Corporate social Responsibility (CSR) and ethical issues in marketing

Abstract

An ethical issue is an identifiable situation and also an opportunity which requires an individual or organization to choose from the actions that must be evaluated as right or wrong, ethical or unethical, etc. Product– related ethical issues arise when marketers fail to disclose the risks associated with a product. In pricing, common ethical issues are price fixing or failure to disclose the full price of a purchase. The nature of price creates many misunderstandings between the seller and buyer which causes ethical problems. Promotion sometimes creates ethical issues in a various ways, which includes false or misleading advertising and manipulative or deceptive sales promotions and publicity. Due to the globalization of markets and businesses, an ever increasing number of marketers have to deal with ethical issues. This Paper explains the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Ethical issues in Marketing and analyses the points such as: 1) To what extent the the B-Schools are imparting knowledge to their budding marketing managers, the importance of Social responsibility and Ethics. 2) To what extent the practicing marketing managers in India give importance to the ethics and 3) To what extent MNCs operating in the developing countries like India take care of the ethical and social responsibility aspects in their business.