Gray marketing, a term used in marketing ethics, refers to the ethically and
legally questionable practices within marketing activities. It is difficult, even by
applying laws, to take sanctions against some activities such as parallel
importation, providing meals, giving gifts, offering kickbacks among others. Both
purchasing and sales personnel may also be involved in gray marketing,
oftentimes to benefit themselves at the expense of others. In gray marketing,
purchasing and sales personnel turn into “the community of interests”, and for that
reason they would never whistle blow on each other for the questionable or “gray”
marketing behaviour. Because this attitude and practice is so deeply imbedded in
many organizations, some gray marketing practices simply cannot be effectively
stopped or controlled. To a large degree in many cases, gray marketing practices
have evolved into a “hidden rule” in a given organization. As an unfair
competitive method, gray marketing undermines the normal order of the market,
and leads to unreasonable allocation of social resources. Gray marketing is a key
contributing factor to business corruption, it effects and raises the market price, it
oftentimes reduces consumption, and it may even poison the social climate and
damage the interests of the enterprise and society as a whole. Gray marketing has
already been brought forward, to both business and society, as an important ethical
issue to be confronted.
This research reviews the gray marketing theory by looking at moral
philosophical theories, classic ethical decision-making models, and factors
affecting ethical decision-making. This study proposes a conceptual model and
ii
seven hypotheses, which configure how the ethical policies influence personnel in
purchasing and sales. The study will also provide an ethical evaluation pertaining
to the relationship between ethical purchasing policy, purchasing personnel’s
ethical evaluation of gray marketing, and purchasing personnel’s gray behavior
tendency. Finally, this research tests the hypotheses with data collected using both
factor analysis and multiple regression analysis.
Seules les 10 dernières publications sont affichées