This study compares Australian marketers with those in the United States along lines that are particular to the study of ethics. The test measured two different moral philosophies, idealism and relativism, and compared perceptions of ethical problems, ethical intentions, and corporate ethical values. According to Hofstede''s cultural typologies, there should be little difference between American and Australian marketers, but the study did find significant differences. Australians tended to be more idealistic and more relativistic than Americans and the other results were (...) mixed, making it difficult to generalize about the effects of moral philosophies on the components of ethical decision-making measured here. This is an important finding; as firms become increasingly more globalized, marketers will more often be involved in cross-cultural ethical dilemmas and it seems natural to assume that similar cultures will have similar ethical orientations. That assumption may well prove erroneous. (shrink)

Building on an existing framework concerning ethical intention, this research explores how Thai business people perceive the importance of ethics in various scenarios. This study investigates the relative influences of personal characteristics and the organizational environment underlying the Thai business people’s ethical perception. Corporate ethical values and idealism are shown to positively influence a Thai manager’s perceptions about the importance of ethics. While their ability to perceive the existence of an ethical problem is negatively influenced by relativism, it is positively (...) impacted by their existing perceptions about the importance of ethics. Results also suggest positive relationships between perceived importance of ethics and perceived ethical problems with ethical intention. These results extend research in understanding the relationship between the antecedents and consequences of perceived importance of ethics within an economically growing non-Western culture. (shrink)

The current disclosure model of informed consent ignores the linguistic complexity of any act of communication, and the increased risk of difficulties in the special circumstances of informed consent. This article explores, through linguistic analysis, the specificity of informed consent as a speech act, a communication act, and a form of dialogue, following on the theories of J.L. Austin, Roman Jakobson, and Mikhail Bakhtin, respectively. In the proposed model, informed consent is a performative speech act resulting from a series of (...) communication acts which together constitute a dialogic, polyphonic, heteroglossial discourse. It is an act of speech that results in action being taken after a conversation has happened where distinct individuals, multiple voices, and multiple perspectives have been respected, and convention observed and recognized. It is more meaningful and more ethical for both patient and physician, in all their human facets including their interconnectedness. Keywords: communication, dialogism, informed consent, linguistics, performative, physician-patient relationship CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This is a study of the effects of a number of background variables on ethical perceptions of Mexican and U.S. marketers. This research investigates how a marketer’s personal religiousness, relativism, and the ethical values influence in perceptions of the degree of ethical problems in hypothetical marketing scenarios. It also examines differences between Mexican and U.S. marketers on these variables. The results show significant differences in perception between the countries, and we discuss the implications of these differences for cross-cultural business activities.

This study examines the influence of religiousness on different components of marketing professionals' ethical decision making: personal moral philosophies, perceived ethical problem, and ethical intentions. The data are from a national survey of the American Marketing Associations' professional members. The results generally indicate that the religiousness of a marketer can partially explain his or her perception of an ethical problem and behavioral intentions. Results also suggest that the religiousness significantly influences the personal moral philosophies of marketers.

This paper explores the value of a Poststructuralist psychoanalytic model of persons, or Subjects, as an expanded frame for the question Whose consent is it anyway? The elaboration of the need for this expanded frame, its tenets and its value form the substance of the paper. This frame incorporates the emotional, linguistic, and socio-cultural dimensions that help restore patients and physicians to their full status as persons from their restricted status, in the current dominant theory and model, as unidimensional, rationalistic, (...) medico-legally constructed players; emphasizes their interconnectedness; and, focuses broadly on responsibility as bearing consequences, and not only accountability. This frame does not deny the role and importance of cognition or rationality, it supplements them. It does not supplant rationality, but rather includes it in a view of the person that also includes those other human capacities which are not based on an ideal of pure reason. (shrink)

The goals of this study are to test a pattern of ethical decision making that predicts ethical intentions of individuals within corporations based primarily on the ethical values embedded in corporate culture, and to see whether that model is generally stable across countries. The survey instrument used scales to measure the effects of corporate ethical values, idealism, and relativism on ethical intentions of Turkish, Thai, and American businesspeople. The samples include practitioner members of the American Marketing Association in the U.S., (...) and full-time businesspeople enrolled in executive MBA programs in Thailand and Turkey. The study is positioned within a fairly new stream that assesses patterns across countries, rather than differences between them, in a way that might be called “culture free.” The results show a generally positive influence between cultural ethical values and ethical intentions. The results also indicate that the positive effect of corporate ethical values on ethical intentions is greater for managers with low idealism and high relativism. We also discuss the implications of our results for managers of international businesses. (shrink)

This is a study of the effects of a number of background variables on ethical perceptions of Mexican and U.S. marketers. This research investigates how a marketer's personal religiousness, relativism, and the ethical values influence in perceptions of the degree of ethical problems in hypothetical marketing scenarios. It also examines differences between Mexican and U.S. marketers on these variables. The results show significant differences in perception between the countries, and we discuss the implications of these differences for cross-cultural business activities.