Social Responsibility
As the scope of marketing has expanded from its traditional concern for profit based businesses to social marketing, there has been much concern expressed in the literature over marketing's social responsibility (Alberts and Jennings 1999; Kyj and Reilly 1988; Laczniak, Lusch and Murphy 1979). This concern has taken a number of forms: from articles describing market functions and ethics (Brenkert 1998; Krueger 1998; Nwachukwu, et al. 1997) to articles prescribing how and why marketers and marketing educators should be responsible (Bartels 1967; Patterson 1966; Sirgy 1999; Smith 1988), or to describing the benefits to be obtained through ethical behavior (Goch 1999; Hunt, Wood, and Chonko 1989; Singhapakdi, et al 1995). While some have included the concept of social responsibility within the scope of marketing, others have expressed a concern for whether it is properly a domain of marketing (Laczniak 1979; Levy and Kotler 1979) and whether, in fact, it is encompassed within the scope of marketing. To determine if social responsibility is part of marketing, it must first be defined.
There is no agreement on the definition of the term "Social Responsibility" since it depends on the usage situation and on the backgrounds of the people involved. One way of dealing with the concept is to group all usage situations into three domains or aspects. The three domains are:
1. The Social Contract
2. Personal Responsibility
3. Responsibility of Leadership