Ethics in Marketing Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Ethics in Marketing - Term Paper Example The necessity for ethics in marketing research is; thus quite evident. This paper will examine the issue of ethics in marketing research noting the significance of ethics in all processes involving marketing research. Ethical behavior is a vital component in marketing research since marketing research directly controls the realization of strategic decision making in businesses. Businesses rely on information, which marketing researchers provide, to make day to day decisions, which affect business operations in one way or another. Consequence of the significance of marketing research, trade associations constantly establish guidelines to ensure ethical behavior by marketing researchers (Murphy, Gene, Norman and Bowie 79). The American Marketing Association (AMA) provides a number of ethical norms to guide the conduct of marketing research. These include the following: 1. Honesty; ensuring that marketing researchers remain forthright and faithful in all their contacts with stakeholders such as clients. 2. Responsible behavior, which entails accepting the implications of researchers’ marketing strategies and decisions. 3. ... 6. Citizenship, which aims at fulfilling the legal, economic, societal and philanthropic responsibilities, which serve stakeholders in strategic ways. Marketing researchers have immense responsibilities when it comes to different stakeholders such as research respondents, the public, clients and researchers. Ethical decisions encompass a number of characteristics that ensure that marketing researchers uphold. Firstly, ethical decisions provide for the realization of long term effects on business situations. In addition, although a majority of ethical decisions are sometimes rather doubtful, they encompass a variety of alternatives, which enhance the opportunity for ethical marketing research decisions (Murphy, Gene, Norman and Bowie 99). The points of view inherent in ethical decisions are essentially either negative or positive. Lastly, the results of ethical decisions, which include negative or positive outcomes, are relatively unpredictable and uncertain. For members of the public , ethical concerns deal primarily with the methods used by marketing researchers in obtaining and reporting research outcomes. The public sometimes depends on the outcomes of marketing research for information regarding products. If marketing researchers provide distorted information, the public stands to lose by purchasing faulty or wrong products. Therefore, it is the shared responsibility of researchers and the public to deter the incident of misguiding and incomplete reporting and biased research. Incomplete reporting occurs when either a client or researcher fails to reveal complete research results. This unethical behavior is likely to take place when marketing researchers conceal negative information, which customers would find undesirable. A misleading environment