Date of Award
Spring 2009
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Business Administration
First Advisor
Laczniak, Gene R.
Second Advisor
Bausch, Thomas A.
Third Advisor
Buckholdt, David R.
Abstract
As Multinational Corporations (MNCs) increasingly turn their attention to the fast growing markets of China, India, Brazil and other developing areas, the question of "fair treatment" of consumers and other residents of those areas is more intensively debated than ever before (for e.g., Epstein & Smith, 2007; Kiviat, 2008; Klein, 1999, 2002; Rangan & McCaffrey, 2004; Stiglitz, 2002). In essence, issues of"distributive justice" come to the fore, i.e., are the benefits and burdens of rapid economic development being fairly allocated among the parties and stakeholders to the expanded economic transactions? One response to the general question of what constitutes a "just market," especially when marketing to economically impoverished segments, is the formulation of models, frameworks or protocols that specify the nature of distributive fairness in such contexts (Hart, 2007; Rangan & McCaffrey, 2004). This project is aimed at developing a normative model of ethically marketing to economically challenged consumer segments. The model, that will later in the project be labeled as the Integrative Justice Model (UM) is constructed using a normative theory building process from the discipline of philosophy (Bishop, 2000) and is comprised of ethical elements that ought to be present when "justly'' marketing to the poor...