Ethical Decision-Making: Cultural and Environmental Impact

International corporations can trigger significant cultural shifts and environmental impacts. For example, when foreign corporations set up large mineral extraction operations in developing countries, both culture and environment are altered. Ethical concerns arise when manipulative marketing techniques are used to mislead foreign consumers, especially about potentially harmful products. In this course, you will consider the ethics of these types of global influence.

When should international marketing practices be valued for increasing consumers’ choices, rather than criticized for making dubious claims? What role should foreign corporations play in the decisions developing countries make about environmental conservation and economic growth? In exploring these issues, you will consider competing values and apply multiple frameworks for ethical analysis.

• Apply rules- and results-based approaches in relation to global sales and marketing scenarios and assess the degree to which restrictions should be put in place.

• Graph the impact of a given advertisement or marketing technique utilizing the manipulation continuum, the spectrum of potential harm, and audience vulnerability measures.

• Apply rules- and results-based approaches in relation to human and environmental impact scenarios.

• Describe challenges in assessing the economic value of nature and various approaches to operationalizing environmental values.