Global Marketing Ethics and CSR

Abstract

Business leaders like to talk about their companies’ latest social responsibility initiatives, the environmental credentials of their companies and the ethical behavior of their management and employees. While this is laudable, there is still considerable disagreement on rather fundamental questions, such as when, exactly, is a particular course of action ethical or unethical, and what are the limits of CSR? This chapter highlights some of the main issues underlying this debate as well as some of the key arguments put forward. Among the topics broached are how multinational companies should deal with differences that may exist across cultures and how ethics and CSR can be implemented into global marketing practice.