The Ethics of Publisher Incentives in the Marketing Textbook Selection Decision

Abstract

This study examines marketing textbook selection practices as well as the relative importance of designated textbook selection criteria to 235 randomly selected marketing educators from Hasselback's 1996-97 Marketing Faculty Directory. It also investigates whether marketing textbook publishers have been adhering to the Association of American Publisher's (AAP's) Statement of Principles for College Publishing with respect to incentive offerings for textbook adoptions. There is universal agreement among faculty that student ability to comprehend text material is of paramount importance, followed by relevance, text exposition quality, timeliness, and accuracy of text and basic support material. With respect to publisher incentives, 32 respondents reported that they had been offered and 18 reportedly received an inducement from a publisher related to textbook adoption that appears to be in violation of the guidelines set forth in the AAP's Statement of Principles of College Publishing.