Business and Marketing Ethics

Marketing ethics is a subset of applied ethics concerned with the moral principles that guide the operation and regulation of marketing. In numerous instances, marketing ethics (advertising and promotion ethics) and media and public relations ethics overlap.

ABSTRACT. Marketing ethics is normally marketed
as a sub-specialization of business ethics. In this paper,
marketing ethics serves as an umbrella term for
advertising, PR and sales ethics and as an example of
professionalethics.To structurethe paper,four
approachesare distinguished, with a focus on typical
professional conflicts, codes, roles or climates respec-
tively. Since the moral climate approach is more
inclusive than the other approaches, the last part of
the paper deals mainly with moral climates, within
the above-mentioned marketing sub-professions.
KEY WORDS: advertising ethics, business ethics
approaches, codes of ethics, ethical climate, marketing
ethics, moral climate, professional ethics, public rela-
tions ethics, real estate agent ethics, role morality
Introduction
“‘Ethics’ most often refersto a domain of
inquiry, a discipline, in which matters of right
and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice, are
systematically examined. ‘Morality’, by contrast,
is most often used to refer not to a discipline
but to patterns of thought and action that are
actually operative in everyday life. In this sense,
morality is what the discipline of ethics is about.
And so business morality is what business ethics
is about” (Goodpaster,1992, p. 111). This
quotation offers a simple and fruitful entrance
into a discipline. Questions about moral accept-
ability in business contexts and others can b
asked (and answered) descriptively or critically. A
descriptive(or empirical,or social science)
question could be whatgiven individuals and
groups themselves actually do accept as right or
wrong. Such a question cannot be answered
without empirical data. A critical (or normative,
or ethics) question would focus on why choices,
consequences, or system states are acceptable (
not). Such questions cannot be answered withou
good reasons, arguments, and criteria. Ideally
asking and answering do not stop before the fact
are clear (enough) and good (enough) reasons ar
found and offered, or before at least good enoug
discussion procedures are followed.1
Marketing ethics
A preliminary portrait of marketing ethics could
simply extend the above quotation. Marketing
ethics examines systematically marketing and
marketing morality, related to 4P-issues such as
unsafe products, deceptive pricing, deceptive
advertising or bribery, discrimination in distrib-
ution (cf. Smith and Quelch, 1993, p. 13). Other
issues are related to exploitation of consume
weakness (see ibid., p. 30) or using PR for pre-
venting critical journalism and public debate. If
business ethics as an academic field is about mo
criticism and self-criticismof businessand
business education, this would include criticism
and self-criticism of marketing as well, as its mos
out-going and aggressive part, with its specific
Business and Marketing
Ethics as Professional Ethics.
Concepts, Approaches
and Typologies Johannes Brinkmann
Journal of Business Ethics41: 159–177, 2002.
© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Johannes Brinkmann, Norwegian School of Management
BI, Oslo, Norway, is originally a sociologist. He has
published several articles in the Journal of Business
Ethics, Teaching Business Ethics, Business Ethics: A
European Review as well as two books about business
ethics (1993, 2001, in Norwegian).

tools and tricks and its specific acceptable and
unacceptable choices and consequences.
Marketing ethics markets itself as a research
and teaching specialty on its own. There are ded-
icated textbooks (e.g. Laczniak and Murphy,
1985, 1993; Smith and Quelch, 1993; Chonko,
1995); there are dedicated journal issues (e.g.
Journal of Business Ethics, April 1991#4, January
1999#1,February 2000#3-1issuesor the
International Marketing Review 1995#4, or the
European Journal of Marketing May 1996 special
issue on marketing and social responsibility). In
addition, a few independent articles can be
mentioned,in particular the Tsalikis and
Fritzsche review article published in 1989, the
widely quoted Hunt and Vitell framework papers
of 1986 and 1993, Smith’s introduction chapter
to Smith and Quelch, 1993, or the recent article
of Murphy, 2002).
Professional ethics
Judging from business ethics textbooks, journals
and conferences, marketing ethics is normally
treated as a more or less independent sub-
specialization of business ethics. In this paper,
marketing is dealt with as a profession or, more
precisely,as a common denominatoracross
several sub-professions, i.e. as identifiable com-
petence types or “. . . occupations which have
certain shared characteristics . . . Whether or not
an occupation is more or less professionalized
depends on how thoroughly it manifests these
characteristics.” (Callahan, 1988, p. 26) Some of
such characteristics are basic and indispensable,
e.g. “extensive intellectual training”, “importance
to the organized functioning of society”. Others
are less basic but still useful for typological
distinctions, such as certification, prestige, control
bodies (cf. Appelbaum and Lawton, 1990; Bayles,
1989; Callahan, 1988; Goldman, 1980; Windt
et al., 1989). Another way of defining a profes-
sion could be with reference to the specific stake-
holder-relations and societal functions which are
supposedto be served:clients’ or patients’
welfare, their health, rights, interests etc.
Compared with the traditional, established
professions such as law or medicine, marketing
is almost without tradition, a second-rate or
semi-profession. In such a context, the “exten-
sive intellectual training” criterion is less prob-
lematic (assuming the university-level program
offered and followed are not second rate) tha
the “societal importance” or “basic value refer-
ence” criterion. To most people, health and
justice are “more” basic ideals and values than
keeping market economiesgoing. Looking
skeptically from outside, there is almost a suspi-
cion that marketers’ references to values and
ideals are a marketing trick, an oxymoron, a trial
to instrumentalize ethics, both as a medium
professionalization and as an indicator of claimed
professionalism.
Professional ethics can also be derived, simply,
as a combination of the ethics and profession
concepts referred to above, or developed from a
textbook review (see in general once more
Appelbaum and Lawton, 1990; Bayles, 1989;
Callahan, 1988; Goldman, 1980; Windt et al.,
1989 as well as Flores, 1988; Kultgen, 1988;
Lebacqz, 1985).
Business and marketing ethics as professional et
According to the businessethics literature,
looking at business and marketing ethics as pro-
fessional ethics, at “professions in business and
professions as business” (DeGeorge, 1995, pp
454-471), would be an example of macro or
meso level businessethics,2 in terms of
Goodpaster’s (1992) or Enderle’s (1996) three-
level-distinctions.3 There are a number of
arguments in favor of such a focus on a profes-
sions level as a homogeneous and fruitful level
for theory development, empirical and practical
work:
• a professions approach builds more than any
other approach on a unity of education and
practice, as a mix of studies, work life
experience and training (and often some
continued education, too);
• the professions level is relatively homoge-
neous as a subculture and perhaps more
power-freethan companies(a power-
freedom which could qualify it as a poten-
tial discourse ethics arena);
160 Johannes Brinkmann

• often, there exist professional codes which
identify crucial stakeholders,important
moral conflicts and correct handling of such
conflicts;
• professional colleagues represent probably
the most important reference group of pro-
fessionals;
• professionalorganizationshave often a
positive attitude towards organization-wide
studies such as surveys;
• professionalsamplescan be fruitful as
matched samples in cross-cultural compar-
isons.
After such a conceptual introduction, the rest of
this paper offers empirical illustrations from
survey answers from Norwegian marketing prac-
titioners, or more precisely from advertising,
public relations and real-estate practitioners, so
to speak sub-specializations of marketing.4 To a
certain extent, the presentation will be compar-
ative, i.e. raise questions of similarities and dif-
ferences within marketing as a broader field. For
systematic reasons, the presentation is split into
four approaches, focusing on typical professional
conflicts, codes, roles and climates respectively
(assuming that such a four-fold distinction also
is of general interest for professional and business
ethics).
Four approaches to professional ethics
A moral conflict approach
Ethics is probably quite an abstract issue to most
business professionals unless they face a really
urgent and threatening conflict or dilemma. Such
a conflict experience, however, can create an
equally urgent demand for “some” ethics as
conflict settlement help, e.g. in the format of
guidelines or check-list-like rules of procedure.
Consistently, one could understand professional
ethics primarily as a discipline that helps to analyze,
handle and prevent conflict in professional contexts,
by addressing or introducing a moral dimension. In
other words, the relevance of professional ethics
restswith its conflict-consciousness.5 Or: If
professionals do not perceive any moral conflicts
or dilemmas, why bother, and if professionals
demand specific conflict management help, why
not focus on moral conflicts?
To begin with, a few conceptual distinctions
and some ideas can be outlined, including refer-
ences to how such professional moral conflict
could be approached empirically. When studying
a profession, a company, an industry or a work
group, one can look at types, frequency or per-
ceived seriousness of value and interest conflicts
In such cases, one uses a tendency or a property
concept of conflict, where conflict describes a
system or actor relationship state, e.g. a compe-
tition climate or a moral climate.6 One can also
talk of the (one) conflict x, taking place in socio-
cultural context y, during time-span z. In this
case, conflict is studied as a specific time-space-
unit.7 Conflicts-as-units can be seen as manifes-
tations of conflict tendencies, or in the above
terminology, of conflict-as-system-property. In
most professional work situations, there is at leas
some latent conflict. Such latent conflict “man-
ifests” itself from time to time in more or less
open conflict processes or episodes. This aga
“illustrates” that some conflict is natural in every
organization.8
Business life is full of conflict. This is why a
conflict approach to professional ethics is partic-
ularly convincing for business professions. The
market mechanism as such institutionalizes a
conflict of interest between sellers and buyer
employers and employees, among competitors
and other stakeholders. Ideally, markets represen
transparent, fair and productive competition and
in practice hopefully at least some competition.
At first glance, conflicts about values and moralit
issues do not fit into he model. In practice they
are perhaps as ubiquitous as conflicts of interest
and often much harder to handle constructively,
especially if they contain clear dilemmas of the
catch 22-type, i.e. situations with disputable
solutions only. Most business ethics cases, at lea
in textbook presentation format, contain more
or less complex authentic conflicts with at least
one moral issue and without any easy self-eviden
solution.9 After exposure to a raw case descrip-
tion10 students are usually invited to identify and
clarify main issues, parties and stakeholders,
options and wisest solutions. Independently of
size, such dilemmas are normally constructed as
Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics 161

a hopeless choice between contradictory respon-
sibilities where at least one legitimate stakeholder
will be hurt. The follow-up question is often in
the format of “what would you do if you were
person X, or which conflict party would you side
with, and how would you justify your choice?”
Both in teaching and not least in research,
such abbreviated conflict descriptions are of
interest as a format of asking questions and as
catalysts for discussion.11 In several pilot survey
studies in different Norwegian business profes-
sions perceived moral conflict frequencies and
conflict seriousness were used as a questionnaire
opening. As indicated already, business ethics can
be an abstract issue for most ordinary business
people unless it is experienced in the format of
urgent and threatening conflicts and dilemmas. If
this is so, references to typical conflicts, their fre-
quency and perceived seriousness represent good
warm-up questions for survey research about
professional ethics. Exhibit 1 lists answer fre-
quencies from the mentioned studies, with areas
of conflict ranked by seriousnessamong
Norwegian real-estate agents, advertising and PR
professionals.
The relative strength of a conflict approach
results from its focus on the importance of acute
professional ethics conflicts as attention-getters,
turning latent contradictions and challenges into
manifest issues which must be dealt with. One
could almost say that a conflict approach tends
towards a deliberate conflict bias and a criticism
of a value consensus bias. Or, in other words, a
weakness could be a focus on conflict events at
the expense of conflict contexts and on serious
acute conflicts even if they represent an excep-
tion rather than normal business life.
A professional code approach
A professional code approach could reason that
professional ethics is a question of developin
implementing an appropriate rule-set– for conflict
handling and for addressing desirable or unde-
sirable behavior. Reading published professional
codes can be a fruitful point of departure for
learning about the real and ideal morality of
given profession.Such codes draw mapsof
expected conflicts, expected or suggested solu-
tions and, perhaps, predictable sanctions. Codes
try to exploit the positive functions of legal
regulation by institutionalizing rules and laws
which are valid for organization members who
accept the rules by signature when joining o
when passing exams. There are often collegiate
bodies that handle complaints and implement th
code, while annual meetings could function as
legislative bodies. On the other hand, negative
functions of legal regulation apply to codes, too.
Forms tend to become important at the expense
of content, external sanctions tend to replace
162 Johannes Brinkmann
EXHIBIT 1
The six most serious types of professional conflict according to the three subsamples
(in parenthesis per cents ranking the type first, second and third)
Advertising professionals PR and Information professionals Real Estate Agents
Quality of work under time Superiors (42) Relations to property buyers (39)
pressure (48)
Client relationships (41) Quality of work under time Relations to property sellers (38)
pressure (40)
Personal/private ethics (37)12 Media (32) Quality of work under time
pressure (38)
Environmental considerations (32)Public debate (31) Incomplete truth (32)
Consumers (34) Critical journalism (30) Caring for weaker parties (27)
Colleagues (23) Colleagues (21) Personal/private ethics (20)

inner involvement, top-down implementation
tends to create skepticism, cynicism, opposition
and the boycotting of rules. If reading published
professional codes is useful for studying the
morality and ethics of a given profession,
Exhibit 2 examplifies different code contents and
code design in the same Norwegian marketing
professions which have been mentioned already.
Some strengths and weaknesses of a code
approachhave alreadybeen mentioned.In
addition, one could add functions such as: refer-
ence group or peer pressure establishment, power
limitation and control, formulation of wider
social responsibilities, prevention of state inter-
vention and potential dysfunctions such as ham-
pering of competition,low precision and
emptinessas well as symbolisminsteadof
enforcement (cf. Bowie and Duska, 1990, pp.
96–98; Brinkmann and Ims, 2002).
A professional role morality approach
From a role theory point of view business and
professional ethics as a research field deal primarily with
conflicting role norms and expectations, role rights
and role duties faced by actors in professional sit-
uations. According to a professional role morality
approach, diffuse moral rights and obligations are
specified and focused as limited role rights and
obligations, i.e. valid in professional situations
only. The underlying reasoning is that individual
moral responsibility is a function of freedom of
choice. The more freedom (or power), the more
moral responsibility, the less freedom, the les
responsibility. In this respect, professional role
raise contradictory issues. On the one hand,
professions often claim an area of self-determi-
nation, that is freedom from outside interference
autonomy. Such freedom (or power) increases
moral responsibility. On the other hand profes-
sional roles typically limit possible choices an
freedom, i.e. reduce moral responsibility. When
outside critics typically claim that professionals
have a moral responsibility, professionals could,
typically again, “blame the role” (they could
simply say, e.g., “I withheld information, or even
lied as a public relations professional, not as
person”, or “the moral conflict between clien
and customer care is simply built into the real
estate agent role as such”).
A brief summary of role theoretical termi-
nology and a few examples can be useful, of how
role morality issues have been studied empiricall
According to textbook sociology, social roles are
sets of norms and expectations, rights and duties
that confront an individual when entering a
social situation (e.g. professional education, pro-
fessionalorganizationmembership,and/or a
professional work situation). Such roles-as-norm-
sets are reproduced by (largely) conforming role
behavior.13 Social role conflicts refer to incom-
patibilities of role norms and expectations, within
one or between two or more such roles, e.g. in
relation to different “role-norm-senders”. Rights
and duties of professionalsusually refer to
identifiable, complementary role rights and dutie
of clients, customers and professional colleagues
Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics 163
EXHIBIT 2
A selection of the most important moral issues or conflicts addressed by three codes of ethics
Advertising: Public relations: Real-estate agency:
(Fifteen) Issues to be careful with Four basic principles (Five) Areas where conflict can occur
• don’t exploit fear or superstition• Openness • receiving and carrying out agency
• do not further violence or • Loyalty assignments
discrimination • Integrity • advice within one’s field of competency
• don’t plagiarize • Credibility • advertising and marketing of agency
• don’t misuse quotations, statistics, services
research • confidentiality about clients’ affairs
• be careful with children and
minors . . . etc.

Moral role conflict scenarios represent popular
simplifications of complex situations, not least
with their connotation of replaceable rather than
unique individuals. Furthermore, from a role
theory point of view single decisions and the
single norms related to them are less interesting
than recurring situations where norms are clus-
tered as social roles and where professionals are
supposed to conform to roles as a mix of norms
rather than with single norms. As a consequence,
a professional who enters situations which typi-
cally trigger norms and expectations appears
rather as a reactive, conflict-handling role player
than as a subject with free choices.
As an illustration, one could repeat Exhibit 1
above and re-interpret it as a hypothetical rankin
of role relationships and role duties, i.e. whe
role conflict importance would be borrowed
from role duty importance.
The following exhibit of a real-estate agent’s
role-set, complementary roles and conflict poten
tials can serve as another illustration.14
The strength of the role morality approach is
related to its appealing focus on the person-
situation dialectics, while its ambiguity, or should
one say ideology is related to its convenience for
denying responsibility. Several professional ethic
textbooks discuss role morality as an issue (see
e.g. Goldman, 1980; Lebacqz, 1985; chs. 2 and
3, Windt, 1989, pp. 19–23, 59–66; DeGeorge,
164 Johannes Brinkmann
EXHIBIT 3
An interpretation of conflict importance votes as a ranking of role aspects and role relationship
Advertising professionals PR and Information professionalsReal Estate Agents
Quality of role performance Relation to superiors Relation to property buyers
Client relationships Quality of role performance Relation to property sellers
Professional role vs. role-free selfRelation to media Quality of role performance
Environmental citizenship Relation to public debate Role norm incomplete truth-telling
Consumers as counter-role playersRelation to critical journalism Role relation to weaker parties
Colleague relationships Colleague relationships Role vs. role-free self
EXHIBIT 4
A real-estate agent’s typical role set and role conflict potential (source: Brinkmann, 2000)

1995, pp. 120–122), or with one quotation
instead of many: “Special roles . . . seem clearly
to create special moral rights and duties. But the
question then arises as to the source and scope
of these rights and duties. And these questions
involve asking whether and, if so, how the
constraints of ordinary morality apply to the
professionals in their professional roles. (. . . The
question has been raised, JB) whether it is
morally permissible for those in business roles to
radically separate their occupational roles from
their roles as ordinary moral agents – that is,
agents bound by the strictures . . . that normally
bind persons . . .” (Callahan, 1988, pp. 49–50).
Among more in-depth philosophical discus-
sions of role morality15 Applbaum’s monograph
(1999) deservesspecial attention,with its
thorough examination of the ambiguities of role
morality,referringto executioner,insurance
doctor, defense lawyer roles and others. The last
few pages of his book represent an excellent
summary of issues: “. . . Though roles ordinarily
cannot permit what is forbidden,they can
require what is permitted. Professional roles are
powerful obligators. Nothing I have said here
should be taken to argue for the weakening of
the moral commitments that tie professionals to
their legitimate and just professional role oblig-
ations. But neither consent nor some version of
the fair-play principle can bind an actor to an
illegitimate or unjust role. Montaigne is wrong:
lawyers and financiers, politicians and public
servants are responsible for the vice and stupidity
of their trades, and should refuse to practice them
in vicious and stupid ways . . .” (1999, p. 259)16
A moral climate approach
Without understanding the parts there is no
understanding of the whole and vice versa.
Instead of departing from professional conflict
or professional codes or professional roles one can
depart from the climate or culture which they
are elements of and which is made up of their
interdependence and interaction. The last one
of four approaches to professional ethics could be
called a moral climate approach.17 In the present
paper, moral climate is suggested as a wide
umbrella term for a profession’s normative socia
ization environment. Moral climate as a social-
ization medium consists essentially of role norms
which are learned by future members (“antici-
patory” socialization) and by new members, from
normative and comparative reference groups.
Climate shapes people, but people shape climate
too. Moral climates are produced and reproduced
by their members and their practices.18 As an
umbrella term, moral climate repeats classic soc
science references such as “collective conscience
(E. Durkheim), “ideology” in a neutral and
negative sense (K. Marx), or “value rationality”
(M. Weber). If there is any ambiguity of the
concept “moral climate” this is due to different
connotations of “moral” and “morality”19 (with
the question of formal vs. informal norms being
of special interest. In the business ethics litera-
ture, moral or ethical climate has been suggested
as a theoretical, empirically measurable concept
(see e.g. Wimbush and Shepard, 1994; Wimbush
et al., 1997; Vidaver-Cohen, 1998; or Fritzsche,
2000 with newer references). Derived from a
work climate definition, moral climate has been
defined as “stable, psychologically meaningful
shared perceptions employees hold concerning
ethical procedures and policies existing in their
organizations” (cf. Wimbush and Shepard, 1994,
p. 636; cf. also with lengthy elaboration Victor
and Cullen, 1987, pp. 52–57 or 1988, pp.
101–104). Ideally, the moral climate in a given
profession would be reconstructed from a com-
bination of several different data sources and
types – such as history, media, observation o
professional board meetings or annual gathering
professional codes of ethics, group interviews.20
Such qualitative data could then be combined
with representative survey data, collected with
standard instruments, such as the ECQ referred
to below.
The strongest argument in favor of a mora
climate approach is probably its holism.21 Its
weakness is related to its dependency on ind
vidual internalization and to its possible value
consensus bias.
The introductory remarks of this section sug-
gested four approaches as alternative points
departurerather than as mutuallyexclusive
choices. Since the approaches are different, they
Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics 165

can be complementary and combined. (Moral
climates can prevent and handle moral conflict
and can be learned by newcomers together with
rules and roles. Climates are more or less depen-
dent on ethical codes. Role players produce and
reproduce moral climates. Many moral conflicts
can be understoodas role conflicts, codes
describe role rights and duties, etc.) A moral
climate approach is probably better at including
the other approaches. Therefore, the rest of the
paper deals mainly with empiricalor pre-
empiricalpresentationsof moral climates–
within three marketing sub-professions (without
negating, however, the potential use of the other
approaches, alone or combined).
Typologies and comparisons
Typologies and comparisons relate to one another
as hens to eggs. Typologies are primarily useful
for comparisons, and comparisons require criteria
to compare by.22 In this section of the paper and
the following one some possible comparison
criteria are presented, that is several typologies
using and inviting a comparative approach.
Typologies can be useful for describing and
understanding professional ethics in general and
their professional moral climate in particular, i.e.
as a variety of different possible climate types, in
this case on the professions level. Typologies
(“ideal typologies”, in Max Weber’s terminology)
are in essence second order concepts, made up
by a combination of criteria, dimensions or
concepts. Such typologies can also and not least
function as bridge builders between theory and
empirical research, either before data collection
as a first guide towards instrument development,
or after data collection as useful ingredient of da
summary and data interpretation work.
A first example could be to compare profes-
sions and their moral climate by moral maturity.
Ranking individualsby moral maturityand
assessing moral development is problematic but
popular, both in everyday life and in ethics
research. R. E. Reidenbach and D. P. Robin have
suggestedtransferringthe classic Kohlberg
classification scheme of individual moral maturity
levels to the corporation or organization level.
Their distinction could be applied to professional
organizations as well, with its assumed con-
tinuum of amoral, legalistic, responsive, emergin
ethical and developedethical climates(see
Reidenbach and Robin, 1991, with a model on
p. 274). As in the well-known Kohlberg-scheme
with its three level-types and six stage-types, the
type names matter less than the maturity dimen
sion as such, as an invitation to benchmarking.
A way of following up such a line of thinking
could be so-called ethical auditing, i.e. an eval-
uation of given organizations,in terms of
predefined moral responsibility criteria (cf. e.g
Ferrell and Fraedrich, 1997, pp. 118–126,
181–187 with further references, or Zadek et al.,
1997; Bak, 1996; van Luijk, 2000; Andriof
and McIntosh, 2001, chs. 14–16 or e.g.
http://www.accountability.org.uk/).
In another example, three ethics types and
three referencegroup levels are combined,
resulting in nine theoretical “ethical climate
types” (see Exhibit 5, suggested by Victor an
Cullen, 1988, p. 104). Such a typology (with
certain similarities to the mentioned Reidenbach
and Robin typology example) is also a good
example for possible bridge building to empir-
ical research.23
166 Johannes Brinkmann
EXHIBIT 5
Nine moral climate types by guiding principle (slightly modified from Victor and Cullen, 1988)
A Macro B Meso (local) C Micro
3 Deontology (principle) Laws and professional Organization rules and Personal morality
codes procedures
2 Utilitarianism (benevolence)Social responsibility Team interest Friendship
1 Egoism Efficiency Organization profit Self-interest

Further (empirical) illustrations
The concepts, distinctions and other points pre-
sented so far can be illustrated by a number of
typologies, using easily accessible data. The data
were originally collected in several Norwegian
industries and professions, between 1993 and
1996, for covering other research questions.24
The following figures are presented in a similar
two-dimensional format as G. Hofstede’s (1994)
and F. Trompenaars’ (1993) “maps” of organiza-
tion culture types in different countries. For
instance, according to Hofstede, Norway’s and
Scandinavia’s typical organization climate would
have a medium score on individualism and a
medium low score on power distance, or, in
another diagram, low masculinity and low to
very low uncertaintyavoidancescores(see
Hofstede’s tables and maps, 1994, pp. 54, 123).
Average U.S. climates would score low on cen-
tralism and medium on formalism (Trompenaars,
1993, p. 161). Hofstede-like coordinate maps
have become famous and popular because of
their intuitive appeal, but should rather be read
as fruitful hypotheses worthy of further research.
They should not be read as confirmed hypotheses.
The following maps are based on pilot data (or
pilot reuse of data) and can have a similar
function.25
Individualistic and caring climates
In moral conflict situations, the politically correct
answer in many Western cultures is individual
heroism, resistance against group pressure and
individual civil courage (cf. e.g. Nielsen, 1984).
On the other hand, some ethics schools have
claimed that ethics, in particular professional
ethics, essentially has to do with caring for
others, often for weaker parties.26 The dimen-
sions underlying a first typology are originally
reconstructed by an exploratory factor-analysis of
selected value statements in an international
business student data set, as a (culture-dependent)
“individualism” dimension and a (gender-depen-
dent) “caring” dimension (cf. Brinkmann, 1996;
for the empirical indicators cf. Brinkmann, 1995;
Brinkmann and Tvedt, 1995). The same value
statements were also reused in the mentione
professional surveys. The suggestion is that pro-
fessional climates can be characterized by avera
individualism and caring scores of “their” indi-
vidual respondents, preferably with clear enough
inter-sample, sample-super-system and sample-
company differences. Information and advertising
professionals score clearly lower on caring than
the students, but also clearly higher than real-
estate agents. Real estate agents score somewha
higher on individualism than information and
advertising professionals. In a next step, one
could plot these averages as X- and Y-axis scores
into a “Hofstede-format”-map, and label the
quadrants tentatively. According to Exhibit 6, an
advertising (and insurance) professional clima
tends towards a “don’t care”-type. The public
information (and the bank employee) climate
tends towards an “altruism” type, while the real
estate agent and public relations professional
averages indicate a “care-for-oneself ” climate
(while the business student answers illustrate an
“activist” value climate).27 Such an individualism
and caring typology is similar to Victor and
Cullen’s nine-fold and five-fold typologies (see
Exhibit 5 and note 23 above), with similar
dimensions of caring (“utilitarianism”, “caring
factor”) and individualism. According to Victor
and Cullen’s factor analysis, individualism is
ambiguous, however, because it combines two
clearly different connotations: those of “self
interest” or “instrumentalism” versus “personal
morality” or “independence”, respectively. There
is also some similarity with the Hofstede dimen-
sions of individualismand femininity.Since
Scandinavia and Norway have a high to very high
score on these two dimensions, one would expec
relatively weak differences in the data, due t
strong cultural consensus regarding these two
value types.
Climate perception and code acceptance
An ethics code skeptic might claim that if a mora
climate is good, one doesn’t need a code. And,
if the climate is bad, a code won’t help either.
Other situations are possible, too, such as code
perception as a necessary or useful remedy agai
Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics 167

168 Johannes Brinkmann
EXHIBIT 7
Moral climate perception and code acceptance
EXHIBIT 6
Four ideal types of individualism and caring climates

Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics 169
EXHIBIT 8
Ethical individualism and power distance
EXHIBIT 9
Normative and comparative reference group importance

170 Johannes Brinkmann
a bad moral climate, or a code as a symptom and
maybe reinforcer of a good climate. Ideally, all
such possibilities should be assessed by multiple
measures. A preliminary summary measure is
available in the data for attitudes towards codes.
Since a direct measure is lacking for moral
climate one could consider using a simple stand-
in, for demonstrationpurposes– e.g. the
responses to an agree-disagree-Likert-scale state-
ment (“Ruthlessness is often more successful than
ethical behavior”). By combining such an indi-
cator of “climate pessimism” dimension with
another one of code regulation demand, one
could construct a new four-cell typology as
shown in Exhibit 7. An additional question
would then be if optimistic climates do or do not
create a demand for code rules, or if pessimistic
climates are pessimistic towards regulation as a
remedy, too. An interesting follow-up question
could be how such a climate perception and code
acceptance typology relates to similar dimensions
and typologies. There seems to be some overlap
with the Victor and Cullen “law and code” and
“rule” types. The difference in the above instru-
ment is a definition of code acceptance as a
question of different arguments, including the
argument of code enforcement.28
Moral integrity and power distance
Individualism as a question of individualistic
value confessions has been mentioned in con-
nection with Exhibit 6 above already. Another
way of measuring individualism is to ask more
directly if ethics is rather associated with indi-
vidual integrity or with mutual trust.29 Because
both integrity and trust are easier to defend in a
low-power than in a high-power-distance
context one can justify a tentative typology
where ethics concepts and power distance are
used as dimensions. The different questionnaires
contain in particular one single question about
preferred responses to professional conflict situ-
ations,30 which is quite similar to G. Hofstede’s
operationalization of his power-distance concept
– whether speaking up towards superiors is per-
mitted and desirable or not (cf. 1994, pp. 24–28).
Exhibit 8 shows the resulting four-fold table.
Normative and comparative reference group
importance
Moral models or reference groups are among
favorite themes in the business ethics literature
– with superiors and colleagues as favorite good
or bad examples (see e.g. Ferrell and Fraedrich,
1997 with many references). In addition to direct
questions about such influence, one could as
follow-up questions after moral conflict scenarios
(see e.g. Lysonski and Gaidis, 1991, Brinkmann,
1993) or compare respondents’ own attitudes an
behaviors with expected ones of their colleagues
and superiors (see e.g. Zey-Ferrell and Ferrell,
1982, Brinkmann, 1993). In this paper, a possible
climate typology, based on two direct questions
can be sufficient for demonstration (see Exhibit
9).31 Further work with these variables could
focus on which level reference groups are placed
– the micro- or macro- and personal or imper-
sonal level (cf. the Victor and Cullen typology,
Exhibit 5 above) and if reference group influence
is positive or negative.32
Concluding remarks and suggestions
The moral climate dimensions suggested above
and the most relevant literature references c
be repeated and summarized in a table-format
(see Exhibit 10). The approaches and not least
their interrelatednesscan be presentedas
Exhibit 11.
This paper suggests descriptive business ethics
researchon the professionslevel, basedon
concepts, approaches and typologies inspired by
or taken from the literature, and based on tenta-
tive use of secondarydata from profession
samples. With such a start, future research work
on the professions level could concentrate on the
following steps, one at a time or combined:
• Developing a process perspective where
moral climates of professions (one at a time)
are tentatively related to economic and
cultural changes in their subsystems and
supersystems (e.g. vitious or virtuous circles
of professionalreputation, economic
success, recruitment and socialization of
new people – real estate agency or stock-

Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics 171
EXHIBIT 10
Literature references for moral climate comparison criteria
Dimension Source (or related literature reference)
Moral maturity (low/medium/high) Reidenbach and Robin, 1991
Ethics type (egoism/utilitarianism/deontology) Victor and Cullen, 1988
Dominating reference group level (micro/meso/macro) Victor and Cullen, 1988
Individualism and caring (4 types) cf. Hofstede, 1994
Climate optimism and code acceptance (4 types) cf. Hofstede, 1994
Ethics concept and power distance (4 types) cf. Hofstede, 1994
Normative and comparative reference group influence (4 types)cf. Ferrell and Fraedrich, 1997
EXHIBIT 11
Four approaches to professional ethics

172 Johannes Brinkmann
market brokerage are probably the best
examples).
• Identifying relevant qualitative data sources
for triangulation, e.g. professional codes (cf.
appendix), professional media dealing with
ethical issues, or qualitative replications of
survey research, essay analysis for assessing
maturity of reasoning in moral dilemma
situations, group discussions about strengths
and weaknesses of one given profession’s
moral climate etc.
• Searching for and further exploration of
relevant society-level reputation and profile
data of different but comparable professions’
in public opinion.
• Cross-cultural comparison of professional
moral climates (one profession at a time) in
different countries, and not least.
• Designing and conducting a survey based on
a reuse of the Victor and Cullen (1987,
1988) instruments adapted to the professions
level in Norway or Scandinavia, together
with instruments taken from Hofstede’s and
from other research.
In this paper, marketing ethics has been used as
a common denominator of available ethics data,
collected among advertising, PR and real estate
professionals. The question of a proper level of
marketing professionalization and of marketing
ethics is still left open. This question requires and
deserves a new paper on its own.
Researcherstend to recommendmore
research. Sometimes theory is good, but practice
can be even better, such as a focus on real-life
organization and moral climate development
work, especially on the professions level. As a
conclusion, two initiatives can be suggested and
listed briefly:
• Action research design with emphasis on
feedback from research to the professions
studied, using relevant internal media and
other appropriate means for reaching pro-
fessions as critical publics;
• ethical audits on the professions level (see
e.g. Zadek et al., 1997; Ferrell and
Fraedrich, 1997 with further references).
Appendix: Codes of ethics references for
the professions covered in this paper
Norwegian advertisingagencies:see <http://
www.rbf.no/rf/varsom.html>.See also ICC’s
InternationalCode of Advertising Practice:
<http://www.iccwbo.org/home/statements_rules/
rules/1997/advercod.asp>
Norwegian public relations <http://www.
kommunikasjonsforeningen.no/etisk.htm> and for
the competing organization see <http://www.
servicenett.no/nir/etisk.html>.
Norwegian real estate agents: <http://www.
nef.no/etiskreg.htm>.
Notes
1 For a discussion of such basic terms see e.g.
Enderle, 1996, Tranøy in Hviid Nielsen, 1995. There
are interesting follow-up questions, too, such as
the professional ownership of ethics – if ethics is the
ground of moral philosophers as “experts”, if ethics
should be a function of interdisciplinary cooperation
or a result of what ordinary concerned people would
reach as a consensus in conflict situations, together
with or without academics, (2) the question of how
descriptive and normative questions and answers rel
to one another and perhaps (3) the right speed
normative evaluation (cf. principles of delayed-judge-
ment and a describe-interpret-evaluate tool recom-
mended for cross-cultural encounters by Lustig and
Koester, 1996).
2 Industries are a similar example of the same inter-
mediate system level. Industries are essentially ident
fiable arenas where companies compete for payin
customers and paid labor, but also cooperate an
organize, in order to avoid too much competition
The advertising industry sells advertising services (an
not furniture) and demands persuasion specialists (an
not machine operators), on advertising and labor
markets. The advertising industry has also a mem
bership organization to represent common interes
functions, such as minimum provision and price
defense, employer and lobbying interests. In Marx’
terminology industries are essentially economic or
material “bases”, with a cultural “super-structure”
some common history, tradition, language, common
rituals, symbols, heroes, media and other integration
mechanisms. Both industries and professions contain
a mix of egoism and interdependence, conflict and
consensus, dialectics of material bases and cultur
moral superstructures, not least a “moral climate”, i.e

Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics 173
common values, norms and rules, either codified or
informal, or both. Sometimes industries and profes-
sions overlap: one industry can contain several pro-
fessions and one profession can be spread across several
industries or sectors.
3 Other criteria, such as “types of academic interest”
(descriptive vs. normative vs. analytical, Goodpaster,
1992) or “three modes of understanding business
ethics: speaking about business ethics, acting ethically
in business and thinking about business ethics”,
Enderle, 1996) have inspired other interesting
typologies. Cf. also Solomon (1994, pp. 72–78) who
distinguishes three and seven levels.
4 The choice of these three marketing sub-special-
izations is related to the history of this paper. Three
data-setscollected among advertisingagency
employees, public relations and information profes-
sionals and real estate agents in 1994, 1995 and 1997
have been summarized and presented in other publi-
cations already.
5 For a preliminary draft of such conflict-conscious
business ethics cf. French and Granrose, 1995 and
with similar references W. French and D. Allbright,
‘Resolving a Moral Conflict Through Discourse’,
Journal of Business Ethics 17 (1998), 177–194
6 Conflict and conflicts are referred to in their indef-
inite form, grammatically speaking. There can be
much or little, destructive or productive, basic or
superficial conflict or conflicts, or even a conflict
tendency only. Cf. still R. Dahrendorf ’s dichotomy
with conflict and consensus models of society (e.g.
in ‘Out of Utopia’, American Journal of Sociology 54
(1958), or in Class and his Class Conflict in Industrial
Society, Stanford CA (1959)
7 One could then focus on properties of a conflict
– such as number of partiesinvolved,power-
relationships, issues addressed. Conflict case studies are
good examplesof detailedprocessand context
description, of events, actions and reactions, outcomes
and consequences, willed and un-willed, positive and
negative ones, for actors or systems. Quite often the
conflict process as a whole can be described as a chain
of episodes, possibly with repetition or even vicious
circle tendencies.
8 For a 15-cell-typology see Dahrendorf, 1972, p.
27, or for a dichotomy, with competing interests
versus moral differences as the main issue see still V.
Aubert, Competitionand Dissensus,Journal of
Conflict Resolution 1963, pp. 26 ff and 192f.
9 All business ethics casebooks represent collections
of business conflict histories and issues (see e.g.
Beauchamp, 1993; Jennings, 1993; Hoffman et al.,
2001; Harvey et al., 1994)
10 Full-format cases aim at an authentic representa-
tion of real-life conflict complexity, usually addressing
one conflict at a time. Both in pedagogy and in
research shorter, more focused models of conflict cas
often will do, too. Such short versions are normally
called “scenarios” or “vignettes” (see e.g. Bain, 1994
Peck, 1994; Weber, 1992; Barnett, 1994; Ferrell and
Fraedrich, 1997; or as a specific example Chonko
1995 with teaching scenarios in marketing ethics
related to information, product, pricing, advertising,
selling and distribution).
11 For studies addressing moral conflict issue fre-
quency and seriousness see Hunt et al., 1984; Chonk
and Hunt, 1985 (cf. also with some skepticism
Gustafsson, 1988, pp. 33–34)
12 For a study of conflicts between one’s professional
role and one’s private conscience see e.g. Posner and
Schmidt (1993).
13 More abstractly, two dualisms (or dialectics) within
sociological role theory fit well with business and
professional ethics. The first dualism relates to what
is expected versus what is done in practice(roles and
role-norms are essentially normative expectations,
while role behavior in practice can be conforming to
the expectations or not). The second dualism is
between a de facto situational basis versus a socio-cu
role implied by the situation (the actual situation
being a real estate agent, customer or employee
distinguished from the expectations produced by the
situation).
14 As a presentation and discussion of marketing
managerrole-conflictpotentialscf. still H. A.
Pestalozzi, ‘Konflikte in der Marketing-Managerrolle’,
in U. Hansen et al., eds., Marketingund
Verbraucherpolitik,Poeschel:Stuttgart,1982, pp.
466–472.
15 Cf. also a broad range of papers, reprinted in a
collection of readings for an Applbaum-seminar o
professional ethics held in Oslo during Summer 2000
16 For further elaboration see mainly the preceding
pp. 257–258, pp. 45, 74–75, or chs. 3 and 4.
17 In terms of the Marx dichotomy moral climate
would have to be contrasted with economic climate,
with indicators such as strength on the (labor) marke
profitability,purchasepower, competition,r isks,
opportunities etc.
18 Cf. the following quotation which warns against
an executive or actor bias and claims that socia
system-level and moral climate factors often can
more important than micro-level and personality
factors: “Executives must be taught that they are
not super-individualists, persons who act on their
own . . . Their executive role is part of an elaborate

social/ organizational structure . . . They must learn
to understand the effects of these structures in part
to cope with their ill consequences if needed, but also
to be able to restructurethe arrangementsand
institutions that deeply influence the moral level of
the conduct of organizations and their “leaders” . . .
They must keep in mind that most people that are
morally strong, are likely to be corrupted in a cor-
poration or community in which corruption is a way
of life . . . , and many morally weak individuals are
shoredup in corporationsor communitiesthat
maintain high standards of morality . . . I do not
suggest that there is a sociological determinism . . .
However, sociological factors broadly understood,
probably account for much more of the total variance
and these factors are more amenable to management
. . . than the recesses of individualistic elements of
personalities . . .” (Etzioni, 1991, 356 f.) Amitai
Etzioni’s macro-sociological approach to the moral
dimension of business and economics is more thor-
oughly elaboratedin his books “The Moral
Dimension” (1988) and “The New Golden Rule”
(1996), cf. the introductory chapters of both books.
19 As a start, one could say that morality consists
essentially of informal, non-positive, subcultural norms
which are both similar to and different from formal-
positive law norms. Secondly, moral climates can refer
both to publicopinion and to privateconvictions,
sometimes both. And thirdly, moral climate can
contain both superficial, labeling moralism and critical-
enlightened, grounded ethics (cf. Brinkmann, 2001)
20 See Brinkmann and Bakken (1996), Brinkmann
and Tvedt (1995). Cf. also Ingjerd Grenne, Diploma
thesis NMH 1998, reporting 10 in-depth interviews
with Norwegian PR managers
21 As a frame of reference for such holism one could
e.g. consider a Hegel-Marx-dialectic, a systems or a
subculture perspective.
22 In addition to the four approaches presented above
one could consider a fifth one, on another level of
abstraction, looking at each profession as a unique,
incomparable culture of its own, one profession at a
time, on its own premises, versus looking compara-
tively, by comparing a profession to another one or
“to itself ”, in the past or future, or at least by com-
paring a profession’s moral climate to evaluation
criteria, one or more.
23 For this purpose, the nine theoretical types were
represented by items (four each) on an “Ethical
Climate Questionnaire”, ECQ, cf. for details Victor
and Cullen, 1988, pp. 109–118. A subsequent factor-
analysis of data collected with this instrument sug-
gested a reduction of the nine-type to a five-type
distinctioninstead,i.e. combiningB&C2 to a
“caring” type, A2&3 to a “law&code” type and
B&C1 to an “instrumental” type.
24 The advertising industry data were collected b
mail questionnairein autumn1993 (152 usable
questionnaires). The second data-set results from
similar survey carried out during spring 1994
among Norwegian PR professionals (n = 163 – see
Brinkmann, 1995, Brinkmann and Tvedt, 1995 for
further details). The real estate agent material w
collected by the author in 1996 and consists of 223
comparable survey questionnaires (140 profession
and 83 student respondents respectively, see for mo
details Brinkmann, 1997, 2000). The questionnaires
from the Advertising and PR studies were also reused
in two large Norwegian banks (1996, n = 126) and
in five major Norwegian insurancecompanies
(1995/1996, n = 157), as part of thesis projects with
the author as supervisor. See Engdal, J. (1996),
Næringslivsetikk i den norske forsikringsbransjen,
unpublished NMH-thesis (“siviloppgave”), Oslo and
Grønseth, J. (1996), Etikk i banknæringen, unpub-
lished NMH-thesis (“siviloppgave”), Oslo. There
exists also a less comparable furniture industry surve
data set of 1995, with fewer respondents, but ad
tional qualitative data (see Brinkmann and Bakke
1996). There are marketing and public relations
student data available, too, collected in 1993, with
self-administered questionnaires which were hande
out in lecture situations, and either filled in on spot
or returned overnight (n = 337, see e.g. Brinkmann,
1996 with further details).
25 Two weaknesses in the exhibits and in the under-
lying raw numbers can be mentioned. A first possi-
bility is that small differences represent reliability and
validity problems. If not, small differences can be
symptoms of individual-level diversity (by personality
gender,generation,social statusetc.), of inter-
company diversity or of macro-cultural homogeneity
on these dimensions. Another question is if averages
are sufficientfor characterizinga climate,or if
standard deviation should be included as a meas
of climate diversity, or if climates rather should
characterized by their unique mix of opinions, e.g.
polarized between 50% protesters and 50% loyal
as in some of the Exhibit 8 climates.
26 Cf. e.g. M. Dion’s paper (Andriof and McIntosh,
2001, pp. 118–138) or G. Wood et al., Inter-organ-
isational relations and the ethics of care, paper pre-
sented at the 8th Annual International Conference
Promoting BusinessEthics, DePaul University,
Chicago, October 24–26, 2001
27 The abbreviations are MAS: NMH marketing
174 Johannes Brinkmann

students; ADV: Norwegian advertising professionals,
INF: information professionals; INS: insurance clerks,
BAN: bank employees; REA real estate agents; RES:
students at the real estate agent program.
28 Instrument taken from Becker and Fritzsche (1987,
p. 292). The statements were: Codes raise the ethical
level of the industry; Codes are easy to enforce; In cases
of severe competition, a code reduces the use of sharp
practices; Professionals consider codes as a useful aid
when they want to refuse an unethical request imper-
sonally; A code helps managers in defining clearly the
limits of acceptableconduct;Peopleviolatecodes
whenever they think they could avoid detection (the three
statementsregardingenforcementare markedin
italics). Among the professions shown in Exhibit #7,
the real estate agent code is probably enforced much
more clearly than in the other professions, with
regular publication of the complaint council’s sen-
tencing practice. The regulation acceptance dimen-
sion is also distantly related to Hofstede’s “uncertainty
avoidance”.An optimism/pessimismdimension
should be included in any climatedescription,
preferably together with several indicators and differ-
entiated by level. In the PR and insurance surveys,
the optimism/pessimism evaluation referred to the
respondents’ own country, own public administration,
and own industry. In both cases the respondents were
more optimistic with respect to their own industry.
29 Exhibit 8 uses “integrity”-factor score averages.
30 Cf. as another theory reference A. Hirschman’s
three categories of responses to intra-organizational
conflict situations – exit, voice, and loyalty, i.e. try to
escape the problem situation, speak up, or keep quiet.
31 An alternative indicator in the same data-set for
expected reference-group dependence could be the
one already used in Exhibit 8.
32 See e.g. Schiffman and Kanuk, Consumer
behavior, International edition, 6th ed., Upper Saddle
River, 1997, p. 326. In the field of business ethics,
negative examples with good media coverage often
mean more than positive examples without media
coverage.
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