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European
Journal of
Marketing
36,7/8
768
Received March 2000
Revised August 2000
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Moral philosophies of
marketing managers
A comparison of American, Australian,
and Malaysian cultures
Kiran Karande
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
C.P. Rao
Kuwait University, Kuwait, and
Anusorn Singhapakdi
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Keywords Moral responsibility, Ethics, Australia, Malaysia, USA
Abstract A recent article pointed out that ``past research has paid relatively little attention to
the sources of individuals moral philosophies from either a conceptual or an empirical
standpoint and investigated the determinants of idealism and relativism among American
marketers. A literature review indicates that there is even less theoretical and empirical crosscultural investigation of moral philosophies. As more and more companies are expanding into
foreign markets, problems related to cross-national ethics and social responsibility are becoming
increasingly prevalent. Therefore, this study proposes a framework explaining the differences in
the idealism and relativism of American, Malaysian, and Australian marketers based on: country
differences (cultural differences and differences in economic and legal/political environment);
corporate ethical values; and gender and age of the marketer. Results indicate that there are
differences in the level of idealism and relativism exhibited by marketers from the three countries.
Irrespective of country, corporate ethical values are positively related to the idealism and
negatively related to the relativism of marketers. Also, irrespective of country, women are more
idealistic than men, and relativism increases with age. Implications are offered and avenues for
future research suggested.
Introduction
Globalization forces have been sweeping global and individual country
economies. This emerging economic order has made it imperative for many
businesses to deal with overseas market environments. Issues such as global
warming, child labor, green marketing, software piracy, protection of intellectual
property rights, and patent infringement have acquired increased prominence as a
consequence of these globalization trends (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 1998).
However, these issues do not have the same importance in every country. Vast
differences exist across countries in terms of their economic development, cultural
standards, legal/political systems, expectations regarding business conduct
(Wotruba, 1997), and enforcement of policies (Mittelstaedt and Mittelstaedt, 1997).
European Journal of Marketing,
Vol. 36 No. 7/8, 2002, pp. 768-791.
# MCB UP Limited, 0309-0566
DOI 10.1108/03090560210430791
The authors thank Mohd. Rashid Ahmed and Zabid Md. Rashid, Universiti Pertanian Malaysia,
Malaysia; and Muris Cicic, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia for their assistance in the
data collection for this study. They also thank Janet Marta fo her comments.
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Those who exhibit high relativism can be described as skeptics, and they
generally feel that moral actions depend upon the nature of the situation and
the principle involved. On the other hand, those who exhibit low relativism
believe that morality requires acting in ways that are consistent with moral
principles, norms, or laws.
Idealism is defined as the degree to which individuals ``assume that desirable
consequences can, with the right action, always be obtained (p. 175). Idealism
describes the individuals concern for the welfare of others. Highly idealistic
individuals believe that harming others is always avoidable, and they would
rather not choose between the lesser of two evils that will lead to negative
consequences for other people. Those who are less idealistic feel that harm is
sometimes necessary to produce good (Forsyth, 1980, 1992). Idealism is not
based on an embrace of moral absolutes; rather, it involves values related to
altruism and a sense of optimism in considering responses to moral issues
(Singhapakdi et al., 1999). Therefore, idealism and relativism are conceptually
independent, and individuals may be high or low on either dimension (Forsyth,
1992).
It is important to highlight how idealism and relativism reconcile with many
of the schools of thought related to moral philosophy that researchers have
developed over the last several decades (for example, teleology, ethical
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more idealistic and less relativistic marketers tend to exhibit higher honesty
and integrity than less idealistic and more relativistic marketers (Vitell et al.,
1993). Further, the deontological norms of marketers are influenced positively
by idealism and negatively by relativism (Vitell and Singhapakdi, 1993). In
summary, there is extensive literature demonstrating that idealism and
relativism influence ethical decision making.
Theoretical foundation and hypotheses
In this section, it is proposed that the variation in idealism and relativism of
marketers is explained by country differences (including cultural differences
and differences in economic and legal/political environment), corporate ethical
values, and individual characteristics of gender and age. Figure 1 summarizes
the proposed framework.
Country differences
Cultural differences. In this section, cultural differences among the three
countries and their influence on idealism and relativism are described based
upon Hofstedes (1983) and Hofstede and Bonds (1988) five dimensions of
culture. Hofstedes typology is relevant for our study because it captures
culture along five different dimensions, and has been widely used in studying
marketing and managerial issues, and specifically ethical decision making (e.g.
Vitell et al., 1993; Singhapakdi et al., 1994).
Individualism/collectivism. Individualism implies:
A loosely knit social framework in which people are supposed to take care of themselves and
of their immediate families only; while collectivism is characterized by a tight social
framework in which people distinguish between in-groups and out-groups; they expect their
in-group (relatives, clan, organizations) to look after them, and in exchange for that they feel
absolute loyalty to it (Hofstede, 1980, p. 45).
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Figure 1.
Theoretical frameworks
for idealism and
relativism
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marketers would be expected to have lower idealism than those from Australia
and the USA. Further, based on individualism and Confucian dynamism,
differences in idealism of marketers from the three countries could be in both
directions. Similarly, Australian and American managers would be expected to
exhibit higher relativism than Malaysian managers, based on individualism
and masculinity, and Malaysian managers would be expected to exhibit higher
relativism than Australian and American managers, based on power distance,
uncertainty avoidance, and Confucian dynamism.
Differences in economic and legal/political environment. The impact of
differences in economic development and the legal/political environment
among nations has been noted by scholars (e.g. Mittelstaedt and Mittelstaedt,
1997; Wotruba, 1997). In the context of protection of intellectual property (IP),
Mittelstaedt and Mittelstaedt (1997, p. 21) noted that ``it is clear that protecting
an IP by excluding others from its use is viewed differently in developing and
developed countries and:
Although this often seems to be a purely economic issue, many developing nations also have
cultural traditions that serve to reinforce the LDCs economic interests. For example, for the
``public good, many developing nations neither allow patents by their own nationals nor
recognize patents of others for such goods as medicines or food products (Ehrbar, 1992).
From another perspective, Laczniak and Murphy (1993, p. 216) noted that:
``. . . in many less developed countries, pressures on organizations to succeed
are often more fierce than in a developed country setting. Laczniak and
Murphy (1993) further explained that in order to achieve primary needs, firms
in less developed countries might have to take actions that will lead to
immediate financial improvement and stability. They argued that it is not until
financial security has been attained that the firms will start to pay attention to
such secondary needs as ``to be perceived as a good corporate citizen and
conduct business ethically (p. 216). These studies suggest that in ethical
situations, managers from developing countries and developed countries are
likely to apply different criteria to gauge the ethicality of a situation, and thus
exhibit different moral philosophies. In general, managers from developed
countries are more likely to believe that actions should be taken without
harming others, than those from developing countries. Also, managers in
developing countries are likely to believe that moral actions depend upon the
Table I.
Scores (and ranks) for
the three countries on
Hofstedes dimensions
Country
Power distance
Individualism
Australia
Malaysia
USA
36 (41)
104 (1)
40 (38)
90 (2)
26 (36)
91 (1)
Masculinity
61 (16)
50 (25-26)
62 (15)
Uncertainty
avoidance
51 (37)
36 (46)
46 (43)
Confucian
dynamism
31 (11-12)
n/a
29 (14)
Notes: Ranks range from 1-53 for all dimensions except Confucian dynamism 1-20
Source: Hofstede (1980) and Hofstede and Bond (1988)
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Age
The relationship between age and moral philosophy can be explained using
different theoretical perspectives. For example, Kohlbergs (1981) cognitive
moral development theory contends that an individuals cognition, emotion,
and judgment may change as he or she moves through stages of moral
development. It can be argued that age and ethical behavior should be related
because as individuals move through stages of moral development, moral
development occurs mainly due to life experiences. Other researchers have
reasoned that people tend to become more ethical as they grow older (Terpstra
et al., 1993), which can be explained by the argument that as people age they
tend to become less concerned with wealth and advancement and more
interested in personal growth (Hall, 1976). From another perspective, age and
work experience are highly correlated, and because of their experience, older
managers tend to be exposed to a variety of ethical problems and become more
sensitive to the harm that ethical transgressions can do to the organization and
its stakeholders (Singhapakdi et al., 1999). They argued that more senior
managers may therefore be less willing to make exceptions to ethical guidelines
and be more committed to produce desirable outcomes. Therefore, we
hypothesize that:
H4a. A marketers age is positively related to his or her idealism.
H4b. A marketers age is negatively related to his or her relativism.
Methodology
Sample
A self-administered questionnaire was used as the data collection technique
for all three groups of marketing practitioners. For the American group,
national mailing lists of professional members of the American Marketing
Association (AMA) were used as the sampling frame. A random sample of
2,000 US practitioner members with primary areas of interest in marketing
and sales management were mailed questionnaires. Of the 1,997 delivered,
453 responded for a response rate of 22.7 per cent. The response rate is
comparable to previous marketing ethics studies that have also used AMA
mailing lists (e.g. Hunt and Chonko, 1984). For the Australian sample, a
mailing list of recipients of the Australian Marketing Institute magazine was
used as the sampling frame. The questionnaire was included in the magazine
and 500 questionnaires were returned. Since questionnaires were not directly
mailed to the sample in Australia, the response rate could not be assessed. For
the Malaysian group, the sampling frame consisted of companies listed on the
Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange and respondents were managers responsible
for making marketing decisions. A total of 350 questionnaires were mailed to
a random sample from the list, of which 156 replied for a response rate of
44.57 per cent. The questionnaire was administered in English for all three
samples. Because Malaysia and Australia are members of the British
Commonwealth, English is a well understood language, particularly in the
business setting.
The non-response bias for the US sample was assessed with an analysis of
variance between the ``early and ``late respondent groups (Armstrong and
Overton, 1977). There were no statistical differences between the early and late
respondents. For the Australian and Malaysian sample, the non-response bias
based on early and late respondents could not be assessed as this information
was not coded at the time of data collection. After eliminating incomplete
questionnaires, 369 responses from the USA, 120 from Malaysia, and 487 from
Australia were used. Table II summarizes the profile of the three samples.
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Measures
Idealism and relativism. The ethics position questionnaire (EPQ) developed by
Forsyth (1980) was used to measure moral philosophies (see the Appendix).
The EPQ consists of two ten-item scales to measure idealism and relativism. A
nine-point Likert scale was used for measurement, with 1 indicating
``completely disagree and 9 indicating ``completely agree. For this study, eight
USA
sample
(per cent)
Malaysian
sample
(per cent)
Australian
sample
(per cent)
Sex
Male
Female
51
49
84
16
73
27
Age group
< 30
30-39
40-49
> 50
17
37
29
17
11
39
40
10
20
35
29
17
12
17
35
9
7
18
2
2
10
21
34
6
5
22
37
4
3
28
11
13
3
1
Characteristics
of respondents
Industry
USA and Australia
Wholesale or retail
Manufacturer or construction
Services
Communications
Advertising or public relations
Marketing consulting
Other
Malaysiaa
Consumer products
Diversified
Construction
Trading services
Finance
Properties
Plantation
Mining and primary resources
Table II.
Profiles of respondents
in the US, Malaysian,
and Australian samples
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of the ten relativism items were used. The other two items were concerned with
a specific ethical issue about lying (``No rule concerning lying can be
formulated; whether a lie is permissible or not permissible totally depends upon
the situation and ``Whether a lie is judged to be moral or immoral depends
upon the circumstances surrounding the action) and were judged to be
inappropriate for use with other, more general items. For each respondent, the
idealism and relativism scores were computed by summing the items.
The convergent and discriminant validity of the idealism and relativism
measures was also assessed. Each scale was judged to have convergent
validity if it exhibited unidimensional factor structures and had significant
factor loadings (p < 0.01) greater than 0.5 for all indicators of the construct.
Two items on the idealism scale (``Deciding whether or not to perform an act by
balancing the positive consequences of the act against the negative
consequences of the act is immoral and ``Moral actions are those which closely
match ideals of the most `perfect action) and one item on the relativism scale
(``There are no ethical principles that are so important that they should be a part
of any code of ethics) were dropped because of low factor loadings.
The scales were judged to have good discriminant validity if the confidence
interval around the correlations did not contain one (Anderson and Gerbing,
1988). Further, discriminant validity was assessed by comparing the fit with
the correlation between the two constructs, as opposed to being free. If idealism
and relativism are correlated then there should be a significant improvement in
fit with the model without constraints. For all three countries, the correlation
values ranged from 0.15 to 0.07, and 95 per cent confidence intervals did not
contain the value of one. There was no statistical difference in the fit based on a
chi-square test. Therefore, the idealism and relativism scales can be assumed to
exhibit discriminant validity. The reliability of the measures was assessed
using Cronbach alpha which ranged from 0.81-0.89, well above the
recommended level of 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978).
Corporate ethical values, gender and age. The corporate ethical values (CEV)
scale developed by Hunt et al. (1989) was used in this study to measure
corporate ethical values. The scale was designed to reflect ``a composite of the
individual ethical values of managers and both the formal and informal policies
on ethics of the organization (Hunt et al., 1989). The CEV scale has five items
(see The Appendix) and was measured using a nine-point Likert scale with
1 =``completely disagree and 9 = ``completely agree. For each respondent, the
CEV score was obtained by summing all CEV items (with items 1 and 2
reverse-coded). A high CEV score means that the manager works in an
organization with higher corporate ethical values. The CEV scale exhibited
good convergent validity with all factor loadings significant and greater than
0.5 for all three countries. Cronbach alphas for the CEV scale were 0.69 for the
Malaysian sample, 0.81 for the Australian sample, and 0.86 for the American
sample. Gender was measured as a dichotomous variable and age was
measured in four categories.
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Results
Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed using idealism
and relativism items as dependent variables, and the country of residence,
corporate ethical values, gender, and age as independent variables. MANOVA
results show that overall country of residence, corporate ethical values, gender,
and age significantly explain differences between marketers from the three
countries in their idealism and relativism (F = 21.27 based on Wilks lambda,
p < 0.0001).
H1a and H1b state that there are differences in the level of idealism and
relativism exhibited by marketers from the three countries. Univariate analysis
of variance (ANOVA) identified significant cross-country differences between
marketers on both idealism (F = 20.68, p < 0.0001) and relativism (F = 12.80,
p < 0.0001). Therefore, both hypothesis H1a and H1b were supported. To
illustrate the differences, average scores were computed for marketers from the
three countries on idealism and relativism. As shown in Table III, there are
significant differences in idealism scores of marketers from the three countries
(t = 3.36, p < 0.01 between Australian and Malaysian marketers; t = 6.06,
p < 0.01 between American and Malaysian marketers; and t = 4.39, p < 0.01
between Australian and American marketers). Malaysian managers (mean
Australia
Malaysia
USA
a
Mean idealism
score
Australia
t-values
Malaysia
57.37
61.28
53.85
a
3.36
4.39a
6.06a
USA
Table III.
Mean idealism scores
and t-values for paired
comparisons
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Table IV.
Mean relativism scores
and t-values for paired
comparisons
Australia
Malaysia
USA
a
Mean relativism
score
Australia
t-values
Malaysia
USA
36.96
40.69
34.46
a
3.11
3.02a
4.93a
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highlight situations where managers could potentially act in ways that are
detrimental to others. Also, situations under which it is critical that rules and
regulations cannot be violated could be highlighted through cases. These
scenarios can be extended by including cross-national differences in culture
and economic and legal/political environment across countries. While the
issues discussed above can be incorporated in training on a regular basis, these
can especially be useful for employees being transferred overseas for shortterm and long-term assignments. Increasing their sensitivity to differences in
the moral philosophies of their counterparts should help them anticipate
actions of subordinates, colleagues, superiors, as well as other business
associates in a foreign environment.
Irrespective of the country, corporate ethical values had a positive influence
on idealism and a negative influence relativism. Therefore, organizations from
different countries with similar corporate ethical values can find common
ground in the moral philosophies of their managers. Hence, international
companies, when scouting for suitable partners in foreign markets, may look
for overseas partners with similar corporate ethical values. This would ensure
smoother business relations and interactions, especially in the areas of ethics
and social responsibility. Also, it is useful for international marketers to know
that, in general, women tend to be more idealistic than men, and relativism
increases with age. This is particularly relevant given the increase in
employment of women in the workplace.
Limitations and extensions
This study has some potential limitations. A potential limitation concerns the
nature of sampling frames used in this study. Although a self-administered
questionnaire was used as the data collection technique in the three countries,
different sampling frames were used. In the USA and Australia, the sampling
frame was a national mailing list of professional members of the respective
marketing associations. In Malaysia, however, the sampling frame was
managers responsible for making marketing decisions from companies listed
on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. Also, non-response could not be
assessed with the Australian and Malaysian samples. Therefore, the findings
of this study should be viewed considering the differences in the nature of these
sampling frames and the measurement of non-response. Another limitation of
this study is that it did not account for the within country heterogeneity of the
samples. For example, the Malaysian population is heterogeneous with
substantial Moslem, Chinese, and Malay segments, that could potentially
exhibit differences. The results of our study have to be interpreted with the
knowledge that this within country variation is not accounted for.
This study can be extended in several ways. Useful insights can be obtained
by extending the study to additional countries with different cultural
orientations and legal/political environment such as those in Europe and South
America. The current research is based upon the premise that moral
philosophies are antecedents of ethical decision making. This study did not test
for the effects of idealism and relativism on any specific dependent variable,
such as ethical perception or ethical intention. This could be tested in a crosscultural study by addressing specific ethics and social responsibility issues,
such as intellectual property protection, global warming, and child labor. Other
determinants of ethical decision making, such as a societys moral climate
can be similarly studied. This would help international marketers gain a
better understanding of cross-country differences that drive ethical decision
making.
Notes
1. The chi-square, goodness of fit index (GFI), adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI), and
comparative fit index (CFI) model for the three samples were 45.07-208.41 (20 d.f.),
0.89-0.91, 0.81-0.83, and 0.89-0.90 with a one-factor idealism, 53.75-95.14 (14 d.f.), 0.89-0.95,
0.77-0.91, and 0.87-0.93 for relativism, 32.04-152.24 (5 d.f.), 0.89-0.92, 0.69-0.77, and 0.77-0.92
for CEV. Although the chi-square statistic was significant, it is influenced by sample size.
The recommended level for the other fit indices is 0.90 (Sharma, 1996). However, Bagozzi
and Yi (1988) point out that AGFI tends to be a conservative estimate of fit and is usually
lower than the GFI. Our analysis indicates that a one-factor idealism and relativism model
provide an adequate fit for the three samples and the CEV scale offers a moderate to low
fit.
2. Three different models were estimated, using multi-group analyses (Bollen, 1989). First, a
completely constrained model, with the factor structure, factor loadings, and error
variances of the indicator variables equal was estimated. Second, the constraint on the
equality of factor loadings was relaxed (called the partially constrained model). Finally, in
the third model the constraint on the equality of error variances was relaxed (called the
completely free model). Configural equivalence was assessed with chi-square, GFI, and CFI
of the completely free model (Steenkamp and Baumgartner, 1998). For the completely free
model, the chi-square, GFI, and CFI are 918.44 (329 d.f.), 0.90, and 0.89 for idealism and
relativism, and 259.57 (15 d.f.), 0.89, and 0.87 for CEV. Although the chi-square statistic is
significant, it is influenced by sample size, and the other fit indices generally meet the
recommended level of 0.90 (Sharma, 1996). In addition, all the factor loadings are
significant for the three scales. Therefore, the three instruments can be considered to be
configurally equivalent.
3. The difference in chi-square between the completely constrained model and the partially
constrained model was 17.38 (30 d.f.) for idealism and relativism, and 12.95 (10 d.f.) for the
CEV. All three differences were not significant at the 0.05 level. Therefore, the factor
loadings for the three scales can be assumed to be similar in the three samples. The
difference in chi-square between the partially constrained model and the completely free
model was 52.35 (30 d.f.) and 48.70 (10 d.f.) for CEV. The difference is not significant at the
0.05 level for the relativism scale. Both differences in chi-square are significant. The GFI
and CFI, however, do not show an increase in fit. The possibility of differences in error
variances across the three samples for the idealism scale has to be considered in
interpreting the results.
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Appendix. Measurement scales for idealism, relativism, and corporate ethical
values
Idealism (Forsyth, 1980)
1. A person should make certain that their actions never intentionally harm another even
to a small degree.
2. Risks to another should never be tolerated, irrespective of how small the risks might be.
3. The existence of potential harm to others is always wrong, irrespective of the benefits to
be gained.
4. One should never psychologically or physically harm another person.
5. One should not perform an action which might in any way threaten the dignity and
welfare of another individual.
6. If an action could harm an innocent other, then it should not be done.
7. The dignity and welfare of people should be the most important concern in any society.
8. It is never necessary to sacrifice the welfare of others.
Relativism (Forsyth, 1980)
1. What is ethical varies from one society to another.
2. Moral standards should be seen as being individualistic, what one person considers to be
moral may be judged to be immoral by another person.
3. Different types of moralities cannot be compared as to ``rightness.
4. Questions of what is ethical for everyone can never be resolved since what is moral or
immoral is up to the individual.
5. Moral standards are simply personal rules which indicate how a person should behave,
and are not to be applied in making judgements of others.
6. Ethical considerations in interpersonal relations are so complex that individuals should
be allowed to formulate their own individual codes.
7. Rigidly codifying an ethical position that prevents certain types of actions could stand in
the way of better human relations and adjustment.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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