Jerry R. Goolsby & Shelby D. Hunt ACognitive Moral ...sdh.ba.ttu.edu/JM92 - Cognitive Moral Development.pdf · Jerry R. Goolsby & Shelby D. Hunt ACognitive Moral Development and Marketing

Jerry R. Goolsby & Shelby D. Hunt

ACognitive Moral Developmentand Marketing

Many academic disciplines are approaching the study of ethics from a cognitive orientation by exploringthe moral reasoning processes individuals use to make ethical judgments. The authors empirically ex-amine a rich theoretical concept with an extensive research-based literature, cognitive moral developmentor CMD, as it relates to professional marketing. Controlling for similar educational background, they findthat (1) professional marketing practitioners compare favorably with other social groups, (2) marketersscoring high on CMD tend to be female and highly educated, and (3) marketers with advanced moralreasoning properties tend to have socially responsible attitudes and behaviors. Implications for marketingtheory, education, and practice are discussed.

In Europe a woman was near death from a specialkind of cancer. There was one drug that doctorsthought might save her. It was a form of radium thata druggist in the same town had recently discovered.The drug was expensive to make, but the druggistwas charging ten times what the drug cost to make.He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2000 fora small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband,Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow themoney, but he could only get together about $1000,which is half of what it cost. He told the druggistthat his wife was dying, and asked him to sell itcheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said,"No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to makemoney from it." So Heinz got desperate and brokeinto the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.[Kohlberg 1969, p. 379]

POOR Heinz. Over the past 30 years, tens of thou-sands of subjects have struggled with Heinz's di-

Jerry R. Goolsby is Assistant Professor of Marketing, College of Busi-ness Administration, University of South Florida. Shelby D. Hunt is thePaul Whitfield Horn Professor of Marketing, College of Business Admin-istration, Texas Tech University. The authors gratefully acknowledge theassistance of the 39 AMA Chapters that generously cooperated in theresearch. They also thank Danny N. Bellenger (Auburn University), DonW. Finn (Texas Tech University), Van R. Wood (Texas Tech University),and James Muncy (Clemson University) for their assistance at variousstages of the research project. Research support provided to the firstauthor by the Dean's Excellence Fund at Oklahoma State University isgratefully acknowledged.

lemma. Using such standardized scenarios as "Heinzand the Drug," researchers have probed the underly-ing cognitive structures that govern moral reasoningprocesses and have developed an extensive, research-based literature known as "cognitive moral develop-ment" (hereafter, CMD). Moral reasoning, like otherkinds of decision processes, is viewed as being influ-enced by individual characteristics and environmentalfactors. The individual, though viewed as an inten-tional, voluntaristic, free agent, both reacts to and in-teracts with situational and environmental factors insolving ethical problems and determining appropriatebehavior.

In the marketing literature, Ferrell and Gresham(1985) and Hunt and Vitell (1986) have developedcomprehensive positive models based on cognitivereasoning frameworks used to make moral judgments.Indeed, Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrich (1989) pro-vide an integrated model that specifically emphasizesCMD and encourages empirical research on it. Onerationale for pursuing positive research is that a moreethical business environment may possibly be achievedby understanding the processes through which indi-vidual ethical decisions are made. With such an un-derstanding, organizations could take normative,proactive steps toward reducing ethical conflict andpromoting ethical behavior.

We extend the cognitive stream of research in

Journal of MarketingVol. 56 (January 1992), 55-68 Cognitive Moral Development and Marketing / 55

marketing ethics by examining empirically, as sug-gested by Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedricb (1989), animportant component for characterizing and under-standing moral reasoning processes—cognitive moraldevelopment (CMD). We first describe CMD and ex-amine its measurement. We then develop researchquestions based on the CMD literature and report theresults of a research project that describes one aspectof the moral reasoning processes of a sample ofprofessional marketing practitioners. Specifically, wecompare the sample of marketing professionals withother societal groups and examine the relationship be-tween CMD and (1) social responsibility, (2) success,and (3) certain personal characteristics. Finally, wediscuss the implications of CMD for marketing the-ory, practice, and education.

Cognitive Moral DevelopmentDrawing on the seminal work of Piaget (1965, 1970),Lawrence Kohlberg (1969) proposed that advancedmoral reasoning requires a highly developed capacityfor advanced logical reasoning and hypothesized thatmoral development should follow a cognitive devel-opmental process. In a decision having a moral di-mension, persons with poorly developed logical rea-soning abilities would be unable to recognize andanalyze the complex relationships among all the ele-ments involved. Hence, such individuals would nei-ther be able to recognize all the possible contingenciesand consequences that might result from a particularcourse of action nor able to assimilate the rightful needsof all parties into a judgment satisfying a moral ideal.Kohlberg's research program, as extended by JamesRest and others, provides the central core of the CMDliterature (see Kohlberg 1984 and Rest 1986b for re-views). The CMD approach to moral reasoning cen-ters on the progressive way in which individuals ac-quire, through time, an increasingly accurateunderstanding of the nature of moral obligations incomplex social systems (Rest 1979). Those moral rea-soning processes develop concomitantly with the in-dividual's reasoning abilities pertaining to social ar-rangements.

Kohlberg (1969) contends that CMD can be char-acterized as a progression through a maximum of sixstages (see Table 1). Moral reasoning becomes cog-nitively more complex in each stage as individuals useincreasingly elaborate algorithms for setting prioritiesand distributing justice. At the preconventional level(stages 1 and 2), moral decisions are formulated onthe basis of simple, immediate consequences to theindividual (i.e., punishments and rewards). Reason-ing at the conventional level (stages 3 and 4) empha-sizes adhering to the rules or norms of appropriate be-havior established by external groups, such as peers.

family, and society. At the principled level (stages 5and 6), moral judgment criteria transcend the author-ity of group norms as the individual develops an in-creasingly strong personal commitment to self-selecteduniversal principles and becomes decreasingly ego-centric. Extensive longitudinal, cross-cultural, andcross-sectional research conducted over the past twodecades supports the stage sequence as hypothesizedby Kohlberg and demonstrates its generalizability acrossmany populations and cultures (for reviews, see Blasi1980, Brabeck 1984, Gibbs and Widaman 1982, andSnarey 1985).

Measures of CMD

Measuring the level or "stage" of CMD requires tap-ping the individual's moral reasoning process andclassifying it according to the schema in Table 1. Todo that, subjects respond to a set of standardized sce-narios, each presenting a different ethical dilemma.Subjects then are queried about the proper course ofaction for the central character in the vignette and,most important, why they chose that action. Origi-nally, Kohlberg used a complicated, in-depth personalinterview procedure (see Kohlberg 1984, p. 393-425).In the late 1970s, the Defining Issues Test (DIT, Rest1986a) was developed as a simpler, more reliable pro-cedure. In Rest's procedure, subjects are asked to re-veal which statements (called "defining issues") in agroup of stage-prototypical statements were most im-portant for determining their ethical judgment abouteach dilemma. Because of the DIT's uniform natureand objective determination of indices, cross-groupcomparisons are widely available from the literature's500-plus studies in which the DIT has been used. Rest'sDIT is considered to be the most reliable, valid mea-surement device for studying cognitive moral devel-opment.

Cognitive Moral Developmentand Marketing

Our research investigates CMD as it relates to mar-keting professionals. Specifically, we (1) compare theCMD level of professional marketing practitioners withthat of other professional and societal groups, (2) ex-plore the relationship between CMD and social re-sponsibility in marketing, (3) examine whether CMDis related to success in marketing, and (4) seek to ex-plain the level of CMD by marketers' personal char-acteristics.

Level of CMD in Marketing

Much of the criticism about unethical behavior inbusiness has been targeted at marketing. As Murphyand Laczniak (1981) note, marketing is the functionalarea within business most often cited with ethical abuse.

56 / Journal of Marketing, January 1992

TABLE 1Summary of the Six Stages of Moral Development"

Stage What Is "Right" and Why

Level 1: PreconventionalStage 1 Heteronomous morality

Stage 2 instrumental purpose andexchange

Level 2: ConventionalStage 3 Mutual interpersonal

expectations, relationship,and interpersonalconformity

Stage 4 Social accord and systemmaintenance

Level 3: PostconventionalStage 5 Social contract and

individual rights

Stage 6 Universal ethical principles

Avoiding the breaking of rules that are backed by punishment.Superior power of authority determines "right."

Following one's own interest and letting others do the same.Following rules only when it is in one's self-interest. "Right" isdefined by equal exchange, a fair deal.

Exhibition of stereotypical good behavior. Living up to what isexpected in a person's role. Respect for trust, loyalty, gratitude.Belief in the Golden Rule, putting yourself in the other person'sshoes.

Making a contribution to society, group, or institution. Fulfillingduties to which you have agreed. Point of view of the system ismaintained. Avoid breakdown of the system.

Rules are upheld because they are a social contract; however,nonrelative values are upheld regardless of majority opinion.Concern for laws and duties is based upon rational determinationof overall utility. Welfare and rights are protected.

Self-chosen ethical principles determine right. Laws and socialduties are valid only because they are based on such principles.The individual respects the dignity of all human beings in adecision and has personal commitment to beliefs.

"Adapted from Kohlberg (1984) and Trevino (1986).

Several explanations have been posited for why so manyobservers question the ethics of marketing and mar-keters. Some writers contend that the unique char-acteristics of marketing, in particular marketing'sboundary-spanning role, are conducive to unethicalbehavior (Miles 1980). Thus, ethical problems resultfrom the fact that marketing inherently involves as-similating the needs of diverse publics. Other writersargue that marketing practitioners' actions, in com-parison with actions in other functional areas, are muchmore visible to persons extemal to the organizationand, hence, are more susceptible to criticism (Ferrelland Gresham 1985). Still other researchers attributethe criticism to fluctuating limits of consensus, eth-nocentrism, and utilitarian economic analysis in themarketing environment (Hensel and Dubinsky 1986).Finally, many critics of marketing believe, quite sim-ply, that marketing attracts individuals who havequestionable ethics at best or are unscrupulous at worst.The classic study by Cox, Goodman, and Fichlander(1965, p. 220-221) pointed out the great extent towhich the public views marketing practitioners as "merehucksters," "cheats," and "frauds." More recently,Dubinsky (1978, p. 8) found that students associatesome marketing practitioners (specifically, salespeo-ple) with such descriptors as "insincerity," "deceit,"and "high pressure." Beisel and Fúgate (1981) foundmarketing majors to score eleventh (of 12) on a test

that tapped such factors as honesty, trustworthiness,and generosity. Those studies suggest that marketingmight attract people who are low in CMD.

The preceding views notwithstanding, theoreticalwork suggests that the marketing environment mighthave a positive impact on CMD. Kohlberg (1984, p.468) hypothesizes that work environments requiringthe ability to balance the welfare of multiple publicsencourage the development of principled thinking. Thatis, workers whose occupations require that they fairlyresolve conflicts among multiple stakeholders mustformulate judgments based on responsible principles.Clearly, marketing jobs require the equitable assimi-lation of diverse needs of many publics. By Kohlberg'sreasoning, marketing constitutes a "morally complex"environment and would encourage the CMD of mar-keting professionals. Research supports that conten-tion. For example, Lincoln, Pressley, and Little (1982),upon finding that marketing managers reveal a higherethical posture than other business managers, attributethe result to marketing's "people orientation."

The preceding review led us to our first researchquestion: To what extent, if any, is the CMD level ofprofessional marketing practitioners different from thatof other professional and societal groups? If market-ing's critics are correct, one might expect marketingpractitioners to be low in CMD. However, both the-ory and empirical evidence suggest otherwise.

Cognitive Moral Development and Marketing / 57

CMD and Social Responsibility in Marketing

Ethics atid social respotisibility are closely related butseparate coticepts. Whereas ethics pertains to the rulesand standards of conduct related to moral philosophy,social responsibility relates to the social contract be-tween businesses and the society in which they op-erate (Robin and Reidenbach 1987). At the minimum,a socially responsible organization integrates the wel-fare of society into the business decision-making pro-cess (Davis 1975; Hunt and Chonko 1985). Like pleasfor improved ethical conduct, demands have been madefor more socially responsible, behavior in marketing,leading a call for a "societal marketing concept" (Kotier1988).

Level of CMD is determined in part by the cog-nitive ability to integrate the legitimate interests of manydistant, diverse publics. Individuals high in CMD couldbe expected to recognize the "social contract," the im-portance of "multiple stakeholders," and socially re-sponsible behavior in organizations. Hence, our sec-ond research question asks: Is level of CMD relatedto (1) professional marketing practitioners' attitudestoward the social responsibilities of business and (2)their frequency of engaging in socially responsible be-havior? A positive relationship is expected.

CMD and Success in Marketing

The marketing concept implies that customers' needsand wants should drive business activity and that or-ganizational objectives can be achieved by satisfyingsuch needs and wants. Some writers suggest that in-dividuals who are sensitive to the needs, wants, anddesires of many different publics (personally adoptingthe marketing concept) should be more successful inmarketing than those lacking such abilities (Kotier 1988,p. 17-31). If so, people at higher levels of CMD shouldhave a greater capacity for excelling in marketing ac-tivities and therefore be successful (i.e., obtain higherjob titles and income levels). Kohlberg (1984, p. 468),indeed, hypothesizes that top executives should scorehigher in CMD:

In general, we believe that positions higher in re-sponsibility encourage moral role-taking more thando positions lower in responsibility. Such lower po-sitions more often limit role-taking of superiors tostrategic concerns about gaining rewards or approvaland avoiding sanctions or disapproval. Needless tosay, executives at the top of work organizations alsomay and often do engage in a great deal of strategicrole-taking toward subordinates, but overall they dohave a greater freedom and opportunity for role-taking.

Though Kohlberg hypothesizes a positive relation-ship between higher levels of responsibility and CMD,he views advancement in CMD to be a result of higherlevels of responsibility in an organization rather than

the reverse (as the marketing concept might imply).An empirical study by Deemer (1986) supports theCMD-career success linkage. Investigating the rela-tionship between CMD and what he calls "career ful-fillment" (a more encompassing concept than finan-cial success), Deemer found high DIT scores in earlyadulthood to be related to higher scores on a careerfulfillment scale taken later in life.

Our third research question asks: Is level of CMDrelated to success in marketing? Both theory and em-pirical evidence suggest a positive relationship.

CMD and Personal Characteristics

CMD has been shown to be related to several personalcharacteristics. Our study examines age, formal ed-ucation, formal ethics education, and gender as pre-dictors of CMD.

Age. Kohlberg (1969) hypothesized a positive andinvariant relationship between age and CMD. Rest's(1986b) and Thoma's (1985) meta-analyses supporthis view. In fact, Thoma reports that 38% of the vari-ance in DIT scores can be explained by just two vari-ables, age and education. Furthermore, longitudinalstudies consistently demonstrate a significant upwardtrend in individuals' moral development (Rest 1986b,p. 28-32; Rest, Davison, and Robbins 1978). Never-theless, because many of the studies examined onlychildren and young adults, developmental processesin adulthood are not fully understood, and studies re-stricted to adults of different ages are inconclusive(Pratt, Golding, and Hunter 1983; Thoma and Davison1983). Inconclusive empirical studies notwithstand-ing, following Kohiberg's (1969) original arguments,we expect development to continue well into adult-hood because as individuals age and acquire greaterdegrees of authority, they become responsible for thewelfare of an increased number of publics.

Formal education. By definition, CMD is bothcognitive and moral. Increased intellectual capacity ishypothesized to be a necessary but not sufficient con-dition for higher levels of CMD (Rest 1984). Despitevoluminous research on the issue, questions remainabout the differential impact of age versus education.The one study specifically designed to address the dif-ferential impacts of age and education in adulthoodfound significant main effects for both but no signif-icant interaction, indicating that age and education maybe independent (Thoma and Davison 1983). Hence,we hypothesize a significant, positive association be-tween CMD and formal education.

Formal education in ethics. Intervention studiesconsistently demonstrate that formal training in moralphilosophy has a positive impact on level of CMD(Rest 1986b, p. 78-81). Therefore, we expect mar-keters trained in moral philosophy to have higher l


els of CMD than individuals who have not receivedformal ethics instruction.

Gender. The topic of gender differences in ethicaljudgment and behavior has been hotly debated (seeGilligan 1982 for review). In the early CMD litera-ture, feminist critics argued that females experiencethe world differently than "cognitive-rational" malesand therefore develop different patterns of moral de-velopment. Thus, the CMD research program wasclaimed to be male-biased and prejudiced against fe-males (Gilligan 1977). However, subsequent meta-analyses found females actually scoring higher thanmales, though the effect is usually not statistically sig-nificant (Thoma 1985). Those meta-analyses not onlyrefute feminist criticisms of "sex bias," but also sup-port the view that women and men develop along sim-ilar lines, at least in terms of CMD (Rest 1986b, p.111-114).

Though gender is usually not related to CMD, theresults might be different in marketing. For example,Ferrell and Skinner (1988) found more ethical behav-iors reported by female marketing researchers than bytheir male counterparts. Conversely, Hunt and Chonko(1984) found women in marketing (in direct contrastto all-nonmarketing samples) to be more (rather thanless) Machiavellian than their male counterparts, whichsuggests an inclination toward less ethical behavior byfemales. Hunt and Chonko hypothesize that their re-sults may stem from "self selection"—that is, womenhigh in Machiavellianism may disproportionatelychoose marketing as a profession. Therefore, "self-selection" may suggest that women who are inordi-nately high (or low) in CMD choose marketing ca-reers.

Our fourth and final research question is: To whatextent can personal characteristics explain differentlevels of CMD? We hypothesize positive relationshipsbetween CMD and age, formal education, and formaleducation in ethics, but expect no significant relation-ship between gender and CMD.

MethodMeasuresMeasures of age, gender, and education used in thestudy are self-explanatory and are listed in Table 2.Measures of CMD, social responsibility, and successrequire explanation.

CMD. Rest's (1986a) Defining Issues Test is usedto measure the level of CMD.' Respondents read ashort dilemma (one being the "Heinz and the Drug"

'The Defining Issues Test is copyrighted by James Rest and maynot be reproduced or used without written permission of its author.For academic research purposes, permission customarily is grantedwithout charge to persons who so request. Additional information canbe obtained by contacting the Center for the Study of Ethical Devel-opment, Department of Educational Psychology, 139 Burton Hall, 178Pillsbury Drive SE, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.

scenario) and rate the importance (on a 5-point scalefrom "great importance" to "no importance") of eachof 12 issues in determining their preferred course ofaction. As previously discussed, each of the 12 state-ments represents prototypical statements endorsed byindividuals at different stages of moral development.Individuals who endorse statements representing acertain stage of CMD are inferred to be at that levelof CMD. After rating the prototypical statements, re-spondents rank the four stage-prototypical statementsthey believe were most important in determining eachethical judgment.

Two indices from the DIT are used in analyses,P% score and M score. The M index, for meaning-less, is a reliability check to detect nonthoughtful re-spondents. Individuals endorsing meaningless itemscontained in the DIT are considered to be nonthought-ful and are removed. The P% score is an index rep-resenting the relative importance given to principled(stages 5 and 6) considerations in determining an eth-ical judgment. When a respondent includes a state-ment reflecting principled reasoning in the four mostimportant statements, a weighted (on the basis of im-portance rank) score is assigned. The P% score rep-resents the percentage of total possible scores (0 to95) assigned to stage 5 and 6 statements, with higherscores indicating a higher level of CMD.

Two versions of the DIT are available, one con-taining six vignettes and the other a subset of three.We used the three-vignette version because of (wellwarranted) response rate concerns. Though not quiteas reliable, the shorter version correlates very highly(.91 to .94) with the longer form and has correspond-ing measurement properties (Rest 1986a). The ex-pected mean scores for P% would be the same forboth forms, but the expected dispersion would be largerfrom the three-scenario version.

Social responsibility. Following previous concep-tualizations (Hunt, Kiecker, and Chonko 1990), weinvestigated social responsibility by using both be-havioral indicants and an attitudinal scale. Socially re-sponsible marketers should believe that companies haveduties and obligations to serve not only their organi-zations, but also the broader interests of society.Moreover, on occasions when duty to company andduty to society confiict, the socially responsible mar-keter should reveal a willingness at times to subor-dinate company goals for the broader interests of so-ciety. Such willingness to engage in socially responsiblebehavior was measured as the individual's agreementwith two items:

On those occasions (however rare or frequent) when I per-ceive a conflict between my duty to my company and myduty to society:


TABLE 2Sample Characteristics'

Age (years)20-2930-3940-4950-5960 or older

Median Age

IncomeLess than $10,000$10,000 to 19,999$20,000 to 29,999$30,000 to 39,999$40,000 to 49,999$50,000 to 59,999$60,000 to 69,999$70,000 to 79,999$80,000 to 89,999$90,000 to 99,999$100,000 or more

SexMaleFemale

Marital StatusMarriedSingle

Educational LevelNo college degreeBachelor's degreeMaster's degreeDoctorate

Size of Firm12 to 910 to 1920 to 4950 to 99100 to 249250 to 499500 to 9991000 or more

28392472

100

34

—8

3014141344122

100

5050

100

6634

100

54448

3101

31386879

—38

100

Activity of OrganizationManufacturingIndustrialConsumerServicesGeneralBankingHealth careInsuranceReal estateMarket research and consultingAdvertisingOther and no answer

Job TitlePresident, CEOVice presidentDivision/corporate managerDistrict/low level managerAnalyst, directorJunior analyst, sales rep., other

Major Field of StudyUndergraduate Degree

MarketingBusiness other than marketingAdvertising/mass communicationEngineeringSocial sciences and humanitiesOther scientificOther

Major Field of StudyGraduate Degree

MarketingBusiness other than marketingAdvertising/mass communicationEngineeringSocial sciencesOther scientificOther

1459

545

121562

14248

100

81232

222599

2617161

2687

101

4333

7

1323

101

"Numbers represent percentages. Percentages may not sum to 100 because of rounding.

1. I often place my duty to society above my duty to mycompany.

2. 1 often place my duty to my company above my dutyto society (reverse scored).

When conflict occurs, respondents who subordinatethe duty to company to the duty to society would beconsidered more socially responsible and vice versa.Because these are behavioral frequency measures (notreflective indicants of some latent construct), they arenot summed to form a scale (Howell 1987). Indeed,not engaging in socially responsible behavior is con-ceptually distinct from proactively engaging in so-cially irresponsible behavior.

The Social Responsibility Attitude Scale (Hunt,Kiecker, and Chonko 1990) was used to assess an in-dividual's socially responsible attitudes. Its measure-ment properties were investigated by factor analysis(see Appendix). As in previous studies, all items loadon a single common factor, supporting the scale's uni-dimensionality and reliability.

Success. As in previous research (Hunt and Chonko1984), two measures of success were used, incomeand job title. Respondents indicated which categoryof income (ranging from less than $10,000 to morethan $100,000 in $10,000 increments) best describes"your total compensation from your employer last


year." Job titles were collected from open-ended re-sponses, which were classified according to Hunt andChonko's (1984) hierarchy (see Table 2).

Data Collection

Professional members of the American Marketing As-sociation were selected as the population to samplebecause the AMA is more representative of marketersthan any other professional association (though itprobably underrepresents lower level marketers, as wellas very senior-level marketing managers; Hunt andChonko 1984). However, response rates of even sim-ple surveys sent to AMA professionals are often low,and both the length of the questionnaire and the DIT'sunusual vignette format were expected to reduce theresponse rate further. Therefore, three different ver-sions of the questionnaire of different lengths werepretested with a random sample of 300 AMA practi-tioner members. Final response rates of the three ver-sions were 21%, 16%, and 12%, respectively. Thoughsuch response rates are common in ethics survey re-search, an alternative procedure that relied on the co-operation of local AMA chapters was pursued to in-crease participation.

AMA chapter presidents were asked to cooperatein the study by (1) distributing questionnaires at theirlocal chapter meetings, (2) briefly explaining the na-ture of the project, and (3) encouraging members toparticipate. Thirty-nine AMA chapters cooperated; 955questionnaires were distributed at the chapter meet-ings and 315 (33%) were returned. Fourteen returnswere incomplete and an analysis of the M scores de-tected 32 nonthoughtful respondents. Removing thoserespondents resulted in an analysis sample of 269(28%), a significant improvement from the direct mailpretest response rate.

Table 2 is a summary of the sample characteris-tics. In a comparison with the results of the 1985 AMAmembership survey (American Marketing Association1985), Mann-Whitney tests show no significant dif-ferences for sex, age, and education, but job titles inthe current sample are of significantly lower rank. Thefinding of lower job titles was expected, because AMAchapter meetings draw somewhat disproportionatelyfrom members holding lower ranks in their respectiveorganizations.

As with all survey research, caution about gen-eralizability is warranted. The AMA certainly does notcover the domain of all marketing practitioners.Moreover, the lower job titles suggest that our samplemay be biased in relation to the AMA's general mem-bership. Given the exploratory nature of the researchand the evidence about the likely outcome of alter-native sampling methods (i.e., lower response ratespotentially yielding other biases), the sample ap-peared reasonable for analysis and for drawing sometentative conclusions. Though we cannot make defin-

itive claims generalizable to the universe of marketingpractitioners, our results do speak to at least one sec-tor of informed practitioners within marketing.

Results

Level of CMD

Our first research question asks to what extent, if any,the level of CMD of professional marketing practi-tioners differs from that of other professional and so-cietal groups. It is important to note at the outset thatinterpretations about the morality or ethics of any groupcannot be inferred from our analysis; only compari-sons of respondents' reasoning characteristics can bemade. As previously discussed, P% score is the in-strument's standard measure of CMD. The mean levelof CMD for the sample is 43.1, with a standard de-viation of 17.2. Scores range from 3.3 to 83.3 (max-imum possible score is 95). The first quartile is 30.0,the median is 43.3, and the third quartile is 53.3.

Figure 1 shows the overall mean, the means ofseveral subgroups in the study, and those of severalother populations reported by Rest (1986a). T-testsshow that the mean of the overall sample, 43.1, ishigher (p < .001) than Davison's normative compos-

FIGURE 1P% Scores of Different Populations

Mean S.D. Sample

60 —

30—>

10.921.214.5

n.a.15.4.

17.217.216.717.213.217.316.916.7

14.320.9

n.a.40

138134129269

24791131351149

191080

20

PhO audents inmoral ptiilosophy

Liberal Protastantseminarians

Graduate compositeDoctoratesAdvanoed law students

PtiystdansAdvanced dental students

Graduate degreesFemalesMaster's degreesMean of the sampleCollege graduate compositeBachelor's degreesMalesAdutt composite

No college degreeNormative composite

Senior highschool compositePrison inmates

Rest et aL (1974)

Rest et al. (1974)

Davison (1979)Current studyWillging andDunn (1961)Rest (1986)Bet»au, Rest, andYamoor (1965)Current studyCurrent studyCurrent studyCurrent studyDavison (1979)Current studyCurrent studyDavison (1979)

Current studyDavison (1979)

Davison (1979)

Armstrong (1975)


ite mean of 34.8 (Rest 1986a, p. 7.1). Because thatcomposite includes many adolescents, a more appro-priate comparison can be made by using Davison'scomposite of 1149 adult responses. The mean scorefor the latter composite was 40 (SD 16.7), still less(p < .01) than that of our marketing sample.

As formal education positively influences CMD(and 95% of the study's sample is college educated),comparisons that control for the formal educationvariable would be appropriate. Interestingly, the meanfor undergraduate degree holders (41.2) is not differ-ent (p > .25) from that for Davison's composite of2479 college student responses (42.3). Davison alsoreports a mean of 53.3 (SD 10.9) in a composite of183 graduate students across several studies. Market-ers in our study with advanced degrees (master's anddoctorate) have a lower (p < .001) mean of 45.4 (SD17.03). The lower mean may reflect self-selection onthe part of applicants to MBA programs or even a lackof emphasis on ethical/moral issues in such pro-grams.^ Alternatively, the lower mean may partiallyresult from the different compositions of the groupsanalyzed. Of the individuals with advanced degreesin our sample, 94% have master's degrees and only6% have doctorates. Though Davison does not reportthe mixture of degrees in his composite, his work sug-gests a high proportion of doctorates. Holders of doc-torates in our sample (n = 9) have a mean of 53.3,exactly the mean of Davison's advanced degree com-posite, indicating that the ratio of master's to doctor-ates could greatly influence the comparison. Never-theless, in comparison with advanced degree samples,marketers in our sample score signiñcantly lower thanwould be expected.

Because formal ethics education also affects CMD,comparing our sample results with those for "ethicsexperts" would be instructive. The marketers' meanis much lower (p. < .001) than that for either a sam-ple of doctoral students in moral philosophy or a sam-ple of liberal Protestant seminarians. Marketers, asmight be expected, score significantly lower than such"expert" groups on moral reasoning.

Considering the absolute values of CMD, Rest(1986a) reports that a score of 50 or more is generallyrepresentative of "principled" reasoning. Moreover,some studies have found that high scoring individualsbehave differently in experimental treatments than dosubjects at the "conventional" stage (Jacobs 1977).Rest reports that "most studies will not flnd manysubjects with scores above 50" (1986a, p. 5.4). Agratifying 39% of our respondents had scores in the

^Several potentially interesting hypotheses could be developed forwhy marketers with advanced degrees score significantly lower thanother advanced degree groups. Perhaps graduate business educationprograms do not foster CMD development. Of our advanced degreesample, 75.1% have business advanced degrees.

"principled" range, but 25% of the sample scored 30or below. Such dismally low scores are commonly as-sociated with junior high school students and prisoninmates. Though there is clearly a large dispersion ofscores, the range and overall standard deviation of 17.2are consistent with those in other studies.

In summary, the means of our overall sample andvarious subsamples show that professional marketingpractitioners compare favorably with other groups ofsimilar age and education. To the extent that ¿here trulyis a disproportionate number of ethical problems inmarketing, our study suggests that "low cognitive moraldevelopment" is probably not an explanatory factor.On the contrary, at XediSi professional marketers scorehighly on CMD.

CMD and Social Responsibility

Our second research question asks whether level ofCMD is related to professional marketing practition-ers' attitudes toward the social responsibilities of busi-ness and their frequency of engaging in socially re-sponsible behavior. Because socially responsibleattitudes direct socially responsible behaviors, we dis-cuss attitudes first. Table 3 is the complete correlationmatrix and shows the correlation between CMD andthe Socially Responsible Attitude Scale to be .15 (p< .01). As expected, individuals higher in CMD tendto believe more strongly that corporations have re-sponsibilities extending beyond narrow organizationalinterests and, therefore, have a more socially respon-sible attitude.

The relationship between CMD and the measuresof socially responsible behavior is more complex. Ta-ble 3 shows that the tendency to place duties to com-pany over duties to society is related negatively (r =- . 136, p < .05) to CMD. Thus, lower levels of CMDare associated with marketers who frequently place dutyto company above duty to society, whereas marketershigh in CMD do so less frequently. However, the ten-dency of individuals to place duties to society overduties to the company is not related to CMD. There-fore, when the relationships between CMD and thetwo behavioral indicants are considered jointly, thenonmonotonic nature of the relationship between CMDand behavior is revealed. The ñndings, though ten-tative, suggest that individuals high in CMD do notnecessarily act more socially responsibile (i.e., proac-tively), but are less likely to act in a socially irre-sponsible way.

Combining the attitudinal and behavioral analysessuggests that, because they have acquired the abilityto recognize the needs and wants of diverse publics,individuals with high levels of CMD tend to be morecognizant of the social responsibility of business andare less likely to act in a socially irresponsible waythan their low CMD counterparts.


Variable

1. CMD°2. Degree level"3. Sex'4. Age5. Ethics education''6. Income7. Society over company8. Company over society9. Socially responsible attitude

1

1.00.17*.13*.03

-.03.08.00

- . 14* *.16*

TABLECorrelation

2

1.00- .18*

.06

.08

.21*

.13**-.09

.00

3

1.00-.30*-.10-.32*-.01-.08-.01

3Matrix

4

1.00.08.45*.08.03.04

5

1.00.07

- .09.03.02

6

1.00.05.03

- .04

7

1.00- .20*

.19*

8

1.00- .19*

9

1.00

'As nneasured by P% score."Coded 0 = no college degree, 1 = bachelor's, 2 = master's, 3 = doctorate.'Coded 1 = male, 2 = female.•'Coded 1 = attended an ethics course, 2 = did not attend.•Significant at the .01 level.••Significant at the .05 level.

Level of CMD and Success

The third research question is whether level of CMDis related to success in marketing. Table 4 reportsregression analyses addressing that question, with in-come and job title as indicants of success and age,sex, and level of education as controls. Parameter es-

timates are presented in three separate regressionequations. In equation 1, CMD is entered indepen-dently; in equation 2, the control variables are enteredwithout CMD; in equation 3, all variables are entered.Because gender has received much attention in pre-vious CMD studies, the analyses are conducted sep-arately for men and women.

TABLE 4The Cognitive Moral Development-Success Relationship

Dependent Variable

1. Combined SanfipleIncome

1A

1B

1cJob title

1A

1B

1c

2. Males OnlyIncome

2A

2B

2cJob title

2A

2B

2c

3. Females OnlyIncome

3A

3B

3cJob title

3A

3B

3c

DegreeLevel'

.496*

.459*

-.132-.174

.487**

.459**

-.243-.263

.578*

.514**

-.013-.075

Sex'

- .672*-.714*

-.328-.375

Age

.085*

.084*

.028

.028

.116*

.117*

.021

.021

.035**

.032**

.039**

.036**

CMD'

.009

.007

.006

.008

.011

.010

.004

.006

.016**

.009

.010

.009

Constant

4.081.70

, 1.54

; 2.47j 2.39' 2.21

1

1

1 4.67-.17-.55

2.782.52

; 2.30

I\

3.131.89

' 1.70

2.021.211.00

.007

.268

.272

.004

.048

.055

.008

.298

.304

.002

.026

.029

.031

.083

.091

.015

.039

.048

F-Model

1.8031.58*24.06*

1.034.36*3.76*

.1027.15*18.52*

.231.741.31

4.19**5.80*4.25*

1.972.662.18

•Coded 0 = no college degree, 1 = bachelor's, 2 = master's, 3 = doctorate."Coded 1 = male, 2 = female.°As measured by the p% score.•Significant at the .01 level.••Significant at the .05 level.


Income as dependent variable. For the sample asa whole, equations lb, 2b, and 3b show that age anddegree level are related positively and sex is relatednegatively to income (female marketers in our sampleearn less than their male counterparts). Equations laand lc show CMD positively related to income, butthe relationship is not significant. However, for women,CMD is related significantly to income, with ß = .016(equation 3 a). When age and education level are en-tered as control variables (equation 3c), the signifi-cance disappears, suggesting a spurious finding. Thoughall the signs of the coefficients are in the hypothesizeddirection, a constant pattern emerges—CMD is notrelated to income.

Job title as dependent variable. A slightly differ-ent pattern emerges for job title. None of the researchvariables is related significantly to job title in the overallsample and only age is related significantly in eitherof the gender-based subsamples, with older womenhaving higher titles. Consistent with the findings forincome, the relationship between CMD and job titleis not significant.

When success is measured by either income or jobtitle, the results suggest that CMD does not contributesignificantly to the success of professional marketingpractitioners. At the same time, and salient to our pre-vious discussion, the results imply that CMD does notinhibit the success of professional marketing practi-tioners. That is, contrary to the view of marketing'scritics (that marketers must necessarily be insensitiveto the needs of others and willing to compromise per-sonal values to be successful), our study shows thatmarketers high in cognitive moral development are noless successful that those lower in CMD.

CMD and Personal Characteristics

Our fourth and final research question asks the extentto which personal characteristics can explain differentlevels of CMD. Our results show little difference inCMD between our marketing sample and groups withsimilar educational backgrounds, but our sample doeshave a large variance (SD 17.2) and a range of 3.3 to83.3. We hypothesize age, formal education, and eth-ics education to be positively related, and gender un-related, to CMD.

Table 3 reports the correlation coefficients of allthe research variables and Table 5 gives the results ofa multiple regression for the variables of interest.Contrary to some previous findings (and our hypoth-esis), gender is a major predictor variable. Gender issignificantly related (r = .130) with CMD and has asignificant ß (6.41) in the regression, and the wom-en's mean of 45.3 is significantly higher than the men'smean of 40.9 (t = -2.17, p < .05). The differencein means is striking, because women in the study are

much younger and have less formal education thantheir male counterparts. Samples having lower edu-cation and age profiles are normally lower in CMD,yet the opposite is true here. Furthermore, though ageand education are positively and significantly relatedto CMD for women (as hypothesized), the signifi-cance disappears for men (Table 5). In fact, no in-dependent variable of interest is related significantlyto CMD for the men in our sample.

For the overall sample, and consistent with otherfindings, education is related significantly to CMD(r = .16 and ß = 5.23). To explore that relationshipfurther, we divided respondents into groups with andwithout graduate (master's and higher) degrees. Themean CMD score of the graduate degree holders (45.4)was signficantly higher (t = 2.247, p < .05) than thatof the rest of the sample (40.7).

Contrary to our hypothesis, formal training in eth-ics is not related to CMD (r = -.032). Curiously,Table 5 shows formal education in ethics to be relatednegatively (though not statistically significantly) toCMD for men. For women, the direction of the re-lationship is positive and consistent with expectations.That result also points toward the differences betweenthe men and women in our sample. Overall, our re-sults suggest that marketers who are high in CMD tendto be female and highly educated.

Conclusion

Marketing is the functional area within business mostoften cited with ethical abuse, raising the question: Isthe frequent targeting of marketing a result of mar-keting's boundary-spanning role, its visibility, thechanging standards by which society evaluates mar-keting decisions, the low ethical standards of individ-ual marketing practitioners, or some other reason? Tothe extent that charges of ethical abuse directed atmarketing have an objective core, our findings sug-gest that low cognitive moral development may notbe a causal factor contributing to ethical problems inmarketing, at least among professional marketingpractitioners. Indeed, our sample compares favorablywith other professional groups on CMD. Moreover,respondents low in cognitive moral development donot appear to be more successful in marketing, asmeasured by either income or job title.

We also examined four variables that have beenused historically to explain different levels of CMD:education, age, formal ethics education, and gender.Of those four variables, gender was the key factor ex-plaining variance in CMD. Feminist writers claim thatwomen are different from men in that they approachethical situations from an intuitive, subjective, andemotional perspective, whereas men approach ethical

64 / Journal of Marketing; January 1992

Dependent Variable

CMD" (total sample)

CMD (males only)CMD (females only)

DegreeLevel*

5.23*

3.447.26*

Regressions:

Sex"

6.41*

TABLE 5Characteristics

Age

.154

.011

.369**

i Related

EthicsEducation'

-1.36

-4.581.47

to CMD

Constant

22.42

42.6320.75

.062

.030

.102

F-Model

4.29*

1.354.87*

"Coded 0 = no college degree, 1 = bachelor's, 2 = master's, 3 = doctorate."Coded 1 = male, 2 = female.°Coded 1 = attended an ethics course, 2 = did not attend.•"Cognitive moral development, measured by P% score.»Significant at the .01 level.**Significant at the .05 level.

situations from a cognitive, rational stance (Gilligan1977). Consistent with findings in other marketingethics studies (Ferrell and Skinner 1988), the womenmarketers in our sample are higher—not lower—thanmen in cognitive moral development. That is, womenmarketers in our sample are, indeed, different frommen; their approach to ethical decision making is evenmore cognitive, even more rational, than that of theirmale counterparts.

Both our study and the extensive moral develop-ment literature in general have significant implica-tions for marketing managers interested in influencingvalues and hehaviors. For example, recent researchhas explored the potential role of corporate ethicalvalues in successful marketing.

Our research indicates that corporate ethical values(given their relationship to commitment and com-mitment's long established relationship to improvedperformance) may be a key ingredient for success.Companies that promote high ethical values in theirorganizations may find themselves richer in loyal tal-ent than ones that ignore or abjure such values. [Hunt,Wood, and Chonko 1989, p. 88]

Our fmdings on the relationship between CMD andsocial responsibility suggest that marketers who wantto encourage a corporate culture embodying high eth-ical values may want to emphasize cognitive moraldevelopment in training programs.

As pointed out by Trevino (1986), a CMD ap-proach to ethics training programs and seminars is sig-nificantly different from that of traditional ethicscourses. Intervention programs using a CMD ap-proach concentrate on advancing the participants' rea-soning patterns so that they can better integrate thelegitimate interests of numerous stakeholders into theirdecisions (Baxter and Rarick 1987). The CMD ap-proach to ethics training can thereby assist employeesin their efforts to "reason through" ethically trouble-some situations. In the increasingly complex environ-ment within which marketing managers work, suchapproaches to ethics training are considered more ef-fective than either moral exhortations to "do the right

thing" or complex codes of conduct with detailed rulesand regulations. Indeed, recent literature suggests thatsome major corporations, such as General Electric,are doing just that (Harrington 1991).

In addition to advancing employee ethical judg-ments, CMD training programs can assist managersin encouraging ethical behavior. Numerous studiessupport CMD's relationship (in the intuitive direction)to empirical indices of such diverse behaviors ascheating (Leming 1978), whistle-blowings (Brabeck1984), job performance (Sheehan et al. 1980), andleadership (Clark 1983). Though all CMD researchersagree that there is no one-to-one correspondence be-tween CMD and ethical behavior, Kohlberg (1969)reasons that CMD is a necessary but not sufficientcondition for ethical conduct. That is, an individualusing advanced reasoning processes may or may notdecide to carry the resulting judgment through to be-havior—a conclusion consistent with Hunt and Vitell's(1986) theory of ethics and Williams and Murphy's(1990) "ethics of virtue." Nevertheless, individualsemploying "principled" (stage 5 and 6) reasoning aremore likely than others to reject situational and or-ganizational pressures and to carry those values throughto ethical behavior.

The CMD literature also has implications for the-ories of ethical decision making in marketing. Theo-rists in marketing acknowledge that individuals do notapproach ethical decisions with the same resources.For example, Ferrell and Gresham (1985) postulatethat several "individual factors" infiuence decisionmaking in ethical situations: (1) moral philosophieslearned through socialization, (2) courses, trainingprograms, and seminars related to ethics, and (3) cul-ttiral backgrounds. As Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrich(1989) note, CMD offers a sound, theory-based pro-gram for empirically evaluating individual differencesin ethical decision making. Hence, it can be hypoth-esized as a precursor to Hunt and Vitell's (1986)deontological and teleological evaluations in that"ethical judgments" are formed by individuals apply-ing "deontological norms" and evaluating the "desir-


ability of consequences," "probabilities of conse-quences," and "importance of stakeholders" whom theconsequences affect. Cognitive moral developmentsuggests a key individual characteristic influencing theability of people to process the multiple norms andconsequences effectively to reach an appropriate eth-ical judgment.

Finally, CMD has implications for marketing ed-ucation. Though ethics training has taken its rightfulplace as an integral part of business education, it oftenis criticized for the lack of transferability to businesscontexts (e.g., Furman 1990). Such criticism can bedirected at the content of many traditional businessethics programs. For example, many programs usesituation-specific case studies that, though realistic,cannot possibly prepare students for the diversity ofethical decisions to which a marketing professional maybe exposed. Likewise, courses that focus on ethicalguidelines, decision rules, and frameworks for ethicalconduct often are too abstract and too simplistic tocover actual business situations. Cognitive develop-mental educational programs, in contrast, instruct stu-dents how to reason through moral dilemmas by ex-posing students to the merits of reasoning patterns atstages higher than their own and by assisting them inadvancing their reasoning patterns (Kohlberg 1969).Interestingly, one such program used in an MBA pro-gram has resulted in a significant developmental im-pact for students (Penn and Collier 1985). By culti-vating the intellectual resources needed to resolve moral

conflicts in general, CMD educational programs pro-vide students entering the workforce the understand-ing they will need when they encounter ethically trou-blesome situations.

In conclusion, because of its strong empiricalfoundations, CMD provides a useful framework forfurther empirical research on how marketing practi-tioners approach and behave in situations involvingethical judgments. Importantly, the CMD researchprogram can accommodate researchers having verydifferent philosophical orientations on the normativeside of ethics inquiry. That is, consistent with the Hunt-Vitell model, the CMD approach does not assume thatrespondents must be either "strict deontologists" or"strict utilitarians." Moreover, the large number ofempirical studies using CMD provide a literature richin comparative norms and research procedures. Weencourage other marketing researchers to take advan-tage of that literature by, for example, integrating CMDinto studies designed to test the Ferrell-Gresham (1985),Hunt-Vitell (1986), and Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrick(1989) models. CMD also could be included as anexploratory variable in future examinations of someof the standardized scenarios used to investigate mar-keting ethics experimentally, such as those of Belliziand Hite (1989). Last, CMD might be used as a po-tential discriminatory variable for researchers devel-oping and applying ethical behavior scales. Both mar-keting practice and marketing science would befurthered by investigations that incorporate cognitivemoral development as a key construct.

APPENDIXFactor Loadings of Social Responsibility Attitude Scale

ItemNumber Scale Item

FactorLoading

1 The fact that corporations have great economic power in our society means thatthey have a social responsibility beyond the interests of their shareholders .7760

2 As long as corporations generate acceptable shareholder returns, managers havea social responsibility beyond the interests of shareholders .5452

3 Management's only responsibility is to maximize the return to shareholders ontheir investment (reverse scored) .6870

4 The socially responsible manager must occasionally place the interests of societyover the interests of the company .6224

Eigenvalue = 1.759

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Reprint No. JM5eilO5

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