The Impact Of Cultural Dimension Universalism Vs. Particularism On Ethical Decision-Making In Marketing

As a functional area within business that interfaces with the consumer, marketing tends to come under the greatest scrutiny, generate the most controversy and receive the most criticism with respect to potentially unethical business practices. As more and more firms operate globally, the ethical problems faced by marketing practitioners have become more and more complicated as different culture clashes. Therefore, an understanding of the effects of cultural differences on ethical decision-making becomes increasingly important for avoiding potential business pitfalls and for designing effective international marketing management programs.According to Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, America is ranked as a highly universalistic culture and China a highly particularistic culture. This dissertation attempts to make an exploratory study on the impact of the cultural dimension "universalism versus particularism" on ethical decision-making in marketing by comparing Chinese and American marketing undergraduate students.The dissertation analyzes the impact of the cultural dimension "universalism versus particularism" on the three stages of ethical decision-making including ethical perception, ethical judgment and ethical intention. The results show that the cultural dimension "universalism versus particularism" has a great influence on ethical decision-making in marketing. On ethical perception, Americans are more likely than their Chinese counterparts to recognize ethical problems involving preferential treatment of one over another in marketing context. On ethical judgment, deontological evaluation has a greater impact for Americans than for their Chinese counterparts in marketing context and teleological evaluation has a greater impact for Chinese than for their American counterparts in the marketing context. On ethical intention, teleological evaluation has a greater impact for Chinese than for their American counterparts in the marketing context.Though this dissertation has several limitations especially in the aspect of subject, as an exploratory study, the results, in a sense, still prove the whole ethical decision-making process in marketing is influenced by the cultural dimension "universalism versus particularism".