Unethical viral marketing in social network service

Abstract

The current research investigates how marketing professionals perceive an ethical issue of viral marketing and what factors are associated with their moral judgment on an ethical problem of a power blogger. In specific, this research considered organizational factors and individual factors of marketing professional affecting judgment on an ethical issue of a power blogger. To answer the research questions, online survey was taken by marketing professionals found in the list that the Korean Economic Institute. Ninety four marketing professionals participated in the online survey. The research found that marketing professional had strong utilitarian perspective on the ethical issue of viral marketing through a power blogger. Individualism among individual factors was significantly associated with deontology, relativism, and utilitarianism, and sense of rivalry was also significantly associated with justice and relativism. However, there were no significant organizational factors associating with each ethical perspective. © 2020, Allied Business Academies. All rights reserved.