Donald P. Robin

Making Sense of The Research on Gender and Ethics in Business: A Critical Analysis and Extension

This article represents an attempt to organize, critique, and extend research findings on gender differences in business ethics. The focus is on two dependent variables—ethical judgment and behavioral intent. Differences in findings between student and professional groups are noted and theoretical implications are discussed. The new research provided for this article contains two benchmark studies undertaken with identical stimuli and identical measures. These studies were followed by two additional studies, using the same measures but different stimuli, as a partial replication and extension of the first two. Findings suggest that little difference exists between the genders on behavioral intent for professional groups and only minimal differences for the ethical judgment measures. Student results, however, produced more substantial differences for behavioral intention.

The Empirical Performance of Cognitive Moral Development in Predicting Behavioral Intent

The substantial work on cognitive moral development (CMD) by Lawrence Kohlberg and James Rest popularized the use of this construct in the literature on business ethics. This construct has been prominently used in models attempting to explain ethical/unethical behavior in management, marketing, and accounting, even though Kohlberg did not intend for the construct to be used in that manner. As a predictor of behavior, CMD has been attacked on the theoretical level, and its empirical performance has been weak. This article uses another established construct, which seems to satisfy the central criticisms of CMD, as a means of testing those complaints. The comparative multidimensional ethics scale (MES) substantially outperforms CMD, operationalized using Rests Defining Issues Test, in every test. These results seem to suggest that other options perform better than CMD when the purpose is to model ethical/unethical behavior or even ethical judgment.

The Effect On Return Rate of Messages Explaining Monetary Incentives in Mail Questionnaire Studies

This study was undertaken to determine the effect of different messages accompanying a monetary reward on the return rate for mailed question naires. The result indicated that a monetary incentive does affect the return rate but the message has little or no effect.

A useful scope for marketing

The debate over the nature and scope of marketing is far from settled, but the desire for change among marketers is apparent. It is urgent that marketers determine what the scope of their field should become as a necessary first step in developing an adequate definition. The effort so far has been somewhat haphazard with a variety of authors-extolling the virtues of their viewpoint. This article represents an attempt to add order to the search for a useful scope for marketing. To achieve this purpose, four norms are developed which seem suitable for testing the scope and definition of marketing. They include the level of abstraction norm, the norm of correspondence, the pragmatic norm, and the norm of simplicity. These four norms are first used to test two extreme positions and then to test a third compromise definition of marketing.

Success in social marketing

Abstract In a series of articles, Philip Kotler, first with Sidney Levy [11], then with Gerald Zaltman [12], and then singularly [8], has significantly broadened the scope of marketing management. Marketing strategy, according to Kotler, is pertinent in numerous areas in addition to its business application. This article is concerned with one particular area for the expanding application of the marketing concept— social marketing. The use of marketing strategy to achieve social objectives produces both similarities and differences to business applications. Comparing these similarities and differences should produce some insight about the potential success of social marketing.

An Analysis of Monetary Incentives in Mail Questionnaire Studies

Getting mail questionnaires returned has long been a problem. This study indi cates that money is still good bait and cheaper than remailings. The results suggest that monetary incentive is likely to increase questionnaire return rate.

An Alternative Textbook Selection Method

Evaluating and selecting a basic marketing text-book is a judgemental process. This study suggests the use of a quantitative technique not as a substitute for decision-making, but as a tool to guide those making the decision. The results of using multidiirensional scaling (MDS) techniques as an objective method to guide the textbook selection process are reported.

Identifying Critical Problems for Mutual Cooperation Between the Private and Public Sectors: A Marketing Perspective

The study presented in this article is an application of “futures research.” One objective is to identify some of the more pressing future world-wide problems that require the combined effort of both the government and the private sector to reach a solution. A second objective is to suggest ways in which marketers can become more involved in the solution of them. Prominent problem clusters of particular importance to marketers, including “Social Values,” “Social Institutions,” and “Resources” were uncovered by this research. The authors hope that this article will stimulate marketing research in each of these areas.

Attitudes of advertising executives toward the consumer behavior course

What should be taught to marketing students has always been an intriguing question. The marketing curriculum as a whole and specific courses have been the topic of much debate. One of the marketing courses, consumer behavior, was the subject of this research. A survey of advertising executives revealed some interesting perceptions regarding the consumer behavior course. Most executives believed the course was helpful in making decisions in the advertising area. However, the advertising executives ranked the consumer behavior course as only moderately important in usefulness to advertisers when compared with nine other marketing courses. Interestingly, the executives that had completed a consumer behavior course ranked the course lower in importance than the executives who had not taken the course. Generally, advertising executives believed the consumer behavior course was too abstract and theoretical in orientation and could be imporved through the use of case studies and more direct application examples of the consumer behavior theories presented in the course.