Abstract

The authors propose a framework to integrate virtue ethics into marketing theory and apply it to the development of marketing strategies. Virtue ethics, a philosophy that focuses on an individual's moral character, has received limited attention from marketing scholars and researchers. The authors argue that without consideration of virtue ethics a comprehensive analysis of the ethical character of marketing decision makers and their strategies cannot be achieved. They provide an overview of virtue ethics supplemented by a case study of The Body Shop, International to demonstrate how evaluation of the ethics of corporate executives and their marketing strategies is completed by virtue ethics.