. Children would be the paradigmatic example of consumer vulnerability. iv. The harm to which such people are susceptible is the harm of not satisfying one’s consumer desires and/or losing one’s money. Elderly people living alone are not necessarily vulnerable in this sense. v. See the Decision Point, “Targeting Vulnerable People” for an example and discussion of this issue. Decision Point Targeting Vulnerable People? This Decision Point deals with a controversial case of marketing drugs to targeted populations involving the drug Strattera, Eli Lilly’s prescription medication that controls attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity (ADHD) in children. The ad ran in magazines such as Family Circle (September 2003) under the simple title “Welcome to Ordinary.” The ad pictured two boys holding up a model airplane that they have finished building, a challenging task for a child with ADHD. The ad reads: “4:30 p.m. Tuesday. He started something you never thought he’d finish. 5:20 p.m. Thursday. He’s proved you wrong.” The ad suggests that, if a child with ADHD is not “ordinary,” it is the parents who are “wrong” because all it would take would be Strattera to solve their problem. The same issue of Family Circle contained ads for McNeil Pharmaceutical’s Concerta and Shire Pharmaceutical’s Adderall, the two major competitors to Strattera. Are these marketing practices ethically responsible? Students should consider the following questions when assessing this scenario: • What facts would you want to know before deciding this case? • What alternative marketing practices were open to these companies? • Who are the stakeholders of your decision? What is the impact of each alternative decision on each stakeholder you have identified? • What rights and duties are involved? • How would you decide the case? Would you primarily consider consequences, or are important principles involved? vi. A second sense of vulnerability is when the harm is other than the financial harm of an unsatisfactory market exchange. 1. Elderly people living alone are susceptible to injuries from falls, from medical emergencies, from expensive health care bills, from loneliness. 2. Alcoholics are susceptible to alcohol abuse, the poor are susceptible to bankruptcy 3. Single women walking alone at night are vulnerable to sexual assault, 4. Accident victims are susceptible to high medical expenses and loss of income, and so forth. vii. General vulnerability occurs when someone is susceptible to some specific physical, psychological or financial harm. c. Two Types of Marketing Target Vulnerable Populations: i. Some marketing practices target consumers who are likely to be uninformed and vulnerable as consumers. 1. Marketing aimed at children, for example, aims to sell products to customers who are unable to make thoughtful and informed consumer decisions. ii. Other marketing practices target generally vulnerable populations, such as when an insurance company markets flood protection insurance to homeowners living in a river’s floodplain. iii. Are either, or both, types of targeting ethically legitimate? 1. As an initial judgment, we must say that marketing that is targeted at those individuals who are vulnerable as consumers is unethical. 2. Taking advantage of someone’s frailty and manipulating it for one’s own advantage certainly seems unethical. 3. The practice of marketing and sales targeting people who are vulnerable as consumers seems wrong. iv. Some people are vulnerable in both senses. Oftentimes people can become vulnerable as a consumer because they are vulnerable in some more general sense. 1. The vulnerability that many elderly have with respect to injuries and illness might cause them to make consumer choices based on fear or guilt. 2. A family member grieving over the death of a loved one might make choices in purchasing funeral services based on guilt or sorrow, rather than on considered judgment. 3. A person with a medical condition or disease is vulnerable, and the anxiety or fear associated with this vulnerability can lead to uninformed consumer choices. 4. An inner city resident who is poor, uneducated, and chronically unemployed is unlikely to weigh the full consequences of the choice of alcoholic beverage. d. Unethical Marketing Campaigns: A number of marketing campaigns seem to fit this model of manipulation of consumer or general vulnerability. i. The most abhorrent (and stereotypical) example is the ambulance-chasing attorney seeking a client for a personal-injury lawsuit. 1. An accident victim is vulnerable to many harms and, while experiencing the stress of this situation, is unlikely to make a fully informed choice about legal representation. ii. Marketing campaigns that target the elderly for such products as supplemental medical insurance, life insurance, emergency call devices, funeral services and insurance often play on the fears, anxiety, and guilt that many elderly people experience. 1. See the Decision Points, “Targeting Vulnerable People?” and “Marketing in Schools” to consider examples of marketing to specific populations. Decision Point Marketing in Schools This Decision Point asks whether there is an age below which marketers ought not to target commercial products? Is every person, regardless of age, a potential consumer? The market potential of young people is huge. Children between the ages of 4 and12 spent $2.2 billion in 1968, $4.2 billion in 1984, $17.1 billion in 1994, and more than $40 billion by 2002. Estimates are that direct buying by children is expected to exceed $51.8 billion by 2006. Young people are an attractive target for marketers, and where better to target marketing than in schools? Commercials in schools occur in many forms. Products are directly advertised in a variety of formats and circumstances, including on school buses and through Channel One, a for-profit media company that produces news programming shown daily in thousands of middle and high school classrooms. Indirect advertising occurs with sponsorships of school activities and supplies. Many products are sold in and by schools and many schools participate in a variety of marketing research studies. In every case, schools provide the occasion for students to learn about some commercial product. Should advertising be allowed in schools? Students should consider the following questions when assessing this scenario: • What facts would you want to know before deciding this question? • What alternative marketing practices are open to companies that sell products to children? If some school districts propose advertising on and in buses, which are public property paid for by tax dollars, does that raise additional issues? • Who are the stakeholders of your decision? What is the impact of each alternative decision on each stakeholder you have identified? • What rights and duties are involved? • How would you decide the case? Is it mostly a matter of consequences, or are important principles involved? iii. There can also be cases in which people become vulnerable to other harms because they are vulnerable as consumers. 1. Perhaps this strategy is the most abhorrent case of unethical marketing. 2. Certain products—tobacco and alcohol are the most obvious examples—can make an individual vulnerable to a wide range of health risks. iv. Marketing campaigns for products that target people who are vulnerable as consumers seem ethically repugnant. 1. This explains the particular public outrage directed at tobacco and alcohol companies that target young people. 2. Companies that market alcoholic beverages in poor inner-city neighborhoods must take this ethical guideline into account and acknowledge that many people in such situations are not fully autonomous consumers. 3. See Reading 8-3, “First Analysis of Online Food Advertising Targeting Children,” which examines advertising targeted at another vulnerable population. e. We Are All Vulnerable: We are each vulnerable when we are not aware that we are subject to a marketing campaign. i. This type of marketing campaign is called “stealth” or “undercover” marketing and refers to those situations where we are subject to directed commercial activity without our knowledge. ii. Undercover marketing is an intentional effort to hide the true marketing element of the interaction. 1. Example: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications hired 60 actors to pose as tourists in New York City’s Empire State Building. The actor/tourists were supposed to pretend they were tourists and to ask passersby if they would mind taking their pictures. In doing so, the unsuspecting passersby had a chance to see how easy the new Ericsson mobile phone cameras were to operate. The actors praised the phones and said how much they loved them, and the passersby left having had a good experience with the new product, unaware they were just involved in a product test! iii. With the advent of blogs, stealth marketing has also hit the Internet. 1. Internet users reading a product review cannot know if the individual posting the review is a user, the product’s manufacturer, or even a competitor posting a negative review just to sway consumers away from the product. 2. Stealth marketing is considered extraordinarily effective because the consumer’s guard is down. 3. The consumer is not questioning the message in the same way as he/she might challenge a traditional advertising campaign. 4. Consumers do not seek out the communicator’s vested interest; they see the communication as more personal and often tend to trust the communicator much more than they would trust an advertisement or other marketing material. iv. “Buzz marketing,” where people are paid to create a “buzz” around a new product by using it or discussing in ways that create media or other attention, also creates the potential for unspoken conflicts of interest. 1. There is a distinction between buzz marketing and word of mouth marketing practices. 2. See the Reality Check, “Word of Mouth Marketing” for more details on this distinction. 3. For an extensive exploration of these marketing techniques and the implications of technology on the ethics involved, see Reading 8-1, “The Friendship of Buzz, Blog and Swag.” *Reference: “Reality Check - Word of Mouth Marketing”* v. Where the marketing practice involves subversion and deception to encourage a product’s use, or deception surrounding the fact that a practice is part of a marketing campaign, it is challenging to argue that the practice remains ethical. 1. There is a violation of trust in the communication, which could lead to a sense of betrayal so the consumer may no longer trust the company itself. 2. In addition, the consumer is no longer being treated as an end in itself but instrumentally only as a means to the manufacturer’s end. 3. If stealth marketing becomes the universal practice, the erosion of trust could become so significant that our commercial interactions would disintegrate under burdens of disclosures that would then be necessary. f. The utilitarian analysis does not support the ethics of these types of practices. i. When a consumer cannot trust the company’s communication, the consumer may also lose faith in the company as a whole and will choose to purchase products and services elsewhere. ii. Neither the company not the consumer benefits from this result. In fact both producer and consumer are harmed if a faulty marketing campaign causes a cease in production for a product or service that might otherwise be the most effective or efficient solution. ** Teaching Note: As an additional area of inquiry, faculty may be interested in exploring competitive intelligence and the boundaries on ethical information gathering. Ask students what would be their personal rule? Their company rule? The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (www.scip.org) has a code of ethics that might prove to be effective in aiding a discussion on the issues. VIII. Supply Chain Responsibility *Chapter Objective 11 Addressed Below* a. By creating a product, promoting it, and bringing it into the market, the marketing function of a business involves a wide range of relationships with other entities. b. Supply-Chain Responsibility: In recent decades, the ethical spotlight has focused on the responsibility that a firm has for the activities of these other entities in the production process, what we shall refer to as supply-chain responsibility. c. Nike: Few businesses have received as much attention in this regard as Nike. i. Nike is the world’s largest athletic shoe and apparel maker. In 1999, it held over 30 percent of the world’s market share for athletic footwear. ii. Decades after its start, Nike’s Web site described its business philosophy in the following words: “Our business model in 1964 is essentially the same as our model today: We grow by investing our money in design, development, marketing and sales and then contract with other companies to manufacture our products.” iii. In the late 1990s, Nike was subjected to intense international criticism for the working conditions in the factories where its products were manufactured. 1. Critics charged that Nike relied on child labor and sweatshops in producing their shoes. 2. They charged that workers in these factories were paid pennies a day, were subjected to cruel, unhealthy, and inhumane working conditions, were harassed and abused, and were prohibited from any union or collective bargaining activities. iv. Nike initially seemed to ignore the critics and deflect any criticism by denying responsibility for the behavior of its suppliers. 1. If local manufacturers treated their workers poorly, that was beyond Nike’s responsibility. 2. At one point, Nike’s vice president for Asia claimed that Nike did not “know the first thing about manufacturing. We are marketers and designers.” 3. Nike soon learned that the public was not persuaded by this response. d. Who is Responsible? Ordinarily, we do not hold a person responsible for the actions of someone else. Assuming that the other person is an autonomous agent, we believe that each person is responsible for her or his own actions. i. Respondent superior is a legal parallel to the idea that a business should be held responsible for the actions of its suppliers. 1. Respondent superior is Latin for “let the master answer,” and holds a principal (e.g., an employer) responsible for the actions of an agent (e.g., an employee) when that agent is acting in the ordinary course of his or her duties to the principal. ii. Thus, in the standard example, an employer can be held liable for damages caused by an accident involving an employee driving the company car on company business. iii. The justification for doing what might otherwise be considered unfair is that the agent is acting on the principal’s behalf, at the principal’s direction, and that the principal has direct influence over the agent’s actions. 1. Thus, if someone is doing something for you, at your direction, and under your influence, then you must take at least some responsibility for that person’s actions. iv. Most of the ethical rationale for business’s responsibility for the actions of its suppliers stems from two of these conditions: 1. Suppliers often act at the direction of business. 2. Business often exercises significant influence over the actions of its suppliers. e. In the multinational apparel and footwear industry, historically the corporate brands accepted responsibility only for their own organizations and specifically did not regard themselves as accountable for the labor abuses of their contractors. i. As multinationals and others became more aware of working conditions in these factories and the lack of legal protections for workers, this conception has changed. ii. Today, multinationals customarily accept this responsibility and use their leverage to encourage suppliers to have positive working environments for workers. iii. The new concept of responsibility travels far deeper throughout the entire supply chain system, as is depicted in Figure 8.1 - “Evolved Concept of Responsibility: Multiple Lines of Responsibility to Diverse Stakeholders.” 1. Each element of a tremendously complicated set of interrelationships is based on the potential to influence or exercise leverage throughout the system. 2. How far down—or across—the supply chain should responsibility travel? 3. Should a firm like Nike truly be responsible for the entire footwear and apparel system? If not, where would you draw the line as a consumer, or where would you draw the line if you were the corporate responsibility vice president for Nike? 4. What response will most effectively protect the rights of those involved while creating the most appropriate incentives to achieve profitable, ethical results? 5. In today’s increasingly complicated, globalized, multinational systems, stakeholders have yet to resolve this challenging dilemma. IX. Sustainable Marketing *Chapter Objective 12 Addressed Below* a. “Sustainability” is an approach to Corporate Social Responsibility that is gaining influence in all areas of business. i. Sustainable, or “green marketing,” is one aspect of this approach that has already changed how many firms do business. ii. The four characteristics of marketing introduced earlier in this chapter—product, price, promotion, and placement—are a helpful way to structure an understanding of sustainable, green marketing. b. The most significant progress towards sustainability will depend upon the sustainability of products themselves. i. Discovering what the consumer “really wants” and developing the products to meet those wants have always been among the primary marketing challenges. ii. Meeting the real needs of present and future generations within ecological constraints can be understood simply as a refinement of this traditional marketing objective. iii. Example: Consider the business differences between marketing the physical pieces of computer hardware and marketing computing services. 1. Should Dell or HP be in the business of selling computer components, or are they selling the service to provide consumers with up-to-date computing processing, software, data storage? 2. The marketing department should be at the forefront of identifying the real needs of consumers so that a business can develop the long-term relationships with consumers that will insure both financial and ecological sustainability. iv. The design and creation of products is another aspect of marketing. 1. William McDonough has often described environmental regulation as a design problem; a product or production process that pollutes and wastes resources is a poorly designed product or process. 2. Regulatory mandates usually result when business has a poorly-designed product or process. 3. Marketing departments should also be involved in the design of products, finding ways to build sustainability into the very design of each product. v. Marketing professionals have an opportunity to influence the packaging of products. 1. Over-packaging and the use of petroleum-based plastics are packaging issues already under environmental scrutiny. 2. Imagine the marketing opportunities if a major soft-drink bottler such as Coke or Pepsi turned to corn-based biodegradable plastics for their bottles. 3. Imagine what the marketing department of a major mail-order companies such as Land’s End or L.L. Bean could do if their catalogues were printed on recycled paper. 4. Imagine the marketing opportunities, and responsibilities, of a company such as Procter & Gamble moving towards recycled cardboard for its packaging. vi. These three areas come together clearly within the context of extended producer responsibility and take-back legislation, in which a firm is held responsible to take back and recycle all the products it introduces into the marketplace. 1. These regulatory developments, now taking hold especially in Europe, will be seen as barriers to profit by some firms. 2. Take-back legislation provides strong incentives for re-designing products in ways that make it easier to reuse and recycle. c. Price is a second aspect of marketing. i. Sustainability asks us to focus on the environmental costs of resources, the “natural capital” on which most firms rely. 1. Environmental costs are seldom factored into the price of most products. 2. Marketing professionals should play a role in setting prices that reflect a product’s true ecological cost. ii. Government regulation is more likely to move business than voluntary action. 1. Without government mandate across the board of an industry, internalize the costs of natural capitalism into one’s products will put a company at a comparative disadvantage. 2. On the other hand, setting prices in such a way that more sustainable products are priced competitively with other products is a more reasonable strategy for sustainable marketing. iii. Ultimately, the actual price is whatever buyer and seller agree upon. However, this simple model misses some important complexities. 1. Example: Like any new product, a hybrid automobile required investments in research, design, production, and marketing long before it could be brought to market. a. Setting a price for this product involves a complicated process of projecting sales, markets, and a product’s life-cycle. b. In one sense, the very first hybrid cost millions of dollars to manufacture, well beyond an affordable and marketable price. c. Businesses normally takes a loss on a new product until such time as economies of scale kick in to lower costs and market share develops sufficiently to produce a revenue stream that can begin to pay down the initial investment and generate profits. d. Marketing professionals who are aware of sustainability concerns have much to contribute in establishing prices that protect sustainable products from short-term cost-benefit analyses. iv. Consider how price functions with such business practices as sales, manufacturer’s rebates, cash-back incentives to consumers, bonuses to sales staff, and the use of lost leaders in retail. 1. Obviously price is often manipulated for many marketing reasons to help gain a foothold in a market. 2. Short-term losses are often justified in pricing decisions by appeal to long-term considerations. v. Perhaps nowhere is price a more crucial element of marketing than it is in marketing to the base of the economic pyramid. 1. Small profit margins and efficient distribution systems within large markets, as demonstrated so clearly by such large retailers as Wal-Mart, can prove to be a highly successful business model. 2. An ethically praiseworthy goal would be to export this marketing ingenuity to serve the cause of global sustainability. 3. The Decision Point, “Marketing to the Base of the Pyramid,” explains the mechanics of this process. Decision Point Marketing to the Base of the Pyramid This Decision Point is based on a recent book in which business scholar C.K. Prahalad details the business opportunities that exist for firms that develop markets among the world’s poorest people. Done correctly, marketing to the 4 billion people at the base of the global economic pyramid would employ market forces in addressing some of the greatest ethical and environmental problems of the 21st century. Obviously, helping to meet the needs of the world’s poorest people would be a significant ethical contribution. The strategy involves another ethical consideration as well: A market of this size requires environmentally sustainable products and technologies. If everyone in the world used resources and created wastes at the rate Americans do, the global environment would suffer immeasurably. Businesses that understand this fact face a huge marketing opportunity. Accomplishing such goals will require a significant revision to the standard marketing paradigm. Business must, in Prahalad’s phrase, “create the capacity to consume” among the world’s poor. Creating this capacity to consume among the world’s poor would create a significant win-win opportunity from both a financial and an ethical perspective. Prahalad points out that the world’s poor do have significant purchasing power, albeit in the aggregate, rather than on a per capita basis. Creating a capacity to consume among the world’s poor will require a transformation in the conceptual framework of global marketing and some creative steps from business. Prahalad mentions three principles as key to marketing to the poor: affordability, access, and availability. Consider how a firm might market such household products as laundry soap differently in India than in the United States. Marketing in the United states can involve large plastic containers, sold at low per-unit cost. Trucks transport cases from manufacturing plant to wholesale warehouses to giant big-box retailers where they can sit in inventory until purchase. Consumers wheel the heavy containers out to their cars in shopping carts and store them at home in the laundry room. The aggregate soap market in India could be greater than the market in the United States, but Indian consumers would require smaller and more affordable containers. Prahalad therefore talks about the need for single-size servings for many consumer products. Given longer and more erratic work hours and a lack of personal transportation, the poor often lack access to markets. Creative marketing would need to find ways to provide easier access to their products. Longer store hours and wider and more convenient distribution channels could reach consumers otherwise left out of the market. So, too, can imaginative financing, credit, and pricing schemes. Microfinance and microcredit arrangements are developing throughout less developed economies as creative means to support the capacity of poor people to buy and sell goods and services. Finally, innovative marketing can ensure that products are available where and when the world’s poor need them. Base-of-the-pyramid consumers tend to be cash customers with incomes that are unpredictable. A distribution system that ensures product availability at the time and place when customers are ready and able to make the purchase can help create the capacity to consume. Prahalad’s approach – tied to the moral imagination discussed previously – responds both to the consumers and to the corporate investors and other for-profit multinational stakeholders. Do you think that business firms and industries have an ethical responsibility to address global poverty by creating the capacity to consume among the world’s poor? Do you think that this can be done? What responsibilities, ethical and economic, do firms face when marketing in other countries and among different cultures? Imagine that you are in the marketing department of a firm that manufacturers a consumer product such as laundry detergent or shampoo. Describe how it might be marketed differently in India. Students should consider the following questions when assessing this scenario: • What are the key facts relevant to your judgment? • What ethical issues are involved in a firm’s decision to market its products among the world’s poor by creating the capacity to consume? • Who are the stakeholders of your decision? • What alternatives does a firm have with regards to the way in which it markets its products? • How do the alternatives compare; how do the alternatives you have identified affect the stakeholders? X. Promotion and advertising of products is the third aspect of marketing. a. Marketing also has a responsibility to help shape consumer demand, encouraging consumers to demand more sustainable products from business. i. Marketing has played a major role in creating various social meanings for shopping and buying. ii. Sustainable marketing can help create the social meanings and consumer expectations supportive of sustainable goals. iii. An often overlooked aspect of advertising is its educational function. 1. Consumers learn from advertising and marketers have a responsibility as educators. 2. Helping consumers learn the value of sustainable products and helping them become sustainable consumers, is an important role for sustainable marketing. *Reference: Reality Check “Terra Choice’s Seven Sins of Greenwashing”* b. One aspect of product promotion will involve the “green labeling.” i. Just as ingredient labels, nutrition labels, and warning labels have become normal and standardized, environmental pressure may well create a public demand for environmental and sustainable labeling. ii. “Green washing” is the practice of promoting a product by misleading consumers about the environmentally beneficial aspects of the product. Labeling products with such terms as “environmentally friendly,” “natural,” “eco”, “energy efficient” “biodegradable” and the like, can help promote products that have little or no environmental benefits. 1. The Decision Point, “Examples of Greenwashing?” demonstrates several greenwashing claims, along with some sincere ones. Take a look and see if you can tell the difference. Decision Point Examples of Green Washing? Which of the following corporate marketing initiatives would you describe as an example of “green washing”? • An ad for the GM Hummer which describes the truck as “thirsty for adventure, not gas.” The Hummer was rated at 20 mpg on the highway. • A major re-branding of the oil company British Petroleum by renaming itself “BP” for “beyond petroleum.” • An “eco-shaped” bottle for the bottle water brand Ice Mountain. For that matter, any bottled water described as “natural,” “pure” or “organic.” Which of the following examples, all taken from the Federal Trade Commission, are cases of misleading Green washing? • A box of aluminum foil is labeled with the claim "recyclable," without further elaboration. Unless the type of product, surrounding language, or other context of the phrase establishes whether the claim refers to the foil or the box, the claim is deceptive if any part of either the box or the foil, other than minor, incidental components, cannot be recycled. • A trash bag is labeled "recyclable" without qualification. Because trash bags will ordinarily not be separated out from other trash at the landfill or incinerator for recycling, they are highly unlikely to be used again for any purpose. • An advertiser notes that its shampoo bottle contains "20% more recycled content." The claim in its context is ambiguous. Depending on contextual factors, it could be a comparison either to the advertiser's immediately preceding product or to a competitor's product. • A product wrapper is printed with the claim "Environmentally Friendly." Textual comments on the wrapper explain that the wrapper is "Environmentally Friendly because it was not chlorine bleached - a process that has been shown to create harmful substances." The wrapper was, in fact, not bleached with chlorine. However, the production of the wrapper now creates and releases to the environment significant quantities of other harmful substances • A product label contains an environmental seal, either in the form of a globe icon, or a globe icon with only the text "Earth Smart" around it. Either label is likely to convey to consumers that the product is environmentally superior to other products. • A nationally marketed bottle bears the unqualified statement that it is "recyclable.'' Collection sites for recycling the material in question are no available to a significant percentages of the population. • The seller of an aerosol product makes an unqualified claim that its product “Contains no CFCs.” Although the product does not contain CFCs, it does contain HCFC-22, another ozone-depleting ingredient. Students should consider: • What are the ethical issues involved in “greenwashing?” • Who are the stakeholders and how are they affected by this practice? XI. Placement a. Channels of distribution that move a product from producer to consumer is the final aspect of marketing. b. Professor Patrick E. Murphy suggests two directions in which marketing can develop sustainable channels: i. As typically understood, marketing channels involve such things as transportation, distribution, inventory, and the like. 1. Recent advances in marketing have emphasized just in time inventory control, large distribution centers, and sophisticated transportation schemes. ii. Murphy foresees new sustainability options being added to this model which emphasize fuel efficiency and alternative fuel technologies used in transportation, more localized and efficient distribution channels, and a greater reliance on electronic rather than physical distribution. 1. More efficient distribution channels can also serve underserved base of the pyramid consumers as well. iii. Example: the publishing industry has evolved its channels of distribution over the years. Originally, books, magazines, catalogues, or newspapers were printed in one location and then distributed via truck, rail or air across the country. 1. More modern practices involve sending electronic versions of content to localized printers who publish and distribute the product locally. 2. As subscriptions to hard-copy publications decline, some publishers are taking this one step further and moving toward exclusively online publishing. c. “Reverse channels” refers to the growing marketing practice of taking back one’s products after their useful life. i. The life-cycle responsibility and “take-back” models described in previous chapters will likely fall to marketing departments. ii. The same department that is responsible for sending a product out into the marketplace should expect the responsibility for finding ways to take back that product to dispose of, recycle it, or reuse it. *Reference: Opening Decision Point Revisited* Opening Decision Point Revisited Marketing Pharmaceuticals Beginning in the summer of 2009, the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress debated legislation that would create significant health care reform within the United States. Not surprisingly, the pharmaceutical industry has been a major player in health care reform. In June 2009, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry agreed, pending passage of health care reform legislation, to spend $80 billion over the next 10 years to help reduce drug costs for senior citizens. This plan would have pharmaceutical companies paying for what has come to be called the “doughnut hole” in Medicare payments. At the time this agreement was reached, senior citizens were responsible for paying the full costs of prescription drugs that fell within a gap between $2,700 and $6,154 that Medicare pays. This agreement would help pay for President Obama’s proposed health care reform plan. In August 2009, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry authorized its lobbying forms to spend up to $150 million to support the president’s health care reform package. Most observers saw this as part of the June agreement to support the president’s initiatives. According to some observers, health care reform turned on the question of controlling costs of health care itself, which would include controlling costs by regulating the insurance industry and providing government sponsored programs to compete with private insurance companies. Thus, according to these observers, health care reform pitted the insurance industry against the pharmaceutical and medical industry. From this perspective, President Obama sided with the pharmaceutical and medical industry. Critics claimed that the financial contributions to Medicare and spending on political advertising were quid pro quo for the pharmaceutical industry’s support of the President’s policies. By the time the final version of this law was passed in the spring of 2010, it was commonly referred to as “health insurance reform” legislation. Students should consider the following questions when assessing this scenario: • Do you believe that the pharmaceutical industry was acting ethically when it chose to support the president’s health care reform legislation? Would your judgment differ if the president’s proposals favored the insurance industry? • The narrow, legal model of CSR described in chapter 5 holds that business only has an obligation to obey the law. How does this case affect your views of that position? • In what ways are these activities of the pharmaceutical industry a matter of marketing? In what ways are they not? • Is political advocacy a legitimate type of marketing? Why or why not? Instructor Manual for Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility Laura P. Hartman, Joseph R. Desjardins, Chris MacDonald 9780078029455, 9781259060588, 9781259417856