IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i15p11673-d1205116.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Value of Integrity: Empowering SMEs with Ethical Marketing Communication

Author

Listed:
  • Woon Kian Chong

    (Department of Marketing, SP Jain School of Global Management, 5 Figtree Drive, Sydney Olympic Park, NSW 2127, Australia)

  • Nitin Patwa

    (Department of Marketing, SP Jain School of Global Management, 5 Figtree Drive, Sydney Olympic Park, NSW 2127, Australia)

Abstract

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have faced criticism for their use of adversarial and deceptive marketing communication practices, which present challenges to ethical and sustainable development. This study aims to examine the factors influencing ethical marketing communication and their impact on value creation. With a robust dataset comprising responses from 183 participants and an impressive 85% response rate, structural equation modeling through ADANCO was employed to analyze the influence of each ethical communication factor on value creation. The findings reveal a positive relationship between ethical communication and value creation, benefiting all stakeholders involved. Moreover, the study emphasizes the importance of adhering to ethical principles and establishing mutually beneficial agreements with stakeholders to achieve successful outcomes in ethical communication. These findings underscore the significance of adopting ethical marketing communication practices to drive value creation and promote societal well-being. By incorporating ethical principles into their communication strategies, businesses can enhance their brand reputation, cultivate trust among customers, and contribute to the overall betterment of society.

Suggested Citation

  • Woon Kian Chong & Nitin Patwa, 2023. "The Value of Integrity: Empowering SMEs with Ethical Marketing Communication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-16, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:15:p:11673-:d:1205116
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/15/11673/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/15/11673/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Madalina Dumitru & Raluca Gina Guse & Liliana Feleaga & Dragos Marian Mangiuc, 2015. "Marketing Communications of Value Creation in Sustainable Organizations. The Practice of Integrated Reports," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 17(40), pages 955-955, August.
    2. Armstrong, J. Scott & Overton, Terry S., 1977. "Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys," MPRA Paper 81694, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Betsy Stevens, 2008. "Corporate Ethical Codes: Effective Instruments For Influencing Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 78(4), pages 601-609, April.
    4. Anna Krizanova & George Lăzăroiu & Lubica Gajanova & Jana Kliestikova & Margareta Nadanyiova & Dominika Moravcikova, 2019. "The Effectiveness of Marketing Communication and Importance of Its Evaluation in an Online Environment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-19, December.
    5. Michaela Jackson & Paul Harrison & Boyd Swinburn & Mark Lawrence, 2015. "Marketing ethics in context: the promotion of unhealthy foods and beverages to children," Chapters, in: Handbook on Ethics and Marketing, chapter 17, pages 354-386, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Michal Carrington & Benjamin Neville & Gregory Whitwell, 2010. "Why Ethical Consumers Don’t Walk Their Talk: Towards a Framework for Understanding the Gap Between the Ethical Purchase Intentions and Actual Buying Behaviour of Ethically Minded Consumers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 139-158, November.
    7. O. C. Ferrell & Victoria L. Crittenden & Linda Ferrell & William F. Crittenden, 2013. "Theoretical development in ethical marketing decision making," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 3(2), pages 51-60, June.
    8. Angeloantonio Russo & Francesco Perrini, 2010. "Investigating Stakeholder Theory and Social Capital: CSR in Large Firms and SMEs," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 207-221, January.
    9. Göran Svensson & Greg Wood, 2008. "A Model of Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 77(3), pages 303-322, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Željka Marčinko Trkulja & Dinko Primorac & Irena Bilić, 2024. "Exploring the Role of Socially Responsible Marketing in Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Organizational Settings," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-12, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Longinos Marín & Alicia Rubio & Salvador Ruiz de Maya, 2012. "Competitiveness as a Strategic Outcome of Corporate Social Responsibility," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(6), pages 364-376, November.
    2. Brigitte Hoogendoorn & Daniela Guerra & Peter Zwan, 2015. "What drives environmental practices of SMEs?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 759-781, April.
    3. Richard Arend, 2014. "Social and Environmental Performance at SMEs: Considering Motivations, Capabilities, and Instrumentalism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 125(4), pages 541-561, December.
    4. Yamoah, Fred A. & Yawson, David Eshun, 2022. "Promoting global well-being through fairtrade food: the role of international exposure," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 26(2), November.
    5. Adomako, Samuel & Abdelgawad, Sondos G. & Ahsan, Mujtaba & Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph & Azaaviele Liedong, Tahiru, 2023. "Nonmarket strategy in emerging markets: The link between SMEs’ corporate political activity, corporate social responsibility, and firm competitiveness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    6. Pfajfar, Gregor & Shoham, Aviv & Małecka, Agnieszka & Zalaznik, Maja, 2022. "Value of corporate social responsibility for multiple stakeholders and social impact – Relationship marketing perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 46-61.
    7. Uzhegova, Maria & Torkkeli, Lasse & Saarenketo, Sami, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility in SMEs: Implications on Competitive PerformanceDate submitted: October 12, 2017Revised version accepted after double blind review: December 15, 2018," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 30(2-3), pages 232-267.
    8. Qingyu Zhang & Sohail Ahmad, 2021. "Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility Execution Effects on Purchase Intention with the Moderating Role of Customer Awareness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-19, April.
    9. Randolph, Robert V. & Alexander, Benjamin N. & Debicki, Bart J. & Zajkowski, Robert, 2019. "Untangling non-economic objectives in family & non-family SMEs: A goal systems approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 317-327.
    10. Corinna Ewelt-Knauer & Anja Schwering & Sandra Winkelmann, 2022. "Doing Good by Doing Bad: How Tone at the Top and Tone at the Bottom Impact Performance-Improving Noncompliant Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 609-624, January.
    11. Magrizos, Solon & Apospori, Eleni & Carrigan, Marylyn & Jones, Rosalind, 2021. "Is CSR the panacea for SMEs? A study of socially responsible SMEs during economic crisis," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 291-303.
    12. Miroshnychenko, Ivan & Strobl, Andreas & Matzler, Kurt & De Massis, Alfredo, 2021. "Absorptive capacity, strategic flexibility, and business model innovation: Empirical evidence from Italian SMEs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 670-682.
    13. S. Arunachalam & Sridhar N. Ramaswami & Pol Herrmann & Doug Walker, 2018. "Innovation pathway to profitability: the role of entrepreneurial orientation and marketing capabilities," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 744-766, July.
    14. Tiziana La Rocca & Maurizio La Rocca & Francesco Fasano & Alfio Cariola, 2023. "Does a country's environmental policy affect the value of small and medium sized enterprises liquidity in the energy sector?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 277-290, January.
    15. Yoon, Junghyun & Lee, Hee Yong & Dinwoodie, John, 2015. "Competitiveness of container terminal operating companies in South Korea and the industry–university–government network," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1-14.
    16. Malin Jonell & Beatrice Crona & Kelsey Brown & Patrik Rönnbäck & Max Troell, 2016. "Eco-Labeled Seafood: Determinants for (Blue) Green Consumption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-19, September.
    17. Michael J. Fell & Alexandra Schneiders & David Shipworth, 2019. "Consumer Demand for Blockchain-Enabled Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading in the United Kingdom: An Online Survey Experiment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-25, October.
    18. Sousa, Carlos M.P. & Bradley, Frank, 2008. "Antecedents of international pricing adaptation and export performance," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 307-320, July.
    19. Son K. Lam & Thomas E. DeCarlo & Ashish Sharma, 2019. "Salesperson ambidexterity in customer engagement: do customer base characteristics matter?," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 659-680, July.
    20. Danilo Soares‐Silva & Gustavo Hermínio Salati Marcondes de Moraes & Alexandre Cappellozza & Cristiano Morini, 2020. "Explaining library user loyalty through perceived service quality: What is wrong?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(8), pages 954-967, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:15:p:11673-:d:1205116. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.