Ethics in services: an historical perspective and new research arcs

Figures & data

Table 1. Scales used to measure ethics.

Hunt et al. (1989, p. 84)

1. Managers in my company often engage in behaviors that I consider to be unethical.

2. Top management in my company has let it be known in no uncertain terms that unethical behaviors will not be tolerated.

3. In order to succeed in my company, it is often necessary to compromise one’s ethics.

4. If a manager in my company is discovered to have engaged in unethical behavior that results primarily in personal gain (rather than corporate gain), he or she will be promptly reprimanded.

5. If a manager in my company is discovered to have engaged in unethical behavior that results primarily in corporate gain (rather than personal gain), he or she will be promptly reprimanded.

Reidenbach and Robin (1990, p. 639)

Moral equity items:

1. Fair/Unfair

2. Just/Unjust

3. Morally right/Not morally right

4. Acceptable/Unacceptable to my family

Relativism items:

5. Traditionally acceptable/Traditionally unacceptable

6. Culturally acceptable/Culturally unacceptable

Contractualism items:

7. Violates/Does not violate an unspoken promise

8. Violates/Does not violate an unwritten contract

Rao and Singhapakdi (1997, pp. 423–424)

1. The ethics and social responsibility of a firm is essential to its long term profitability.

2. Business ethics and social responsibility are critical to the survival of a business enterprise.

3. The overall effectiveness of a business can be determined to a great extent by the degree to which it is ethical and socially responsible.

4. Good ethics is often good business.

5. Business has a social responsibility beyond making a profit

6. Corporate planning and goal setting sessions should include discussions of ethics and social responsibility.

7. Social responsibility and profitability can be compatible

Babin et al. (2000, p. 352)

Trust and Responsibility items:

1. All employees here are held accountable for their actions

2. Employees here act first to further their customers' interests

3. People always get treated justly here

4. Employees here are truly committed to high moral standards in their treatment of others

Peer Behavior Ethicality items:

5. Employees here have performed unethical acts

6. I have seen other employees do things that bother me from a moral viewpoint

7. Some of the people that I work with do things that I feel are unethical

8. Generally, employees here simply act to protect their own self-interest

9. Employees here do things based on the ‘CYA’ (protect yourself) principle

10. Employees here sometimes take revenge out on customers

Consequences of Violating Ethical Norms items:

11. If I spent a lot of time thinking about how morally right everyone is treated, I'd be really stressed out

12. Employees acting unethically for personal gain are punished

13. Employees acting unethically for company gain are punished

Nature of Selling Practices items:

14. Employees here are encouraged highly to ‘up-sell’ customers

15. Employees here are required to be very aggressive in making ‘suggested sales’ or selling ‘add-ons’

16. Customers here are sometimes encouraged to buy something they might not truly need

Schwepker and Hartline (2005, p. 393)

1. Top management does not support ethical behavior at work.

2. There is not much support among my coworkers for honesty at work.

3. I know of a customer who was cheated.

4. I think my organization is more interested in making money than in meeting customers’ needs.

5. I have seen people I work with do dishonest things at work.

6. Some of my coworkers do not support the idea that customers should be treated fairly.

7. Our field is so competitive that we have to do some unethical things at work just to stay in business.

Table 2. Articles published before 2009.

Authors	Year	Journal	Core Service	Ethical Philosophies Included
Murphy/Laczniak	1981	Review of Mktg	marketing research	teleology, deontology, situational ethics
Hunt/Wood/Chonko	1989	JM	marketing research, advertising	deontology
Reidenbach/Robin	1990	JBE	marketing	justice, relativism, egoism, utilitarian, deontology
Kennedy/Lawton	1993	JBE	services	N/A
Howe/Hoffman/Hardigree	1994	JBE	insurance	N/A
Malhotra/Miller	1996	JHCM	healthcare	teleology, deontology, hybrid, relativism
Bush/Harris/Bush	1997	JSM	examples only	variety
Rao/Singhapakdi	1997	JSM	marketing	deontology, relativism
Babin/Boles/Robin	2000	JAMS	marketing	deontology, teleology
Schwepker/Hartline	2005	JSR	front-line providers	N/A
Warren	2005	SIJ	front-line providers	utilitarian
Segal/Giacobbe	2007	Services Mktg Q	marketing research	N/A
Abela/Murphy	2008	JAMS	marketing	deontology

Table 3. Articles published from 2009 to 2020.

Authors	Year	Journal	Core Service	Ethical Philosophies Included
Rendtorff/Mattsson	2009	SIJ	services	related themes
Rendtorff	2009	SIJ	healthcare, etc.	related principles
Ardichvili/Mitchell/Jondle	2009	SIJ	variety of services	related characteristics
Coelho/Augusto/Coelho/Sá	2010	SIJ	telecommunication	N/A
Issa/Pick	2010	J Bus Ethics	health, education, nonprofit	teleology, deontology
Ndubisi/Malhotra/Capel/Agarwal/Satkunasingam/Ndubisi/Patil	2016	Psych & Mktg	outsourcing	deontology
Bridges	2018	JSTP	service executives	deontology, teleology
Schwepker/Dimitriou/McClure	2019	JSM	hotel/motel	deontology
Wei/Ang/Anaza	2019	JSM	tax services	N/A

Table 4. Recent articles with technology and ethics focus.

Authors	Date	Journal	Core Service	Ethical Issues Mentioned
Du/Xie	2021	JBR	services	ethical issues include biases, design, privacy, security, autonomy, well-being, unemployment
Belk	2021	SIJ	robots, AI	reviews five specific ethical concerns: ubiquitous surveillance, social engineering, military robots, sex robots, and transhumanism
Tlili	2023	SIJ	industrial services	use of metaverse; ethical issues focus on privacy and security
Ivanov	2023	SIJ	higher education	biases, plagiarism, factual incorrectness, micromanagement, behavior manipulation, surveillance, overreliance on AI, lack of transparency, skill loss, privacy
Belanche/Belk/Casaló/Flavián	2024	SIJ	AI in services	biases, privacy, lack of emotion, dependence, loss of skills, lack of transparency

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Schwepker, C. H., Jr., & Hartline, M. D. (2005). Managing the ethical climate of customer-contact service employees. Journal of Service Research, 7(4), 377–397. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670504273966

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