Making Marketers Ethical : Background Variables for Sales Training Effectiveness

Though sales is a growing career within the marketing discipline, the effectiveness of sales ethics training is not keeping pace. Relatively scant attention has been paid to ethics training, and the current study seeks to correct this oversight through discussing important background values that impact ethical decision making in sales situations. These background values should be factored into the design of effective sales ethics training courses. The study reviews the roles that idealism, relativism, personal values, religiosity, money ethics and attitudes toward business play in the determination of sales ethics judgments and choices. Results indicate that sales ethics evaluations are significantly impacted by idealism, relativism, and money ethics. Personal values indirectly influence evaluations. Religiosity and attitudes toward business do not significantly impact evaluations. Recommendations include the development of a sales education ethics model that includes both principle-based (idealism and personal values) and situation-based (relativism and money ethics) perspectives.


Introduction
A vital component of any marketing effort, sales departments and selling careers continue to grow at a healthy rate (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012).However, sales ethics training has not kept pace.Salespeople frequently assess their training as ineffective (Salopek, 2009), and the public's ongoing suspicion of sales ethics indicates that sales ethics training is not translating into demonstrable practice (Chonko, Tanner, & Weeks, 1996;Luthy, 2007;Ramsey, Marshall, Johnston, & Deeter-Schmelz, 2007).In short, traditional ethics training is failing and needs help (James Jr., 2000;Mason, 2010;Waples, Antes, Murphy, Connelly, & Mumford, 2009).
The purpose of the current research is to begin building a platform upon which the effectiveness of sales ethics training may be enhanced.In particular, the study seeks to provide a deeper understanding of common salesperson background values that should be considered in the design of effective sales ethics training programs.
The paper begins with a review of past research on sales ethics evaluations.Particular attention is given to the Personal Selling Ethics Scale (PSE-2).Next, the paper reviews past research on personal values, religiosity, money ethics, and attitudes toward business.The PSE-2 is then used to measure the two-level effects of each variable.The paper concludes by suggesting a two-level model that can be used to inform the development of ethics training applications.Specific objectives are as follows: 1) Develop an understanding of the relationships between background values (personal values, religiosity, money ethics, and attitudes toward business) and personal selling ethics evaluations.
2) Suggest academic and industrial training applications.

Literature Review and Hypotheses
To provide a context for the background values of salespeople, the current section begins with an overview of sales ethics evaluation research.It then continues by reviewing ethical frameworks and background values such as personal values, religiosity, money ethics, and attitudes toward business.

Sales Ethics Evaluations
Varying methodologies have been used to examine sales ethics.A frequent approach involves using scales to review ethical scenarios (Borkowski & Ugras, 1992;Whipple & Swords, 1992).Dabholkar and Kellaris (1992) developed a scale specifically designed for sales situations.Their Personal Selling Ethics scale (PSE) is a set of 20 scenarios designed to measure the ethical judgments of sales professionals and/or students to questionable ethical scenarios in sales.The scale has been used to uncover the following (Dabholkar & Kellaris, 1992;Donoho et al., 1998):  situational differences affect ethical evaluations in sales  questionable sales practices involving money are viewed as less ethical than questionable practices that do not involve money  questionable sales practices affecting customers are viewed as less ethical than questionable practices involving employers or competitors  women are more sensitive to ethical misconduct in sales than men  religious practice affects ethical evaluations  ethical judgments vary widely among individuals.
After twenty years of use, the PSE was updated to reflect the growing interest in sales and sales education.The revised scale, Personal Selling Ethics Scale II (PSE-2), added to the original scale through incorporating input from current sales texts, popular press sales books, sales journal articles, and corporate codes of conduct (Donoho & Heinze, 2011).Findings included the fact that when moral relativism and idealism are factored, gender evaluation differences disappear (Donoho, Heinze, & Kondo, 2012).And although relativism and idealism enjoy a statistically signification relationship with ethical evaluation sensitivity, the two constructs explain less than 9% of evaluation variation (Donoho, Heinze, & Kondo, 2012).The PSE-2's scenarios are presented in Appendix A.

Ethical Frameworks-Moral Idealism and Moral Relativism
Moral pedagogy has been built on varying approaches ranging from Kohlberg's (1984) tripartite view to the Four Component Model which views morality from a functional psychological process perspective (Bebeau, Rest, & Narvaez, 1999;Rest, 1986).Providing an umbrella framework for studying the ethical evaluation of sales situations, Hunt &Vitell's (1986) general theory of marketing ethics has enjoyed extensive use (see McClaren, 2000).The theory proposes that the perception of ethical issues and associated alternatives is influenced by background factors such as normative moral philosophies.Two foundational moral philosophies are moral idealism and moral relativism, and Forsyth's (1980Forsyth's ( , 1992) ) early work on moral philosophies utilized these underlying dimensions as the basis for developing the categorizations found in the Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ).
Moral idealism utilizes a set of universal absolutes to judge actions as either moral or immoral.Moral idealism also contends that harming others can be avoided (Forsyth, 1992).On the other hand, less idealistic perspectives are more inclined to accomplish supposed good through pursuing avenues that involve the "lesser of two evils" (Forsyth, 1980).
Compared to moral idealism, relativism suggests that ethical judgments should not be governed by universal absolutes.Rather, moral decisions should be guided by participant variables and situational factors (Forsyth, 1992).Circumstantial factors or individual characteristics trump rules.Relativists are often influenced by broad circumstantial factors such as society and culture (Singhapakdi, 2004).
Moral idealism and relativism, foundational ideological perspectives in Forsyth's (1980) categorizations, have provided the theoretical framework for many sales and marketing studies.Training approaches (McClaren, 2000), behavioral patterns (Vitell & Singhapakdi, 1993), and ethical evaluations of sales scenarios (Barnett, Bass, & Brown, 1996) have all been informed by idealism/relativismframeworks.Valentine and Bateman (2011) determined that, along with issue-contingencies and environmental constructs, ethical ideologies influence issue recognition and intentions in sales situations.For example, idealistic individuals were found to be more sensitive to ethical misconduct in sales, and relativistic individuals were found to be less sensitive.Likewise, Donoho, Heinze, and Kondo (2012) found that higher moral idealism scores resulted in critical ethical evaluations of sales ethics abuses, while higher relativism scores resulted in ethical evaluations that were less critical.
Therefore, idealism and relativism can highlight individual philosophical differences that may impact the method and manner of ethical evaluations (Barnett, Bass, & Brown, 1994;Tansey, Brown, Hyman, & Dawson, 1994).
To confirm these findings, the following hypothesis is proposed: H0: Sales ethics evaluations are negatively related to moral idealism and positively related to moral relativism.Kahle's (1983) List of Values (LOV) was built upon a theoretical foundation provided by Feather (1975), Maslow (1954), andRokeach (1973).Veroff, Douvan, and Kulka (1981) and Kahle (1983) developed the LOV to assess the values of individual Americans.Important values include self-respect, security, relational warmth, belonging, self-fulfillment, respect from others, sense of accomplishment, and fun-enjoyment-excitement.

Personal Values
Studies utilizing social values in sales have included Apasu's (1987) examination of the manner in which personal values affect a salesperson's reward system preferences.Additionally, Weeks, Chonko, and Kahle (1989) suggested that personal value congruence between salespeople and managers results in higher annual sales.Swenson and Herche (1994) found that social values help predict a salesperson's performance, and Weeks and Kahle (1990) highlighted the impact of social values on the entrepreneurial and routine selling efforts of salespeople.Donoho, Herche, and Swenson (2003) found that salespeople who favor relational values are less accepting of ethically problematic sales situations, while those who favor individual personal values are more accepting.
In light of these research findings, the following hypotheses are proposed: H1d (One-level): Personal value importance is negatively related to sales ethics evaluations.
H1i: (Two-level) Personal value importance is positively related to moral idealism.
H1r: (Two-level) Personal value importance is negatively related to moral relativism.

Religiosity
Religiosity has been defined as a belief in God and an associated commitment to follow God-ordained principles (McDaniel & Burnett, 1990).Though encompassing spirituality, religiosity is distinct from spirituality and is generally thought to include religious beliefs, activities, and affiliations (Bjarnason, 2007).Research indicates that religiosity often has a measurable influence on attitudes and behavior (Weaver & Agle, 2002), and although it has been suggested that religiosity and moral reasoning share few intersections (Kohlberg, 1981), most research indicates that the two ideas are linked (Duriez & Soenens, 2006;Glover, 1997;Sapp & Gladding, 1989).
Findings regarding religiosity and philosophical frameworks have been mixed and require further study (Vitell, 2009).For example, Clark and Dawson (1996) found no relationship between religiosity and moral idealism or relativism.However, Vitell and Paolilo (2003) found a link.Barnett, Bass, and Brown (1996) uncovered no correlation between religiosity and idealism (positive two-level) and relativism (negative two-level), while Singhapakdi, Vitell, and Franke (1999) determined religiosity to be a significant driver of idealistic or relativistic orientations.
In light of research on religiosity and ethical evaluations, the following hypotheses are proposed: H2d (One-level): Religiosity is negatively related to sales ethics evaluations.

Money Ethics
The meaning of money and the way in which its meaning differs across individuals has been examined for more than a half-century (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959, Lawler, 1981).Attitudes toward money have also been examined and have been shown to influence a host of organizational behaviors such as job satisfaction, morale, work orientation, task performance, overall effectiveness (Lawler, 1981;Opsahl & Dunnette, 1966;Tang & Baumeister, 1984).Likewise, personality and attitudinal variables are related to one's money ethic (Mitchell & Mickel, 1999).Tang's (1992Tang's ( , 1993Tang's ( , 1995Tang's ( , 2002) ) Money Ethics Scale (MES) was developed to examine the meaning of money and associated attitudes toward money.The full scale is 17-items and includes four factors: Money importance, money success, money motivator, and money rich.Tang (2002) found that an individual's money ethic impacts the individual's tolerance of unethical behavior.The more important money is to an individual, the more accepting he or she becomes of unethical practices.Likewise, Vitell, Singh, and Paolillo (2007) found that an individual's money ethic influenced his/her sensitivity to ethically questionable activities.The more an individual viewed money as important, the more likely they were to accept unethical consumer activities.In light of these findings, the following hypotheses are proposed: H3d (One-level): Money ethics is positively related to sales ethics evaluations.
H3i: (Two-level) Money ethics is negatively related to moral idealism.
H3r: (Two-level) Money ethics is positively related to moral relativism.

Attitude toward Business
An individual's attitude toward business may impact assessments of ethically questionable consumer behaviors (Vitell, Singh, & Paolillo, 2007).Muncy and Vitell (1992) originally used attitude toward business to determine that consumers who are more negative toward business are more accepting of unethical consumer practices.Though attitude toward business did not significantly predict divergent consumer ethics assessments between students and non-students (Vitell & Muncy, 2005), the construct did impact passive ethical assessments in a more recent study (Vitell, Singh, & Paolillo, 2007).In particular, consumers who held positive attitudes toward business judged ethically questionable consumer behaviors more harshly than individuals who held a negative attitude toward business.
In light of research findings, we hypothesize the following: H4d (One-level): Attitude toward business is positively related to sales ethics evaluations.
H4i: (Two-level) Attitude toward business is negatively related to moral idealism.
H4r: (Two-level) Attitude toward business is positively related to moral relativism.

Method
The current research is part of an on-going, multi-sample, multi-questionnaire study conducted at a medium-sized university in the United States.Via a sales program housed within its College of Business, the university specifically trains students for selling careers.Over 1,000 students participated in various parts of the study over two years.All participants completed the PSE-2 questionnaire, and various subsets of the sample completed survey instruments related to philosophical frameworks and background values.The survey was administered using an online survey/quiz function of the school's learning management system.The multiple surveys took less than 30 minutes to complete.For the current research, 429 students completed surveys and were given extra credit.

Sample Characteristics
Table 1 presents the sample characteristics.The gender composition of the sample was 57% male and 43% female.The age range of 18-24 represented 86% of the sample.Most were juniors (43%) or seniors (53%); 37% were marketing majors.Seventy-seven percent of students had 3 or more years of work experience; only 24% had some sort of sales experience such as part-time retails sales or waitressing.The sample appears to represent today's traditional, undergraduate business student enrolled in upper division classes.

Scale Characteristics
The PSE-2 and EPQ (moral idealism and moral relativism) scales are presented in Table 2. Reliability assessment using Cronbach's alpha was .79 for the PSE-2.There was a relatively wide range of mean scores (1 = very unethical, 7 = very ethical) for the twenty PSE-2 items, ranging from "stealing from competitor at trade show" (1.82) to "puffery" (5.16).The EPQ's Cronbach alpha was .82 for moral idealism and .71for moral relativism (see Table 3 and Table 4).These values are consistent with previous scale utilization and are considered adequate (Nunnally, 1978).A large number of studies have used the EPQ Scale (or associated variations) and have experienced similar results.
Table 3. Moral idealism (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree) Moral Idealism Scale Item Mean Std.Error 1.A person should make certain that their actions never intentionally harm another even to a small degree.

3.81
.048 2. Risks to another should never be tolerated, irrespective of how small the risks might be.3.36 .050 3. The existence of potential harm to others is always wrong, irrespective of the benefits to be gained.
3.50 .049 4. One should never psychologically or physically harm another person.
4.01 .050 5.One should not perform an action that might in any way threaten the dignity and welfare of another individual.

3.93
.044 6.If an action could harm an innocent other, then it should not be done.4.06 .0427. Deciding whether or not to perform an act by balancing the positive consequences of the act against the negative consequences of the act is immoral.

2.54
.053 8. The dignity and welfare of people should be the most important concern in any society.3.66 .0459.It is never necessary to sacrifice the welfare of others.
3.17 .05010.Moral actions are those that closely match ideals of the most "perfect" action.
3 A factor analysis constraining the EPQ scale items to two factors resulted in appropriate loadings that matched the idealism and relativism constructs.Factor loadings varied from .41 to .78 for moral idealism and .49to .63 for moral relativism, except for idealism scale item 7 (.268) and relativism scale item 1 (.377).Deletion of these items from the analysis did not significantly improve Cronbach alpha scores.Hence, the scales were used in their complete form to compute the mean for each unidimensional scale.
The mean score for the PSE-2 (3.36) fell between "neither unethical nor ethical" and "somewhat unethical," using a 7-point Likert Scale.Mean scores for moral idealism (3.53) and moral relativism (3.18) fell between "neither disagree nor agree" and "agree," using a 5-point Likert Scale.Kahle's (1983) List of Values scale includes eight items that measure the importance of American personal values in daily life.A nine-point scale was used (1=very unimportant in my personal life, 9=very important in my personal life).Table 5 presents the mean scores for the eight scale items.The Cronbach alpha was .92.An exploratory factor analysis of the scale items revealed a one factor unidimensional scale.Although previous factor analyses have been used to segment a sample (Donoho, Herche, & Swenson, 2003), no such factors were found for our sample.Contrary to previous utilization of the LOV, a mean LOV score is used to represent the unidimensional scale.Our interpretation of this mean score is that it represents the overall relative importance of personal values in students' lives.Cronbach alpha = .920 Note.Factor analysis revealed a unidimensional (1 factor scale).We interpret the LOV mean to be the importance of personal values in daily life.
The religiosity scale is an 8-item scale measuring intrinsic religiosity.The Cronbach alpha for the complete 8-item scale was .783(see Table 6).Item analysis revealed that removing items 3, 6, and 8 improved reliability.
The Cronbach alpha for the remaining 5 items was improved to .874.Factor analysis revealed this to be a one factor unidimensional solution.The mean of the five remaining items were used for the study.Similar to prior research, the 17-item, 5-point Money Ethics Scale (MES) factored into four dimensions: importance, success, motivation, and rich.The overall mean and the means of individual factors are presented in Table 7.The Cronbach alpha for all 17 items was .909.Individual factor alphas were: Money Importance (.778), Money Success (.811), Money Motivation (.870) and Money Rich (.831).The Cronbach alpha for the four means of the individual money factors was .815.Respondents, on average, agreed that money was important (mean = 3.88), contributes to their motivation (mean = 3.92), and that being rich is good (mean = 3.77).However, on average, students were rather neutral on money being a measure of success (mean = 3.03).The Money Ethics Mean (mean = 3.65) for all scale items is used to simplify the presentation of the results.Attitude toward business was measured using a 6-item scale.Reliability for this scale was low and removal of individual scale items did not significantly increase a low Cronbach alpha score of .505(see Table 8).
Respondents were relatively positive about the business community improving the country's standard of living (3.64), satisfaction with most products they buy (3.79), and corporate concerns for customers (3.57).However, they also believe, on average, that many businesses try to take advantage of customers (3.38), and that products are not as durable as they should be (3.70).Overall, respondent attitudes toward business were relatively neutral (3.14).Cronbach alpha (all scale items) = .505 Note.Means are "reversed" for items 1,2,and 5 for the reliability analysis and computing the overall mean (the higher the mean score, the more positive the student attitude toward business).

Results
The current section presents a two-level model in which idealism, relativism, and money ethics directly affect PSE-2 sales ethics evaluations.The three remaining variables (personal values, religiosity, and attitude toward business) indirectly affect evaluations.

Two-Level Model with Money Ethics on the First Level
Figure 1.Two-level modified relationships of background influence variables Figure 1 highlights the proposed two-level model.Idealism, relativism, and money ethics directly affect PSE-2 sales ethics evaluations, and the three remaining variables (personal values, religiosity, attitude toward business) indirectly affect the evaluation.Personal values and religiosity positively affect idealism, and attitudetoward business positively affects relativism, which in turn is positively related to PSE-2 sales ethics evaluations.Finally, money ethics directly and positively affects PSE-2 evaluations.
As seen in Table 9, idealism is negatively related to sales ethics evaluations   Personal values are positively related to both idealism and relativism; however, the Std.Beta is twice as large for idealism as for relativism.
Table 12 presents the results of the test of the relationship between money ethics and the three independent variables.None were significant.Personal Value Importance, therefore positively affects both idealism and relativism.The standardized beta suggests that personal value importance has a larger effect for idealism (Std.Beta = .191)than for relativism (Std.Beta = .095).

Money Ethics Effect on Sales Ethics Evaluations
Though the mean of money ethics was used in the previous analyses for simplicity, the relationship between PSE-2 sales ethics evaluations and the components of money ethics was investigated.Table 13 presents the results of a regression of PSE-2 by the four money ethics component means (importance, success, motivation, and being rich).Only money success was significant (Std.Beta = .140,t = 2.471, sig.t = .014,Adjusted R Square = .027).The more successful one wants to be, the more one tolerates ethically problematic sales situations.

Discussion
The purpose of the current research is to begin building a background value platform upon which the effectiveness of sales ethics training may be enhanced.To that end, the current section discusses the study's results in order to properly couch the subsequent section's specific training recommendations.

Two-Level Model
The study's findings generally accord with the structure of existing marketing ethics models.Building on Forsyth's (1980) moral philosophy work, models such as Hunt & Vitell's (1986) theory of marketing ethics strengthened support for two-level models in which personal characteristics indirectly influence ethical decision making via direct influences on moral idealism and relativism.The current study's two-level model largely mirrors this structure, while also adding money ethics as a top-level influencer for sales-specific ethics evaluations.

Religiosity
Prior research indicates that intrinsic religiosity directly impacts moral identity and personal moral philosophy (Singhapakdi et al., 1999;Vitell et al., 2009).In particular, intrinsic religiosity significantly affects moral idealism in a positive direction (Vitell & Paolillo, 2003).Hence, the current study's insignificant finding regarding intrinsic religiosity may arise from the possibility that, in certain situations, moral idealism is a statistical substitute for intrinsic religiosity.Further research is encouraged.

Money Ethics
Though the significance of money ethics' impact on sales ethics evaluations is not surprising, it does warrant specific mention.Since the 1950s, researchers have suggested that monetary compensation is a primary motivator for professional sales people (Farley, 1964;Haring & Myers, 1953).Statistically, money ethics (Std.Beta = .126)is about half as important as idealism (-.191) and relativism (+.197).Nevertheless, it has a direct effect on sales ethics evaluations.
The key component of money ethics is money success (see Respondents who valued money success evaluated ethically problematic situations less harshly than respondents who did not value money success.Since successful salespeople are also prone to score particularly high on the money success dimension of the MES (Tang, 2002), the current study's top-level money ethics effects are important and should be factored into the design of effective sales training courses.

Attitude toward Business
In line with prior research, the current study did not find a significant relationship between attitude toward business and sales ethics evaluations.Attitudes toward business exert a weak or non-existent influence on ethical evaluations of general business ethics situations (Vitell, Singh, & Paolillo, 2007).Likewise, the current study illustrates that attitudes toward business fail to significantly influence sales ethics evaluations.Attempts to explain prior findings on attitudes toward business have suggested that an individual's general attitude toward business is less likely to affect ethical evaluations than an individual's specific attitudes to a particular company (Vitell, Singh, & Paolillo, 2007).The same explanation may apply for the current study since PSE-2 scenarios are generic.

Personal Value Importance
Personal value importance positively affected both idealism (lowered PSE-2 scores) and relativism (raised PSE-2 scores).However, since personal value importance has a more positive effect on idealism (larger Std.Beta) than on relativism, the overall effect is to lower PSE-2 scores.The significance of personal value importance accords with prior studies (Donoho et al., 2003) and illustrates the importance of considering principle-based (personal values and idealism) background values.

Implications for Sales Ethics Education
Mirroring prior studies (Donoho, Heinze, & Kondo, 2012), the current study illustrates the strong need for sales ethics training.The overall mean PSE-2 score was 3.36, indicating an average student response between "somewhat unethical" and "neither unethical nor ethical."Given the fact that all PSE-2 scenarios involve unethical behaviors such as lying or misrepresentation, improved sales ethics training is required.In the interest of improving sales ethics education, the current section suggests several areas that should be considered when developing sales ethics training opportunities.
Historically, business pedagogy has emphasized principle-based approaches to teaching ethics (Furman, 1990).However, divergent viewpoints have suggested that ethics is far more ambiguous and cannot be reviewed or operationalized by admittedly incomplete corporate codes of conduct (Des Jardins, 1984).Reacting to the constraints associated with principle-based systems, many researchers argued for new directions in which character-based or narrative approaches took precedence and principal-based approaches were largely dismissed (de Vries, 1986;Mathison, 1988).Situational approaches were felt to better engage the person as an individual moral agent and thereby reduce the impersonal nature of many principle-based systems (Furman, 1990;Hauerwas & Wadell, 1982).
The current study proposes that both camps are correct.As Strong and Hoffman (1990)  Idealistic frameworks encourage ethical decision making in ethically questionable sales situations (Donoho, Heinze, & Kondo, 2011).Additionally, Singhapakdi (2004) concludes that idealistic perspectives should be strongly emphasized in business ethics courses in order to discourage relativistic perspectives that often lead to ethically problematic decisions.Likewise, Mason (2010) encourages the use of idealistic principles rather than pluralistic post-modern perspectives when providing ethics instruction.
Situational perspectives should also be considered.The current study indicates that relativistic orientations and the pressure of monetary success are very real situational variables that cannot be solely addressed via impersonal ethical codes.Relevant, practical examples that logically flow from idealistic principles must be presented and examined.
Steps associated with a circumspect sales ethics education approach might include the following: 1) Presentation of an idealistic principle.
2) Discussion, using practical examples, of the importance of the principle.
3) In-depth review of a current situation in which the principle applies.

Principle Presentation
Corporate and business association ethics codes offer broad-based coverage of important ethical ideals.In marketing, the American Marketing Association's General Code of Ethics is recommended.A large number of sales-specific codes also exist, such as Sales & Marketing & Executives International's Sales and Marketing Creed.

Principle Importance
Short examples illustrating the significance and importance of previously reviewed idealistic principles should be presented to trainees.Furman (1990) suggests a brief review of an important historical or cultural situation that illustrates the principle.The brief review could be coupled with a homework assignment in which trainees read a culturally significant work centered on the situation.Furman (1990) highlights the assigning of Robert Bolt's play, A Man for All Seasons, as a means by which to illustrate the importance of principled behavior.

Situational Review
To heighten practical relevance and discuss the impact of unique situational variables, in-depth situational reviews should accompany the presentation of idealistic principles.Instructors could begin by reviewing a specific sales ethics scenario found within the PSE-2.The PSE-2 offers a comprehensive array of scenarios designed to categorically illustrate most ethical quandaries found in today's personal selling process.The PSE-2 scenario could then be associated with the review of a current article that deals with a real-life example of the PSE-2 scenario.The article could be reviewed and selected in accordance with Schaupp and Lane's (1992) 5-step suggestions for incorporating ethics articles into training situations.
1) Select a news article (preferably local) based on relevance to the topic at hand.
2) Gather background information that is required to fully understand all relevant situational factors.
3) Read and discuss the article with trainees, identifying significant ethical issues and reviewing relevant background information.
4) Invite local participants (highlighted in the article) to provide their perspectives on the matter.
5) Conduct a trainee debriefing in which all relevant issues are discussed and final ethics recommendations are made.
Additional opportunities for situational reviews involve the use of experiential learning approaches.Inks and Avila (2008) illustrated the effectiveness of experiential learning exercises in the development of sales-specific skills.Role plays, case studies, simulations, and projects could all provide forums for this approach.
Along with situational reviews in the form of articles, cases, or role plays, trainers should also highlight the money ethics components of sales scenarios.The potential for success and achievement can increase a person's acceptance of unethical choices (Donoho et al., 2003).Since many sales people closely identify success with money, trainers should idealistically and situationally highlight a more holistic view of success that is not exclusively built on monetary foundations.

Limitations and Future Research
The use of a student sample from a single university limits the study's generalizability.Though the sample was representative of business majors who are preparing for sales careers, the sample is not representative of actual salespeople.As a result, findings may have limited applicability in business training settings.Study replication utilizing actual salespeople is recommended.
The use of multiple questionnaires (PSE-2, LOV, Intrinsic Religiosity, Attitude toward Business, MES) introduced the possibility of respondent fatigue.Future development of a shortened version of the PSE-2 might partially resolve this concern and would increase the PSE-2's utility within time-sensitive business environments.
With an adjusted R square of .089, the modified two-level model's explanatory power is admittedly low.The current study does not offer a comprehensive review of all variables affecting sales ethics decision making.Singhapakdi (2004) suggested that effective ethics training will be developed piecemeal, and the current study simply adds another small piece to the overall understanding of the variables that affect sales ethics training.Further research on additional variables is encouraged.

Conclusion
Though sales is a growing career within today's economy, the effectiveness of sales ethics training is not keeping pace.Relatively scant attention has been paid to sales ethics training, and the current study sought to correct this oversight through beginning to discuss important background values that impact ethical decision making in sales situations.These background values should be factored into the design of effective sales ethics training courses.
The study specifically reviewed the roles that idealism, relativism, personal values, religiosity, money ethics and attitudes toward business play in the determination of sales ethics judgments and choices.Results indicated that sales ethics evaluations are significantly impacted by idealism, relativism, and money ethics.Personal values indirectly influence evaluations.Religiosity and attitudes toward business did not significantly impact evaluations.Suggestions included the development of a sales education ethics model that includes both principle-based (idealism and personal values) and situation-based (relativism and money ethics) perspectives.

Table 4 .
Moral relativism (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree) There are no ethical principles that are so important that they should be a part of any code of ethics.Moral standards should be seen as being individualistic; what one person considers to be moral may be judged to be immoral by another person.

Table 10 .
Regression: idealism by personal value importance, religiosity, and attitude toward business Table10presents results for the relationship between idealism and the three remaining independent variables, personal value importance (Std.Beta .191,t= 1.672, Sig.t = .095),religiosity (Std.Beta .079,t= 1.672, Sig.t =.095), and attitude toward business (Std.Beta .032,t= 0.668, Sig.t .504).Results are mixed since personal value importance is positively significant while religiosity does not reach the .05level of significance.Attitude toward business was not significant.

Table 11
presents the results for the relationship between relativism and the three remaining independent variables.Religiosity (Std.Beta-.072,t= -1.510, Sig.t =.132) was not significant, and attitude toward business (Std.Beta .087,t= 1.808, Sig.t = .071)did not reach the .05level of significance.Personal value importance (Std.Beta .095,t= 1.971, Sig.t .049)was positively related to relativism.This represents a mixed result for the modified two-level model.

Table 11 .
Regression: relativism by personal values importance, religiosity, and attitude toward business

Table 12 .
Regression: money ethics by personal values importance, religiosity, and attitude toward business