Authors

Abstract

Applying ethics issues into decision making process is effective for ethics enforcement in society. Normative ethics researches through determining the criteria of good and bad actions, try to guide people by presenting ethical norms for certain situations. Also ethical decision making measuring scales cause knowledge for improvements on this (however these scales are mainly based on psychological aspects rather than ethical theories). In this research the Islamic moral doctrine is used as the base for developing a Personal Selling Ethical Assessment Scale. Using Grounded Theory strategy with some modifications, 12 semi-structured interviews with Islamic ethics and marketing experts is done. And by open-coding analysis in Atlas.ti software, the ethical criteria: Committing Anti-Religious, Halal but Anti-Ethical Actions, Breach of Trust and Abuse of Trust, Lying, Bribes & Gifts, Behaviors causing Immorality in future like Reciprocity, Dishonesty and Special Treatment, Lack of Adherence to Commitments and Overpromising, Deception and Conflict of Interest, Scarcity and Inside Information, Creating a Monopoly, Hiding about the product to the customer, Price Discrimination, Manipulation, Abuse of Customer Unawareness, Cheating, Misleading and Puffery, Causing Coercion like Forcing Samples on Buyer and Limiting the Autonomy are extracted. This research focuses on the ethical actions of personal selling in relation to customers and presents some criteria for preventing unethical acts.

Keywords

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