The ethical profile of global marketing negotiators

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12062
• Author: Mohammed I. Al‐Habib,Jamal A. Al‐Khatib,Najah Salamah,Naima Bogari
• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Date: 01 April 2016

The ethical profile of global

marketing negotiators

Jamal A. Al-Khatib1, Mohammed I. Al-Habib2,

Naima Bogari2and Najah Salamah2

1. University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, USA

2. Faculty of Economics and Administration, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

As international trade and business opportunities grow globally, insight into trading partners’ strategies is

essential. One of the major strategies that impact trading partners’ relationships is negotiation strategy

employed by each partner. These strategies assume even greater importance when these strategies have

ethical content. This study examines the effects of marketing executives’ preferred ethical ideologies (rela-

tivism and idealism), opportunism and Machiavellianism on their perceived appropriateness of unethical

negotiation tactics. Utilizing a sample of 995 marketing executives from six countries, cluster analysis and

multivariate analysis of variance revealed two types of marketing negotiators: principled and corrupt nego-

tiators. Corrupt negotiators tend to be more Machiavellian, more relativist, more opportunistic and less

idealistic than their principled counterparts. Principled negotiators tend to perceive unethical negotiation

tactics less favorably than their corrupt counterparts. Implications of these results for practitioners and

directions for future research are discussed.

Introduction

Business ethics have become a topic of concern

worldwide. For example, in the US, the names

Enron, WorldCom, ImClone, Adelphia and Tyco

have experienced corruption and chief executive

officers, chief financial officers, board members,

auditors and stock analysts have been implicated,

charged and sentenced. In Russia, corruption and

unethical behavior are rampant in both business and

government, with bribes, extortion and even business

related contract killings being the norm (Taylor &

Kazakov 1997, Chivers 2004, Kranz & Bush 2004,

Kvint 2005, Battling Corruption 2006). Similarly,

the recent Egyptian revolution has uncovered major

corruption and unethical conduct among govern-

ment and private sector officials, and the trial and

imprisonment of high profile public and private

sector officials.

Under such global unethical climates, corpora-

tions entering the global economy face the challenge

of understanding and managing the ethical mindsets

of their international partners (Volkema 2004). This

understanding is particularly important for its impli-

cations for enhancing those firms’ chances for suc-

cessful and long lasting relationships with their

partners. Additionally, developing such an under-

standing is more pressing now than ever, given the

reported wide gap in the literature on the perceptions

of executives from different cultures of ethical con-

cerns and the priority they place on ethical issues in

their business environment (Zhuplev et al. 1998).

The present study will assist in this endeavor by

investigating the backbone of international business

relations; namely, negotiation ethics. In defining

negotiation ethics, the authors imply that personal-

ity, negotiator and resultant tactical strategies are

inherently included in describing one’s negotiation

Business Ethics: A European Review

Volume •• Number •• •• 2014

© 2014 The Authors

Business Ethics: A European Review © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,

Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA

doi: 10.1111/beer.12062

1

V

C2014 The Authors

Business Ethics: A European Review V

C2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road

Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA

doi: 10.1111/beer.12062

172

Business Ethics: A European Review

Volume 25 Number 2 April 2016