Is Marketing Ethical?

May 4, 2010 2 Comments

Listen to this postI think the biggest ethical challenge for marketers would be the fact of capturing the customer’s attention while being ethical. This is a big marketing challenge that most marketers avoid taking. Marketing a product required presenting the benefits and the advantages of the product but sometimes exaggerating these benefits. The customer would equate the products benefits and advantages with the amount of money paid for buying it. Another ethical challenge in marketing and advertisement would be transparency in telling the customers the side effect of the products. The marketers either neglect or fine print the side effect of their products. Sometimes the harmful effect of the products are displayed on the product, such as the cigarettes,  but the marketing campaign is so strong that the customer would go ahead and use the product anyway. Sundaram & Mitra (2007) found that cigarette manufacturers are advertizing in magazines and internet sites with considerable number of young reader. The advertisement in these locations use young models and display smoking as fun activity to attract large segment of the population.

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References:

Sundaram, D. S., & Mitra, K. (2007). Ethical evaluation of marketing practices in tobacco industry. [Article].International Journal of Business Research, 7(2), 194-204.

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At What Age We Can Work?

May 2, 2010 3 Comments

Listen to this postChildren under the age of 16 should not work, rather, they should be at school learning to be a better and effective community members. The sad fact is that children cannot afford schooling or at least have enough to feed themselves in the underdeveloped countries. Families in the underdeveloped countries teach their children  to read and write by sending them to the community educators, but they will be learning their parents crafts when they are strong enough to work (at the age of 8-12). The children would help their parents at the farm (or workshop) and then learn how to perfect the required skill to start supporting themselves and their families. Our parents went through the same 60 years ago, but when the oil was discover in Kuwait they went to night-school to educate themselves and work in better jobs. There is nothing wrong with children working instead of learning because working is educational activity also. The problem would be if the children work in harsh condition or got underpaid. Otherwise, working children are better off in a secured factory than attracted to do other illegitimate or criminal jobs. I would suggest that children should work for 8 hours then go through few hours of education provided by their multinational employer.

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Should Organizations Operate Internationally?

May 1, 2010 5 Comments

Listen to this postOrganizations should work internationally because they would probably transfer their culture and best practices to the countries where they chose to work in. Transferring the knowledge to subsidiaries and international branches would help the multinational organization to save time and effort in communications and production (Mostyn, 2004). The standardization in the business processes would ensure consistency in the production and its quality, however, robust processes are needed to reach this level of alignment (Mostyn, 2004). Collective knowledge creation, trust-base collaborations and the multinational organization’s willingness to collaborate is the success reason to knowledge sharing and best practice implementation (Miesing, Kriger, & Slough, 2007). Multinational organizations might not be obligated to transfer their knowledge and best practices without the local government enforcement, but the organizational ethical commitment and the benefits resulted from it would help the organization to be ethical and supportive to the local community.
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References:

Miesing, P., Kriger, M. P., & Slough, N. (2007). Towards a model of effective knowledge transfer within transnationals: The case of Chinese foreign invested enterprises. Journal of Technology Transfer, 32(1-2), 109-122. doi: http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=104998

Mostyn, A. (2004). The rise of global awareness. [Article]. Strategic Communication Management, 9(1), 5-5.

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