Ethics in Retail Buying and Sales: Perceptions of Future Retail Personnel

Unlike many other industries, collegiately educated individuals pursuing a career in retailing often find themselves involved in both buying and selling activities and/or interacting with those who do during their careers. As a result, policies enacted by a retailer which affects one of these two environments will likely affect the other. Perceptions of potentially ethically troublesome situations and practices in buying were found to be strongly related to perceptions of potentially ethically troublesome situations and practices in selling. The only exceptions concern socialization between retail salespeople and their peers and/or management, and whether vendors service small accounts. It appears that these two issues are viewed by respondents as having a nature different from the remaining issues.