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Values in the Marketplace: What Is Ethical Retailing?

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Leadership and Business Ethics

Part of the book series: Issues in Business Ethics ((IBET,volume 60))

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Abstract

Retailing is pivotal to modern societies. It provides basic goods for subsistence, gives access to items we consume to define our individuality, anchors town and city centres, allows new technologies to enter society, offers substantial employment and underpins a competitive economy. In such ways, retailing raises major ethical questions, yet remains largely unregulated, with market forces usually being assumed to work freely and beneficially. Despite this market orientation, recent years have witnessed growth in forms of retailing that claim a higher moral position: Fair Trade initiatives, green retailing, non-animal tested products, ‘no sweat’ apparel, ethically-traded goods. This chapter places retailing in a wider context by addressing four questions:

  • Why have ethical issues become prominent in retailing at this particular time?

  • What philosophical/conceptual bases exist for addressing ethical issues in retailing?

  • Are ethical issues and concerns currently arising in retailing addressed by those bases?

  • How, then, might we conceptualise ethics in retailing?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The subsequent section draws on ‘The Ancients and the Scholastics’ at http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/ancients.htm (accessed 27 January 2008).

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  1. Professor Emeritus, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham, UK

    Paul Whysall

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  1. Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Gabriel Flynn

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Whysall, P. (2022). Values in the Marketplace: What Is Ethical Retailing?. In: Flynn, G. (eds) Leadership and Business Ethics. Issues in Business Ethics, vol 60. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2111-8_15

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