4.6: Ethics in B2B Markets
- Page ID
- 4992
Learning Objectives
- Explain how the ethical dilemmas B2B marketers face differ from the ethical dilemmas B2C marketers face.
- Outline the measures companies take to encourage their employees and executives to act in ethical ways.
It’s likely that every topic we have talked about so far in this chapter has an ethical dimension to it. Take procurement, for example: unlike B2C markets, offering customers free dinners, golf games, and so forth is very common in B2B settings. In many foreign countries, business and government buyers not only expect perks such as these but also actually demand bribes be paid if you want to do business with them. And firms pay them, even though some countries prohibit them. (The United States is one such country.) Which countries have a penchant for bribery? In a report called the “Bribe Payers Index,” Transparency International, a watchdog organization, annually ranks the likelihood of firms from the world’s industrialized countries to bribe abroad. The top five countries are shown in Table 4.3 “Transparency International’s Bribe Payers Index”.