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Article Excerpt
The relatively minimal literature on ethics in a retail selling context indicates that retail sales personnel perceive that their job creates ethical dilemmas. However, what drives those beliefs is virtually unknown. Investigations in non-retailing venues have found that employees' moral philosophy (or ideology) influences whether they view a particular situation, action, or behavior as unacceptable (ethically inappropriate). The present study extends previous retail sales ethics research by examining the impact of retail salespersons' moral philosophy on their perceptions of situations that are potentially ethically troublesome. Findings reveal some evidence that moral philosophy does indeed have an effect on retail salespeople's ethical beliefs. The impact of these results on the consumer is brought out through a discussion of the various implications from the vantage point of consumer welfare.
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Employee propriety, decorum, fiscal and personal rectitude, and societal concern seemingly have become watchwords for many business organizations. Accordingly, firms have established mechanisms, such as codes of ethics, ethics training, ethics chaplains, and anonymous tip lines for reporting employee misconduct, that are directed at increasing the likelihood that decorous behavior will permeate the company. Notwithstanding the ethics juggernaut, corporate malfeasance continues to plague business.
For instance, witness the misprision in multinationals Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, and Arthur Andersen, the impact of which was inimical for numerous stakeholders (Roberts and Thomas 2002). Or consider a higher-level Coca Cola manager's falsifying the results of a test market so that Burger King would be induced to spend $30 million in preparation for its selling Frozen Coke (The Economist 2003). Also, recall the recent securities pandemic engendered by use of questionable trading practices in the mutual fund industry (e.g., Dwyer and Borrus 2003). Of course, high-level employees are not the only ones to engage in misconduct. Subalterns at all organizational levels and in all functional departments have opportunity to partake in questionable business practices.
One department that is frequently maligned for ethical malfeasance is marketing. A major reason for this negativity is that marketing tends to be the most visible or conspicuous department to the public at large (Murphy and Laczniak 1981). As examples, fictitious pricing, deceptive advertising, and false sales pitches from sales personnel often become cannon fodder for aggrieved customers and the media. And the costs associated with such practices are widespread for the marketer. For instance, Laczniak and Murphy (1985) aver that unethical marketing decisions can engender considerable personal (e.g., employee termination, low morale), organizational (e.g., adverse word-of-mouth promotion, low employee morale), and societal costs (e.g., reduced perceived trust in business, increased consumer vigilance). After all, ethics functions as a form of social control, something that is especially critical to customers, salespeople, and the organization (Trawick et al. 1991).
One area in marketing where ethical misconduct can easily occur is the selling arena. In fact, one study has found that unethical behavior is positively related to salesperson performance (Howe, Hoffman, and Hardigree 1994). In another investigation, 39% of respondents felt that salespeople could not be trusted (Vitell and Muncy 1992). The very nature of the sales position--the buyer-seller dyad--fosters a "laboratory of ethical scenarios" (Wotruba 1990). Moreover, Caywood and Laczniak (1986) argue that ethical conflicts and choices inhere in the selling arena, particularly because sales personnel tend to be under pressure to achieve their quotas, lack close supervision, have an inadequate job support system, and need to make decisions on the spot. Also, salespeople's role in trying to satisfy their managers and customers--essentially two masters--simultaneously, as well as their organizational and affiliative estrangement, could conduce to engaging in unethical conduct (Dubinsky et al. 1992).
Ethics in personal selling has received extensive research attention (see the literature review by McClaren [2000]). However, much of this empirical effort has focused on ethics in industrial sales. Scholars have been far less interested in ethics in retail selling. Indeed, although previous investigations have considered retail customers' ethical beliefs (e.g., Vitell and Muncy 1992) and their perceptions of the customer orientation of retail salespeople (Brown, Widing, and Coulter 1991), as well as college students' apperceptions of retail sales personnel (Burns and Brady 1996) and retail managers' ethical assessments (e.g., Reidenbach, Robin, and Dawson 1991), the last known study of retail salespersons' ethical beliefs was conducted almost 20 years ago (Dubinsky and Levy 1985).
The paucity of attention directed toward retail salespeople's ethics is surprising given the import of the consumer/retail salesperson relationship. As Burns and Brady (1996, 196-197) promulgate:
As the final stage in the marketing channel, situations which present themselves in retailing are particularly visible to consumers and to society as a whole. Often only the business organization with which consumers and potential customers interact, the decisions and actions of retailers can easily be presumed to extend to the entire business community. Furthermore, from a micro perspective, retailing involves direct transactions with consumers--individuals who can be expected to be most vulnerable to the effects of questionable practices in the marketing channel.
Moreover, some evidence exists that questionable business practices, if directed at customers, are considered to be more unethical--by managers and students--than those directed at other parties, such as competitors or the organization (Dabholkar and Kellaris 1992). Furthermore, empirical work in retail selling has ascertained that retail salespersons do not appear to be particularly concerned about ethically troublesome situations they face in their sales positions (Dubinsky and Levy 1985; Levy and Dubinsky 1983). Additionally, one study in retailing found that only 50% of a sample's respondents rated retail salespeople as being customer oriented, a variable that has been found to be positively related to ethical sales behavior (Howe, Hoffman, and Hardigree 1994).
The foregoing suggests that ethical problems palpably exist in a retail sales context. Management's failure to address the issue adequately is likely to be folly. If retail sales personnel do not act in an ethical fashion or are unable to resolve their ethical dilemmas effectively and appropriately, they may experience increased levels of job-related tension, frustration, anxiety, conflict with management, and manager ridicule (Levy and Dubinsky 1983). In addition, their actions may induce customer dissatisfaction, customer defection, and unfavorable word-of-mouth promotion from such customers (Dubinsky 1985). The ultimate outcome may well be a declivity in salesperson performance and in the firm's financial success (Dubinsky and Levy 1985).
The import of retail sales ethics as well as the dearth of recent work in the area led to undertaking an investigation that examined retail salespeople's ethical perceptions. Rather than solely investigating their perceptions, as has been the situation in prior work, the present study extends retail selling ethics by focusing on the relationship between retail salespersons' moral philosophy and their perceptions of questionable retail selling practices. Arguably, similar explorations have been undertaken in industrial selling (e.g., Bass, Barnett, and Brown 1998; Sivadas et al. 2002-2003; Tansey et al. 1994). Because research results can vary across selling contexts (see a meta-analysis by Churchill et al. [1985] and a literature review by Comer and Dubinsky [1985]), the current study appears particularly warranted.
The remainder of this article will initially present extant literature in retail selling. Then, a discussion about moral philosophy will be proffered followed by the presentation of study hypotheses. Next, the methodology will be described, followed by a presentation of the findings. The paper concludes with a discussion of the various implications of the findings in order to comprehend the impact of the same on the well-being of the consumer.
PREVIOUS RESEARCH IN RETAIL SALES
Admittedly, a modicum of empirical work has examined ethics in a retail context (see McClaren 2000). The preponderance of this research, however, has not specifically considered retail salesperson ethics. Rather, scholars have focused virtually on ethical perceptions of retail managers (e.g., Dornoff and Tankersley 1975-1976; Gifford and Norris 1987) and college business students' apperceptions of selected retail practices (e.g., Burns and Smith 1990; Norris and Gifford 1988). In fact, only two published studies were found that pertained specifically to retail salesperson ethics.
Levy and Dubinsky (1983) developed a method to assist retail managers...
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