A Study on Ethically Problematic Selling Methods in China with a Broaden Concept of Gray-marketing

This paper expands the definition of gray-marketing to include some ethically problematic marketing activities and techniques used in personal selling in China. Based on this, a conceptual model of gray-marketing for a particular type of selling in which both the sellers and the buyers exhibit probl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Authors: Zhuang, Guijun (Author) ; Tsang, Alex S. L. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2008
In: Journal of business ethics
Further subjects:B kickbacks
B gift giving
B marketing ethics
B gray marketing
B Personal Selling
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
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Description
Summary:This paper expands the definition of gray-marketing to include some ethically problematic marketing activities and techniques used in personal selling in China. Based on this, a conceptual model of gray-marketing for a particular type of selling in which both the sellers and the buyers exhibit problematic ethics in an exchange and the associated hypotheses are developed and tested. The findings show that, first, the respondents have different ethical evaluations of different marketing practices used in personal selling such as giving and accepting gifts, buying and accepting meals, and offering and accepting kickbacks. Some of these practices may not be considered unethical. Second, in terms of ethical assessment, gray-marketing practiced by buying agents is more unacceptable than when practiced by sales agents. Third, a person’s ethical evaluation of gray-marketing behavior, empathy for gray-marketing, and belief that gray-marketing has serious consequences, significantly affects his inclination to use gray-marketing. This paper concludes with a discussion of some possible applications of our research findings.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-007-9397-1