Consumer Trust, Social Marketing and Ethics of Welfare Exchange

The global corporate scandals such as Enron, Worldcom and Global Crossing have raised fundamental issues of business ethics as well as economic, social and anthropological questions concerning the nature of business competition and global capitalism. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to introduce the concept of “welfare exchange” to the existing notions of economic, social and anthropological notions of business and exchange in markets and society in the 21st century. Global competition and business success in the 21st century continue to raise the nature of economic value and the interaction among diverse actors in international markets, institutions and society. We believe that the nature of such exchange between consumers and organizations, which can also be termed social marketing, need to increasingly take into account a welfare and ethical component. In this paper, we introduce our concept of welfare exchange to emphasize the importance of such welfare and ethical issues in the global business environment of the 21st century.