Some Important Factors

Underlying Ethical Decision

Making of Managers in Thailand

ABSTRACT. This study analyzes the marketing

ethics decision-making process of Thai managers. In
particular, it examines the relative influences of ethical
perceptions, religiosity, personal moral philosophies,
and corporate ethical values on ethical intentions of
managers in Thailand. Managers enrolled in executive MBA or special MBA programs from public and
private universities throughout Thailand were selected
as target respondents. The survey results generally
indicate that both dimensions of moral philosophies,
idealism and relativism, are significant predictors of a

Anusorn Singhapakdi
Somboom Salyachivin
Busaya Virakul
Vinich Veerayangkur

Thai managers ethical intention, as hypothesized. The

results also reveal that perceived ethical problem is a
positive factor of a Thai managers ethical intention.
The results generally support our hypothesis regarding
the influence of corporate ethical values, that Thai
managers in organizations with higher levels of ethical
values tend to have a more ethical intention than the
managers in organizations with lower levels of ethical
values. The survey results regarding the influences of
religiosity, however, are mixed.

Introduction
Anusorn Singhapakdi is Associate Professor of Marketing
at Old Dominion University. He has also served on
the marketing faculty at Lamar University, Texas and
at Thammasat University, Thailand. His area of expertise is business/marketing ethics. He has published in
the Journal of the Scademy of Marketing Science,
Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business
Research, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of
Public Policy & Marketing, International
Marketing Review, and various other journals and
proceedings. He has twice received Best Paper Awards
at the marketing educators conferences of the American
Marketing Association.
Somboon Salyachivin is Emeritus Professor of Applied
Psychology, Chiangmai University, Thailand. Dr.
Salyachivin graduated from Srinakarintarawirote
University in Thailand with her major in Education.
She received her Masters and Ph.D. degrees in educational and applied psychology from University of
Wisconsin and University of Toronto respectively. She
is an active researcher in applied psychology and organizational development in Thailand. She has more than
thirty years of experience teaching, managing, and supervising undergraduate programs and graduate programs
in four prominent universities in Thailand. Her books
and publications in psychology, social development, and
moral reasoning have been recognized and referred to by
many Thai social science researchers.

As observed by Vitell, Rallapalli and Singhapakdi

(1993), concerns for ethical problems in business,
and particularly in marketing, have dramatically
increased over the past decades, which has
generated more theoretical development, especially in the area of marketing ethics (e.g., Ferrell
and Gresham, 1985; Hunt and Vitell, 1986).
They believe that these theories, in turn, have
facilitated more empirical studies in the area (e.g.,
Bellizzzi and Hite, 1989; Mayo and Marks, 1990;
Busaya Virakul had six years of experience working with
agribusiness companies as a technical officer. Her last
position with the private sector before joining an academic
institute was a human resource manager of a multinational company. She is now teaching human resource
management at the Graduate Program in Human
Resource Development, The National Institution of
Development Administration (NIDA), Thailand.
Vinich Veerayangkur is Associate Professor of Management
and Vice President of Human Resources at Kasetsart
University, Thailand. He has been teaching and conducting research work in business and business ethics
subjects in Thailand since his joining at Kasetsart
University in the 1960s.

Journal of Business Ethics 27: 271284, 2000.

2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

272

Anusorn Singhapakdi et al.

Singhapakdi and Vitell, 1990; Hunt and VasquezParraga, 1993). Based on our extensive literature
review, essentially all major business/marketing
ethics models were developed in the U.S.A. and
most of the empirical studies testing these
theories have been conducted in the U.S.A.,
essentially focusing on the ethical decisionmaking process of American managers. A
common problem faced by international
researchers is the need to apply theories developed in one country in other countries. It is
possible that available ethics theories therefore,
could be too oriented toward the American
business context. Given that culture plays an
important role in influencing ethical decisionmaking (e.g., Ferrell and Gresham, 1985; Hunt
and Vitell, 1986; Vitell, Nwachukwu and Barnes,
1993), not focusing more on the ethical decisionmaking process of managers from non-U.S.
cultures may result in an incomplete understanding of marketing ethics.
A good understanding of the ethical decisionmaking process of managers from different
cultures is also essential for effective marketing
management, especially given the important
emphasis on international business in current
marketing thinking. Interestingly, the Journal of
Business Ethics is devoting one of its 1999
issues to International Marketing Ethics. As
increasing numbers of firms move into multinational marketing, ethical issues tend to increase
(Laczniak and Murphy 1993). Moreover, as more
and more firms adopt multinational marketing
strategies, an increased understanding of how
marketers in different cultures make ethical decisions is important.
In recent years, a number of empirical studies
have investigated ethical beliefs and intentions
across differing cultures. For example, ethical
beliefs of American businesspeople or business
students have been compared with foreign
counterparts from countries such as Brazil and
Japan (Graham, 1985), France and Germany
(Becker and Fritzche, 1987), Israel (Izraeli, 1988),
Greece (Tsalikas and Nwachukwu, 1989),
Australia, Canada and Great Britain (Akaah,
1990; Armstrong, Stening, Ryans, Marks and
Mayo, 1991; Whipple and Swords, 1992),
Denmark and New Zealand (Lyonski and Gaidis,

1991), Taiwan (White and Rhodeback, 1992)

and Thailand (Singhapakdi, Vitell and
Leelakulthanit, 1994). It should be pointed out
that these cross-cultural ethics studies are
essentially inter-country or comparative
studies of business managers or students. These
studies have indicated that there are variations
in ethical perceptions or intentions across
cultures. While there has been interest among
researchers on the cross-cultural aspects of marketing/business ethics decisions, there has been
relatively little interest among researchers on the
ethical decision-making processes of marketers
from different, specific countries. Furthermore,
as briefly reviewed above, the cross-cultural ethics
studies conducted tend to focus mainly on differences between managers or business students
from different cultures on different components
of ethical decisions (mostly beliefs or attitudes
toward different ethical issues). As also pointed
out earlier, our literature review reveals that all
major business/marketing ethics models were
developed in the U.S. and most empirical testing
of these theories has been conducted in the U.S.
While the empirical relationships found in these
studies, as well as those specified in marketing
ethics models developed in the U.S., seem applicable to other cultures as well, they must first be
verified empirically.
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of some important personal
and organizational factors of marketing ethics
decision-making in a non-Western context. In
particular, this study examines the relative influences of ethical perceptions, religiosity, personal
moral philosophies, and corporate ethical values
on ethical intentions of Thai managers. These
factors were chosen because of their importance
in the recent business/marketing ethics literature.
The importance of investigating the roles of these
factors will be apparent in the next section of this
study, where relevant literature will be reviewed
and the research hypotheses will be stated. As
pointed out earlier, most of the ethics research
in the past (conceptual and also empirical work)
has been confined to developed-country or
Western contexts (especially the U.S.). In an era
of globalization and global markets, it is imperative that business and marketing ethics issues be

Some Important Factors Underlying Ethical Decision Making of Managers in Thailand

researched in other country and cultural contexts.
From this perspective, the emerging markets of
Southeast Asia offer a good research opportunity.
Given the purpose of our study, we believe that
the choice of Thailand as the country for our
investigation is appropriate, because Thailand is
fundamentally different from the U.S. and most
Western countries, where most of the international marketing/business ethics studies were
conducted. For example, according to Hofstedes
(1980, 1984) cultural typology, Thailand is a
more collectivistic and a less masculine society
than the U.S. and many other Western countries.
Moreover, given the high degree of cultural
homogeneity of several countries in this area,
what is found in Thailand can, to a certain
degree, be generalized to other countries in this
important region.

Conceptual foundations and hypotheses

Personal moral philosophies
Marketing ethics theories generally recognize
moral philosophies as important determinants of
an individuals ethical decision-making process.
For example, Ferrell and Gresham (1985) state
that It is impossible to develop a framework of
ethical decision making without evaluating
normative ethical standards derived from moral
philosophy (p. 88). Consistently, Hunt and
Vitell (1986) specify moral philosophies as the
core of their general theory of marketing
ethics.
Social psychologists also consider moral
philosophies to be important factors influencing
a persons ethical decisions. For example, Forsyth
(1980) argued that ethical judgments can be
explained by taking into account two aspects of
personal moral philosophies, idealism and relativism. Forsyth (1980, p. 175) defines relativism as
the extent to which an individual rejects
universal moral rules when making ethical
judgments. According to him, relativistic individuals generally feel that moral actions depend
upon the nature of the situation and the individuals involved, and when judging others they
weigh the circumstances more than the ethical

273

principle that was violated (Forsyth, 1992, p.

462). Forsyth (1980) defines idealism as the degree
to which the individuals assume that desirable
consequences can, with the right action, always
be obtained (p. 176). He explained that idealistic individuals feel that harming others is
always avoidable, and they would rather not
choose between the lesser of two evils which will
lead to negative consequences for other people
(Forsyth, 1992, p. 462). In this paper, both
idealism and relativism will be examined in terms
of their relative influences on the Thai managers
ethical intention.
The importance of these two personal moral
philosophies as determinants of ethical decisions
was evidenced in a series of marketing ethics
studies by Vitell and his colleagues (1993, 1995).
They reported that, relative to their counterparts,
more idealistic marketers tended to exhibit
higher honesty and integrity (Vitell, Rallapalli
and Singhapakdi, 1993), had higher deontological norms and ethical judgments (Vitell and
Singhapakdi, 1993), and tended to perceive ethics
and social responsibility to be essential for
organizational effectiveness (Singhapakdi et al.,
1995). Regarding relativism, they reported that
relativistic marketers tended to exhibit lower
honesty and integrity than their counterparts
(Vitell, Rallapalli and Singhapakdi, 1993). They
also reported that compared to the less relativistic
marketers, the more relativistic marketers tended
to have lower deontological norms (Vitell,
Rallapalli and Singhapakdi, 1993) and tended to
perceive ethics and social responsibility to be
unimportant for organizational effectiveness
(Singhapakdi et al., 1995). Consistently, Sparks
and Hunt (1998) found a negative relationship
betwen relativism and ethical sensitivity of
marketing research practitioners. Interestingly,
they explained their finding this way: . . . the
disbelief in moral absolutes might reduce the
likelihood of ethical violations standing out
among other issues and relativists might
consider ethical issues in general to be less
important than nonrelativists (p. 105).
In this study, it is assumed that the ethical
intention of a Thai manager is a function of his
or her personal moral philosophies. Based on the
conceptualizations of the two personal moral

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Anusorn Singhapakdi et al.

philosophies and the empirical evidence

reviewed, we can generally conclude that
idealism will influence an individuals ethical
intention in a positive way and the opposite for
relativism. Therefore, the following research
hypotheses were formulated:
H1: Idealistic Thai managers are more likely
to have an ethical intention than their
counterparts.
H2: Relativistic Thai managers are less likely
to have an ethical intention than their
counterparts.
Perceived ethical problem
Perception of an ethical issue or problem is
considered to be an important prerequisite for
ethical decision making. For example, in their
general theory of marketing ethics, Hunt and
Vitell (1986, 1993) depict perceived ethical
problem as a catalyst of the ethical decisionmaking process of marketers. Although the direction of the relationship was not specified in the
Hunt-Vitell model, one would expect that an
individual who perceives an ethical problem to
be more severe would tend to behave more
ethically than an individual who does not. In
fact, this hypothesis is generally supported by
empirical evidence. Based on their survey of sales
professionals, Singhapakdi and Vitell (1991)
reported a significant relationship between perceptions of ethical problems and perceptions of
different feasible alternatives to resolve ethical
problems. In particular, it was reported that salespeople who are more perceptive of an ethical
problem in a situation are more likely to take
some sort of action to remedy it. Based on the
literature above, we would expect ethical perception to influence the ethical decision of a
Thai manager in a positive way. Accordingly, the
following research hypothesis concerning the
effects of perceived ethical problem was formulated:
H3: Thai managers who perceive an ethical
problem in a situation are more likely to
have an ethical intention than their counterparts.

Corporate ethical values

It has been argued by Robin and Reidenbach
(1987) that the key factor in developing successful socially responsible and ethical marketing
programs is the managements ability to integrate
ethical core values into its corporate culture.
Marketing/business ethics theories have also
included organizational environment as an
important factor of the ethical decision-making
process. For example, Ferrell and Gresham (1985)
specify organizational environment (i.e., significant others and opportunity) as a major
group of factors in their contingency framework
for understanding ethical decisions. Hunt and
Vitell (1986, 1993) also specify organizational
environment as one of the major background
factors directly influencing many components of
ethics decision processes. Consistently, in her
person-situation interactionist model of ethical
decision-making, Trevino (1986) identifies
organizational culture as a situational moderator influencing different aspects of the ethics
decision processes of employees. Going further
than the other theorists, Trevino even asserts that
organizational culture is a factor influencing
employees moral development. As she stated,
Organizational culture influences thoughts and
feelings, and guides behavior. It manifests itself
in norms, rituals, ceremonies, legends, and the
organizations choice of heroes and heroines (p.
611).
Empirical studies also indicate that organizational environment is an important factor of
ethical decisions. For example, Newstorm and
Ruch (1975) found top executives to be an
important source of a managers ethical standards.
According to Weaver and Ferrells (1977) study,
the existence and enforcement of a corporate
ethics policy influences beliefs toward different
ethical behaviors. Consistently, Hegarty and Sims
(1979) found that an ethics policy, whether
formal or informal, positively influences ethical
behavior. In a series of studies, Singhapakdi and
Vitell (1990, 1991) also found that organizational
ethical culture positively influences different
components (e.g., perceived ethical problem,
perceived alternatives, and deontological norms)
of a marketers ethical decision-making process.

Some Important Factors Underlying Ethical Decision Making of Managers in Thailand

In this study, corporate ethical values will be
investigated. The variable was conceptualized by
Hunt, Wood, and Chonko (1989), based on the
work of Alchian and Demsetz (1972) and
Chamberlin (1933), that the central dimension
of organizational culture is corporate values.
According to Hunt, Wood, and Chonko (1989),
corporate values influence various aspects of the
organizations decisions, including decisions
regarding product and service quality, and
advertising content. Focusing on the ethical
dimension of corporate values, they define corporate ethical values as a composite of the individual ethical values of managers and both the
formal and informal policies on ethics of the
organization (p. 79). It should be noted that this
conceptualization is consistent with those of the
management theorists, that a strong sense of
corporate ethical values will help establish the
standards for the companies in deciding on the
right thing to do ( Jansen and Von Glinow,
1985).
Based on the conceptualization of corporate
ethical values, as well as the empirical evidence
reviewed, we would expect the Thai marketers
in organizations with higher levels of ethical
values to have more ethical intentions than the
marketers in organizations with lower corporate
ethical values. Thus, this hypothesis:
H4: Thai managers in organizations with
higher levels of ethical values are more
likely to have an ethical intention than
their counterparts.

Religiosity
Thailand is dominated by Buddhist culture,
which is one of the more traditional Oriental
cultural contexts. In their chapter on marketing
and consumer behavior in Thailand, Wongtada,
Leelakulthanit, and Singhapakdi (1998) observe
that Buddhism is generally considered to be a
religion that emphasizes co-existence, tolerance
and individual initiative. As a result, according to
them, other religions are also freely practiced in
Thailand. In addition to a large Muslim community in the southern part of the country,

275

Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism and

Sikhism are practiced throughout Thailand.
Although the nature of influences of the different
religions in Thailand cannot be ruled out and, in
fact, would be an interesting topic for ethics
research, they are beyond the scope of our study.
In this study, we are only interested in the general
influence of religiosity on ethical intentions of
Thai managers.
Major marketing ethics model (e.g., Ferrell
and Gresham, 1985; Hunt and Vitell, 1986)
generally specify the ethical decision-making
process as a function of many factors, including
personal characteristics and also social and
cultural environment. Of interest to this study are
the influences of these categories of factors, of
which an individuals religiosity is an integral
part. Particularly relevant to this study, in the
revised version of their model, Hunt and Vitell
(1993) explicitly stated that religion can influence different components of the marketers
ethical decision-making process. As they stated,
Unquestionably, an individuals personal religion
influences ethical decision making. A priori,
compared with nonreligious people, one might
suspect that the highly religious people would
have more clearly defined deontological norms
and that such norms would play a stronger role
in ethical judgments (p. 780). Therefore, following their assertion, religiosity can affect the
ethical decision-making process in different ways.
Although the specific directions of the possible
linkages were not specified by Hunt and Vitell,
we would expect that, in general, a more religious person would have a higher moral standard
than a less religious person.
This assumption was also supported by the
empirical work of Rallapalli (1994) who
examined the relationships between religiosity
and marketers norms (defined as guidelines or
rules of behavior). Specifically, Rallapalli found
that the marketers religiosity positively influences
three out of five types of marketers norms
information and contract norms, product and
promotion norms, and honesty and integrity
norms. In general, the results indicate that highly
religious marketers tend to have higher norms,
suggesting that a highly religious marketer will
tend to agree more with guidelines or rules of

276

Anusorn Singhapakdi et al.

behavior as guiding principles in his or her

behavior than marketers with low religiosity.
Based on the empirical results as well as the
theoretical work reviewed, we can generally
expect religiosity to affect ethical decisionmaking of Thai managers in a positive way.
Therefore, we propose this hypothesis:
H5: More religious Thai managers are more
likely to have an ethical intention than
their less religious counterparts.

Methodology

the meanings are accurate. The questionnaire was

administered during regular class periods.
Corporate ethical values.
Hunt, Wood, and
Chonkos (1989) corporate ethical values (CEV)
scale was adopted in this study. The scale consists
of five items and was measured by a 9-point
agree-disagree scale ( = 0.65). The CEV 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, Wood and Chonko, 1989,
p. 79). A marketer scoring high on the CEV scale
works in an organization with higher corporate
ethical values.

Sample
For this study, a self-administered questionnaire
was used as the data collection technique.
Managers enrolled in executive MBA or special
MBA programs from eight public and five private
universities throughout Thailand were selected as
target respondents. A total of 798 usable questionnaires were received. Most respondents are
men (64.3%), and the largest group of respondents are 3039 years old (45.5%). Regarding
their educational backgrounds, most of the
respondents (56.2%) have undergraduate-level
education. This is consistent with the requirement of typical executive MBA programs that
students have at least an undergraduate degree
and/or some working experience. The respondents represent various industries and management positions. The majority (54.4%) of them
have less than ten years of business experience.
Most of the respondents (67.3%) reside in the
capital city of Bangkok or a Bangkok suburb. A
more detailed profile of the respondents is given
in Table I.

Measures
As pointed out earlier, a self-administered
questionnaire was used as the data collection
technique for this study. Thai is the first language
of Thailand, so the questionnaire was professionally translated from English to Thai. A backtranslation technique was also used to assure that

Personal moral philosophies. Forsyths (1980) Ethics

Position Questionnaire (EPQ) was used to
measure personal moral philosophies. The EPQ
has two parts, idealism and relativism; there are
10 items for each part, each of which is measured
by a 9-point agree-disagree scale. Both idealism
and relativism scales appear to be reliable, with
coefficient alphas of 0.82 and 0.81 respectively.
As discussed earlier, the idealism scale was
designed to tap ones acceptance of moral
absolutes and the relativism scale measures the
rejection of universal moral principles. According
to Forsyth (1980), those scoring high on the
idealism scale generally believe that morally
right behavior leads to good or positive consequences, while those scoring high on the
relativism scale tend to reject the existence of
absolute moral principles.
Religiosity. The religiosity scale developed by
Wilkes, Burnett and Howell (1986) was used in
this study. The scale consists of three dimensions:
church attendance (more appropriate for
Thailand, the word temple was used instead
of church), perceived importance of religious
values, and confidence in religious values. Each
of these dimensions was measured using one item
on a nine-point Likert scale. The overall religiosity scores were computed by adding the
scores of the three religiosity dimensions. Higher
scores on this scale indicate that individuals are
more religious than those who have lower scores.
The coefficient alpha is 0.49 for this scale.

Some Important Factors Underlying Ethical Decision Making of Managers in Thailand

277

TABLE I
Profile of respondents
Variables

Percentage

Gender
Male
Female

64.3
35.7

Age
Under 30
30 to 39
40 to 49
50 to 59
60 and over

29.0
45.5
23.4
02.1
00.0

Educational level
Some college
Bachelors degree
Some graduate school
Masters degree
Doctorate

01.1
56.2
06.2
35.7
00.8

Current job title

President/owner
Vice president
Corporate manager/director
Division/product manager
District manager/analyst
Junior analyst/sales
Other

10.2
00.8
16.9
35.5
04.9
22.6
09.1

Industry
Wholesale or retail
Manufacturing or construction
Services
Communications
Advertising or public relations
Marketing consulting
Education
Other

15.3
21.9
33.5
02.7
01.1
06.0
02.4
17.1

Ethical perception and intention. Perception of

ethical problem and ethical intention were operationalized by means of four marketing ethics
scenarios (see Appendix A). This is consistent
with many studies in marketing ethics, where the
scenario method is widely used (e.g., Chonko
and Hunt, 1985; Laczniak, Lusch and Strang,
1981; Singhapakdi and Vitell, 1990; Sparks and
Hunt, 1998). In addition, this method is recognized as a suitable for ethics research by Hunt
and Vitell (1986). These scenarios were selected

Variables
Size of firm (# of employees)
Less than 100
100299
300499
500699
700899
9001000
Over 1000
Location
Bangkok
Bangkok suburb
Central
Southern
Northern
Northeastern
Eastern
Annual salary (Baht)
Under 200K
200K399K
400K599K
600K799K
800K999,999
Over 1,000K
Masters program
Special MBA
EX-MBA
MINI MBA
Business experience
1 to 5 years
6 to 10 years
11 to 15 years
16 to 20 years
Over 20 years

Percentage

43.3
17.1
08.4
05.4
03.0
02.6
20.2
60.7
06.6
03.4
02.7
14.1
11.5
01.0
16.8
19.5
16.6
16.8
26.8
03.5
43.2
56.2
00.6
29.7
24.7
26.1
13.3
06.2

from a set of scenarios developed by Dornoff and

Tankersley (1975) and Reidenbach, Robin, and
Dawson (1991) representing different ethical
issues in retailing. Thai business scholars also took
part in the selection process. Along with the Thai
scholars, we believe that the scenarios selected
are universal enough to be used in Thailand.
By means of these four marketing ethics
scenarios, the construct perceived ethical problem
was measured directly by asking the respondents
whether the situation described in each these sce-

278

Anusorn Singhapakdi et al.

narios involves an ethical problem. Specifically,

the respondents were asked to express their
degree of agreement or disagreement with the
statement, The situation above involves an
ethical problem. This operationalization is
similar to that used by Singhapakdi and Vitell
(1990) in their marketing ethics study. A ninepoint Likert type disagree/agree scale was used
for measurement. A higher score means that the
respondent perceives that the situation depicted
in the scenario involves an ethical problem, and
vice versa.
Ethical intention was also measured directly by
asking each respondent to indicate if he or she
would act in the same manner as the marketer
depicted in each of the scenarios. The statement,
I would act in the same manner as [marketer]
did in the above scenario was used (also, via a
nine-point disagree/agree scale). Given that the
scenarios used are examples of marketing behaviors that are generally considered to be unethical (e.g., misleading the appraiser, withholding
information, and failure to honor a warranty), an
agreement (higher scores) with the actions by the
marketers depicted in the scenarios could be
interpreted as a less ethical intention than a
disagreement (lower scores). This interpretation
is also consistent with our results, the pretest
results (using Thai undergraduate business
students), and the results from a survey of consumers by Dornoff and Tankersley (1975), which
indicate that most people disagreed with the
actions depicted in each of the four scenarios
adopted in this study.

Results
All hypotheses of this study were simultaneously
tested by means of four multiple regression
models (one for each of the four scenarios). As
summarized in Table II, consistent with our
literature review and the hypotheses formulated,
the construct ethical intention was specified as
the dependent variable and the constructs, religiosity, perceived ethical problem, idealism,
relativism, and corporate ethical values were
specified as predictor variables in the regression
models.

The analysis reveals that the variable idealism is

a significant predictor of a Thai managers ethical
intention, as hypothesized, for three of the four
scenarios tested (i.e., Misleading the Appraiser,
Over-Eager Salesperson, and Failure to
Honor a Warranty scenarios). Therefore,
hypothesis H1 is generally supported. Our survey
results indicate that idealism influences ethical
intention in a positive way; the idealistic Thai
managers tend to be more likely to have an
ethical intention than their less idealistic counterparts. In other words, compared to less
idealistic managers, more idealistic managers
generally disagree more stongly with the questionable actions depicted in the scenarios.
The regression results for all four scenarios also
reveal that relativism negatively influences a Thai
marketers ethical intention, as hypothesized. In
particular, the results indicate that more relativistic Thai managers are less likely to have an
ethical intention than their less relativistic counterparts. Therefore, hypothesis H2 is supported.
Also consistent with our hypothesis, the regression results reveal that perceived ethical problem
positively influences a Thai managers ethical
intention. That is, Thai managers who perceive
an ethical problem in a situation were less likely
to agree with the unethical intentions depicted
in all four scenarios. Therefore, hypothesis H3 is
also supported.
The regression results generally support our
hypothesis regarding the influence of corporate
ethical values (the construct is significant for three
of four scenarios tested). Accordingly, hypothesis H4 is generally supported. Thai managers in
organizations with higher levels of ethical values
tend to have more ethical intentions than
managers in organizations with lower levels of
ethical values. However, the results regarding the
influences of religiosity are mixed. Religiosity is
a significant predictor for only two of the four
scenarios tested (i.e., Withholding Information
and Failure to Honor a Warranty). Therefore,
hypothesis H5, that religious Thai managers are
more likely to have ethical intentions than their
counterparts, is only partly supported.

Some Important Factors Underlying Ethical Decision Making of Managers in Thailand

279

TABLE II
Regression model: ethical intentions
Variables

Beta

(a) Model for Scenario 1: Misleading the appraisera

Religiosity
Perceived ethical problem
Relativism
Corporate ethical values
Idealism

0.031
0.130
0.140
0.124
0.199

00.864
3.783
04.062
3.557
5.445

0.388
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000

(b) Model for Scenario 2: Over-eager salespersonb

Religiosity
Perceived ethical problem
Relativism
Corporate ethical values
Idealism

0.020
0.249
0.096
0.111
0.187

0.564
7.332
02.852
3.263
5.189

0.573
0.000
0.005
0.001
0.000

(c) Model for Scenario 3: Withholding informationc

Religiosity
Perceived ethical problem
Relativism
Corporate ethical values
Idealism

0.104
0.097
0.502
0.030
0.045

3.201
03.118
16.232
0.956
1.374

0.001
0.002
0.000
0.339
0.170

(d) Model for Scenario 4: Failure to honor a warrantyd

Religiosity
Perceived ethical problem
Relativism
Corporate ethical values
Idealism

0.081
0.318
0.067
0.071
0.181

2.329
9.317
2.036
2.114
4.966

0.020
0.000
0.042
0.035
0.000

a
b
c
d

Adjusted
Adjusted
Adjusted
Adjusted

R2
R2
R2
R2

=
=
=
=

0.104,
0.148,
0.281,
0.172,

F
F
F
F

=
=
=
=

18.762,
27.520,
60.550,
32.938,

Significant
Significant
Significant
Significant

F
F
F
F

less
less
less
less

Discussion
This study examines the relative influences of
ethical perceptions, religiosity, personal moral
philosophies, and corporate ethical values on
ethical intentions of managers in Thailand. The
results generally indicate that both dimensions
of moral philosophies, idealism and relativism, are
significant predictors of a Thai managers ethical
intentions, as hypothesized. In particular, the
results indicate that idealistic Thai managers tend
to be more likely to have ethical intentions than
their less idealistic counterparts. The results also
indicate that relativistic Thai managers are less

than
than
than
than

0.001.
0.001.
0.001.
0.001.

likely to have ethical intentions than their less

relativistic counterparts. These findings imply
that one approach to improve ethical behavior is
for Thai companies, or multinational companies
operating in Thailand, to encourage idealism and
discourage relativism in business practices among
their employees. That is, given that our results
generally indicate that idealism increased ethical
intentions, another way to improve ethical standards in business is for Thai organizations or
multinational organizations operating in Thailand
to promote idealism among employees. For
example, through training programs or other
means, the organizations could try to commu-

280

Anusorn Singhapakdi et al.

nicate the idea that an ethical solution is always

the goal in any problematic situation. Because
our results also indicate that relativism lowered
ethical intentions, the organizations should also
discourage a relativistic philosophy in business
practices. Company policies should clearly state
that organization and professional codes of ethics,
as well as all applicable rules and guidelines, must
be strictly followed in all problematic situations.
Our survey results reveal that perceived ethical
problem is a positive factor of a Thai managers
ethical intentions. Thai managers who perceive
an ethical problem in a situation were less likely
to agree with the unethical intentions depicted
in all four scenarios. Given that those who
perceive an ethical problem within a given situation are likely to have a more ethical intention,
this implies that at least some unethical behavior
can be averted by sensitizing Thai managers to
ethical issues and problems. This can be done by
means of ethics training programs. Consistent
with our recommendation earlier, we believe that
comprehensive codes at professional and organizational levels would also help to sensitize Thai
managers to a variety of ethical issues and
problems.
The regression results generally support our
hypothesis regarding the influence of corporate
ethical values; Thai managers in organizations with
higher levels of ethical values tend to have more
ethical intentions than managers in organizations
with lower levels of ethical values. Our findings
are generally consistent with those of the studies
conducted in the U.S. (e.g., Newstorm and
Ruch, 1975; Weaver and Ferrell, 1977; Hegarty
and Sims, 1979; Singhapakdi and Vitell, 1990,
1991). Apparently, as in the U.S. and many other
Western cultures, in the Thai culture (perhaps
other similar cultures in the region), the ethical
climate of an organization is also an important
factor of ethical decisions of managers. Given that
ethical intentions positively influence ethical
behavior (e.g., Hunt and Vitell, 1986; Rest,
1986; Jones 1991), an important implication from
this finding is that if top management wants its
employees to behave ethically, it should create an
ethical climate in the organization. This also
includes establishing a code of ethics and strongly
enforcing it.

The survey results regarding the influences of

religiosity are mixed. Religiosity is a significant
predictor for only two of the four scenarios
tested, Withholding Information and Failure
to Honor a Warranty. Perhaps these two significant scenarios, which essentially depict a lie
or a lying situation, are more clearly in
violation of religions in Thailand. The mixed
findings could also result from the low reliability
level of the Wilkes, Burnett and Howell (1986)
religiosity scale adopted in this study (Cronbach
alpha = 0.49). The low reliability level can
perhaps be expected because, as pointed out in
the methodology section, the three items of the
scale were designed to capture different dimensions of religiosity. In addition, the religiosity
scale was developed in the U.S. and, therefore,
was not able to capture Buddhist religiosity as
well. Given the limitation, our results regarding
the effects of religiosity on ethical intentions
should be viewed cautiously.

Limitations
The findings of this study should be viewed
cautiously because of some possible limitations.
One concerns the use of managers enrolled in
executive MBA or special MBA programs from
public and private universities throughout
Thailand as target respondents. A mailing to
reach managers throughout Thailand was not
feasible, so this was judged the best possible
approach. Nevertheless, one can argue that the
Thai managers enrolled in executive MBA or
special MBA programs are not typical Thai
business managers. For example, one can argue
that, relative to typical Thai business managers,
the respondents of this survey are more likely to
be younger, more educated, have less ethical
experience, have lower levels of job responsibilities, and so on. As a result, one could speculate
that our respondents may be less ethically
complex or may less morally developed than the
typical Thai managers. Recall that this study also
includes the two personal moral philosophies,
idealism and relativism, as factors in the analyses.
We believe that these two factors are likely to
serve as good surrogates for the potential

Some Important Factors Underlying Ethical Decision Making of Managers in Thailand

individual differences listed above. Nevertheless,
for future research it is important to use other
sampling frames to help determine if the relationships found in this study hold.
Another possible limitation of this study
concerns the low reliability level of the Wilkes,
Burnett and Howell (1986) religiosity scale. As
pointed out earlier, the low reliability level of the
scale could be due to the fact that the three items
of the scale were designed to capture different
dimensions of religiosity and, also, the scale was
developed in the U.S. and, therefore, may not
be able to capture Buddhist religiosity well.
Accordingly, future research would certainly
benefit from development and testing of a better
scale.
Recall that perceived ethical problem and ethical
intention were measured by a scenario method.
That is, perceived ethical problem was measured
directly by asking the respondents whether the
situation described in different ethics scenarios
involves an ethical problem and that ethical
intention was measured by asking each respondent to indicate if he or she would act in the
same, questionable manner as the marketer
depicted in each scenario. Accordingly, one can
argue that the use of single-item measure for
perceived ethical problem and ethical intention
may pose another limitation. Although we
believe that for the purpose of our study the use
of a single item for these two variables is sufficient and that the technique is consistent with
many similar types of studies (e.g., Chonko and
Hunt, 1985; Laczniak, Lusch and Strang, 1981;
Singhapakdi and Vitell, 1990; Vitell and Hunt,
1990), for future studies, composite measures for
the two variables could be developed and used
to improve the psychometric quality of the
measurement and, thus, the validity of the
results.

Conclusions
As pointed out in the Introduction section, the
research stream dealing with marketing ethics,
both conceptual and empirical work, has been
growing significantly in the recent years.
However, there is very little systematic research

281

on ethical behaviors of business professionals in

different parts of the world, especially in the
Pacific Rim region, which though recently
facing some setbacks, is still considered an
important economic region at least in the long
term. Our literature review indicates that essentially all major business/marketing ethics models
are developed in the U.S. In addition, most of
the empirical studies testing these theories have
been conducted either in the U.S. or in Western
cultures. It is possible that these ethics theories
as well as the empirical testing of them could be
too oriented toward the U.S. or Western business
context and, thus, may not be applicable in other
cultures. Given the increasing number of firms
that are moving into multinational marketing,
this lack of focus on the ethical decision-making
process of managers from other cultures may
result in an incomplete understanding of marketing ethics. The research reported in this paper
attempts to fill this gap by investigating the
ethical decision-making process of Thai business
professionals.
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influences of some important personal
and organizational factors of marketing ethics
decision-making in a non-Western context,
Thailand. Overall, our results are consistent with
those of similar studies conducted in the U.S. or
other Western nations. With the possible exception of religiosity, all the important factors of
marketing ethics decision-making, based on the
U.S. or Western models and past studies, appear
to hold quite well in the Thai culture. The
findings from our study should be useful in
helping sensitize Thai managers to ethical issues
with the hope that marketing/business ethics in
the country be improved through some of the
suggestions based on the empirical evidences that
we offered. Our findings should also be useful
for multinational marketers operating in
Thailand. In recent years, many multinational
companies have attempted to develop and implement worldwide policies, including in the ethics
area, for their employees in different countries.
In order for this kind of program to be successful,
it is necessary to research the inter-country
differences in ethical decision processes. For
example, this research revealed that in countries

282

Anusorn Singhapakdi et al.

like Thailand ethical intentions of managers can

be enhanced by increasing the perception of the
ethical problem, corporate ethical values, as well
as promoting and/or discouraging certain moral
philosophies when dealing with problematic
situations. While it is desirable to replicate this
study in other Pacific-Rim country markets, one
may expect that the findings based on our study
of Thai business professionals are typical of other
similar markets in that important region. At least

our research should be useful as a basis for future

studies in the region.

Acknowledgement
This research was supported by a grant from the
1997 Thailand Research Fund (RDG 01/035
2540).

Appendix A: Marketing ethics scenarios

Scenario 1: Misleading the appraiser1
An automobile salesman is told by a customer that a serious engine problem exists with a trade-in. However,
because of his desire to make the sale, he does not inform the used car appraiser at the dealership, and the
problem is not identified.
Action: The salesman closes the deal that includes the trade-in.
Scenario 2: Over-eager salesperson2
A young man, recently hired as a salesman for a local retail store, has been working very hard to favorably impress
his boss with his selling ability. At times, this young man, anxious for an order, has been a little over-eager. To
get the order, he exaggerates the value of the item or withholds relevant information concerning the product
he is trying to sell. No fraud or deceit is intended by his actions, he is simply over-eager.
Action: The owner of the retail store is aware of this salesmans actions, but has done nothing to stop such practice.
Scenario 3: Withholding information2
Sets of a well-known brand of good china dinnerware are advertised on sale at a considerable discount by a
local retailer. Several patterns of a typical 45-piece service for eight are listed. The customer may also buy any
odd pieces which are available in stock (for instance, a butter dish, a gravy bowl, etc.). The ad does not
indicate, however, that these patterns have been discontinued by the manufacturer.
Action: The retailer offers this information only if the customer directly asks if the merchandise is discontinued.
Scenario 4: Failure to honor a warranty2
A person bought a new car from a franchised automobile dealership in the local area. Eight months after the
car was purchased, he began having problems with the transmission. He took the car back to the dealer, and
some minor adjustments were made. During the next few months he continually had a similar problem with
the transmission slipping. Each time the dealer made only minor adjustments on the car. Again, during the
13th month after the car had been bought, the man returned to the dealer because the transmission still was
not functioning properly. At this time, the transmission was completely overhauled.
Action: Since the warranty was for only one year (12 months from the date of purchase), the dealer charged the
full price for parts and labor.
1
2

Source: Reidenbach, Robin, and Dawson (1991).

Source: Dornoff and Tankersley (1975).

Some Important Factors Underlying Ethical Decision Making of Managers in Thailand

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Anusorn Singhapakdi
Marketing Area,
College of Business & Public Administration,
Old Dominion University,
Norfolk, VA 23529-0220,
E-mail: asinghap@odu.edu.