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Marketing Strategies and the Search for Virtue: A Case Analysis of The Body Shop, International

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Abstract

The authors propose a framework to integrate virtue ethics into marketing theory and apply it to the development of marketing strategies. Virtue ethics, a philosophy that focuses on an individual's moral character, has received limited attention from marketing scholars and researchers. The authors argue that without consideration of virtue ethics a comprehensive analysis of the ethical character of marketing decision makers and their strategies cannot be achieved. They provide an overview of virtue ethics supplemented by a case study of The Body Shop, International to demonstrate how evaluation of the ethics of corporate executives and their marketing strategies is completed by virtue ethics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business, Utah State Univesity, 3510 Old Main Hill, Department of Business Administration, Logan, UT, 84322-3510, U.S.A

    Cathy L. Hartman & Caryn L. Beck-Dudley

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  1. Cathy L. Hartman
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  2. Caryn L. Beck-Dudley
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Hartman, C.L., Beck-Dudley, C.L. Marketing Strategies and the Search for Virtue: A Case Analysis of The Body Shop, International. Journal of Business Ethics 20, 249–263 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006057807115

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