Tag Archives : consumer behavior

In its first few years, Starbucks found itself in a competitive environment that was not too stiff. The market was largely composed of small-scale coffee chains that were basically regionally-based and not as widely-distributed across the continent as Starbucks has been. There were also thousands of independent specialty-coffee shops that also served [...]

Ethical responsibilities of consumers pertain to the ethics of consumption. Brinkmann and Peattie (2008) found that “Consumer researchers and ethicists alike seem interested in how freedom of choice is handled, how information is handled, and how choices are made, using more or less rational criteria.” This means that consumer behavior is greatly [...]

A good marketing sense, with the corporate bottom line in mind, is still the single most important motivation for the application of ethics in marketing. Marketing ethics has come to mean the concern over the three major stakeholders in the conduct of business: the company, the industry, and society. These three groups have logically different and differing [...]

Objectively, the marketing function encounters ethical challenges that are external to the business organization. One ethical challenge is the fact that marketing infringes on the potential customer’s right to self-determination. A rational individual has the right to make an informed decision, but marketing has the capacity to influence and twist [...]