I can foresee a future for Laczniak’s and Murphy’s framework as a standard for modern business world. Ethics became an essential subject in many circles, and if a company wants to strengthen its public image, its representatives must address ethics. Marketing has earned a negative reputation among customers, as it is often considered predatory, manipulative, and dishonest. The way companies follow ethical rules is often viewed as merely mandatory by law rather than genuine. It is more common nowadays for companies to create an appearance of an organization that cares about ethical issues: by being more eco-friendly, more transparent, and more aware of social problems. As such an approach strengthens customers’ trust and support, many companies aim to establish themselves as ethically conscious. Laczniak’s and Murphy’s framework offer an essential basic perspective that helps companies understand the ethical issues before them from both the company and customer perspectives. Therefore, it is possible for the ethical landscape to evolve into a place where public support and customer loyalty are more important than short-term gain.
Framework by Laczniak and Murphy provides companies with a better approach to ethical problems than neo-liberal models, which focused on the justification of capitalism and protection of private property. Many of these used to be prescriptive rather than descriptive, providing a shallow understanding of ethical issues (Hunt and Vitell, 1986). The essential basic perspectives (BPS) model allows for a better understanding of moral and ethical issues and a better framework for companies to use (Laczniak and Murphy, 2006). BPS gives a more complex analysis of ethical questions in marketing, how to approach them, and how to adapt marketing to the modern standards of ethics. Laczniak and Murphy’s framework is clean and straightforward, focusing on significant aspects of ethics rather than watering it down with excessive details. It focuses on what marketing teams need to focus on, and it also gives them essential perspectives to learn. It is, therefore, not only an ethical but also a practical solution to the problem.
Reference List
Laczniak, G. and Murphy, P. (2006) ‘Normative Perspectives for Ethical and Socially Responsible Marketing’, Journal of Macromarketing. 26, pp. 154-177.
Hunt, S. D. and Vitell, S. (1986) ‘A general theory of marketing ethics’, Journal of Macromarketing, 6(1), pp. 5-16.