ETHICS AND SERVICES MARKETING

The area of services marketing is a highly crucial one for potential e thical violations. The services industry, which drives over two-thirds of our national economy, is about to experience severe changes due to increasing competition. The temptation to make ethical compromises wi ll pose a dramatic threat to the business climate. We review conceptua l approaches to the field of marketing ethics and conclude that existi ng models often lack an important component which affects ethical deci sion-making. That component includes the interorganizational variables : the primary task environment, including immediate customers and supp liers to die buyer and seller, the secondary task environment, compris ed of suppliers and customers to the immediate suppliers and customers , competitors, and regulatory agencies, and the macro-environment, tho se broader forces which impinge on the activities in the primary and s econdary task environments. We suggest various propositions for circum stances under which unethical behavior is likely to occur within the i nterorganizational domain. The overarching framework is that of servic e industries in an increasingly competitive environment.