817322622-PHD Research Proposal-2

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The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 1 PROPOSAL RESEARCH ON THE IMPACT OF ETHICAL MARKETING ON CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY By (Name) Course Tutor University City, State where it is located Date

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 2 1. Introduction This PhD research proposal flows directly out of the research dissertation of my master’s dissertation in “Evaluating Customer-Centricity and its impact on Business through Loyalty, Trust, and Satisfaction.” Today’s business environment encompasses companies that are increasingly identifying the importance of incorporating ethical marketing to determine the influence of ethical marketing practices over the entire strategies of the businesses that involve customer interactions and how they can be sustained within the same business systems. Now that in my master’s dissertation, I looked at customer-centricity in detail, I will be discovering the benefits of ethical marketing such as building trust and credibility with customers, compliance with laws and regulations, and attracting and retaining customers, together with how companies can improve brand reputation and customer loyalty, as well as the general bottom line while contributing to a sustainable future for all. The proposed Ph.D. research paper will be filling the gap in the literature by investigating conflicting views on the relationship between customer experience and brand reputation by researching further on the influence of ethical marketing and how it leads to long-term customer relations. The research will be evaluating arguments from scholars Lemon and Verhoef (2016) who perceive consumer experiences as a complex concept that involves a customer’s thoughts, feelings, actions, senses, and social interactions with a company’s products or services throughout their buying process (ethical conduct) and Becker and Jaakkola whose idea of customer experience; rather, is linked to the reactions and responses to managerial stimuli, such as those that are brand-related, like logos, advertising, and packaging, as well as the consumption processes. Therefore, such literature call for research on the influence companies have on the customer experience, that is, it is because of the ethical consideration in marketing or simply

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 3 managing various stimuli, focusing on those the company controls (Becker and Jaakkola, 2020). Such contradicting literature has helped in structuring the research problem and the research aim of the proposed PhD research study. 2. Research Problem Statement and Research Aim For this research proposal paper, the research problem to be investigated is whether the customer experience is primarily a result of ethical conduct in marketing or is it a result of managerial reaction and response to the stimuli as presented by Becker and Jaakkola in the literature. Hence, the aim of this research proposal is to empirically describe, outline, and explain how ethical marketing influences the experience of the customers and sustainability by promoting sustainable consumption through education and training to the consumers about the environmental and social advantages associated with the products that they buy every day or simply they are about to buy. Hence, customers will be motivated to make more sustainable purchasing which leads to long-term customer relations. Section 3 of this research proposal has offered the literature review followed by the identification of the research gap and the research objectives in section 4. Section 5 explains how the proposed research contributes to existing literature. The research methodology and ethical considerations are outlined in sections 6 and 7, respectively. 3. Literature Review The purpose of the literature review is to dive into customer experiences and sustainability from the perspective of the different societal beliefs in terms of behaviour and cognitive psychology to that of the reputation of the brand and customer reaction and response to the

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The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 4 stimuli. This will assist in understanding the influence of ethical marketing on the experiences of the customer. The literature will also be exploring cultural and social issues. Based on Cultural and Social Values of the Community Societal experience entails the way individuals and groups interpret or comprehend their experiences in relation to the existing norms and values of their culture and it may include how communities perceive their experiences, the expectations, and stereotypes that shape those experiences, as well as the social and political contexts that influence them. According to Van Boxtel and his associates (2010) suggest that experience of humans are normally influenced by factors such as focus, attention and consciousness. Some community’s belief marketing ought to align with their cultural norms and code of conduct so that they can increase their trust in the brand. Not all communities will end have with similar views of their experience because they are structured different. Customer experience might remain positive for longer period of time if their cultural and social values are put into consideration meaning the community will be able to put trust business on its field of marketing since the natural and physical resources are preserved and accessible for longer period of time (Mollenkamp, 2016). Additionally, the suggestion that by cognitive psychology individuals in a particular community are more likely to rely on their heuristics so as to make judgments and decisions might differ to some extent when it comes to customer experiences because there are high chances of errors and judgment (Raab et al., 2019). However, another scholar suggests cognitive psychology might expose people to a certain level of struggles of understanding and taking action on distant to the environmental problems, rather they choose to be more positive on the immediate issues (Dahlstrand and Biel, 1997). Communities believe on certain morals and actions that determine how much difference ethical marketing can affect how perceive certain

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 5 brands and how they are willing to relate with the brand in the near future (Sharafutdinova et al., 2021; Lafrenière, 2019). Nevertheless, cognitive psychology might have some contribution to specific communities’ perceptions and responses to marketing styles and map them on their experiences and sustainability. Ultimately, various communities within the society create distinct feelings about a certain brand reputation where some are tied to the ethical presentation particular brand while others believe it all depends with the size, design and consumption perspective. Ethical Marketing Since ethical marketing encompasses marketing activities in a manner that is morally and socially responsible and advocates for transparency, truth, sustainability and fairness in all marketing communications so as to avoid any practices that might be exploitative, misleading, and deceptive (Baker, 2019). Based on the argument by Lemon and Verhoef (2016), the mentioned constructs such as behaviour closely align with the research aim of the paper because they have put trust and commitment in forefront of their research and they believe it determines customer experience as well as affecting a customer's future interactions with a company. Their idea supports my research aim since their constructs evolve around the aspects of cognition, behaviour, and emotion (Dwayne Ball and Tasaki, 1992). They emphasize the importance of considering the entire customer journey, not just a single touchpoint, in understanding customer experience which built more trust as to why their research can be relied on (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016; Bhatia & Priya, 2021). The connection between the company and the customer is mainly defined by experience together with the overall evaluation of a company's reliability and goodwill, which is not directly related to the experiences of the consumers in their particular journey (Lemon and Verhoef,

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 6 2016). The idea of customer experience shares particular concepts with that of customer engagement in that it actively involves the customer reaching out to and interacting with a company in terms of both attitude and behaviour (Wereda and Grzybowska, 2016). Such interaction is part of customer journey and eventually results to behavioural, cognitive and emotional response responses. According to Angerer and Eickenberg (2022) customer engagement serves as an important part of the overall customer experience after utilising the most important or needed touchpoints that are require ethical marketing communications. There are several sense that influence customer and be used in upholding the sustainability of the consumer relations which disagrees with the concept of Becker and Jaakkola. Also, cognitive associations have mentioned to shape customer experiences (Yoganathan et al., 2019). In addition, research in the field of influence psychology has shown that when people are open to different behaviors, providing information about what others do in similar situations can lead to them considering similar actions, particularly when the majority or those in positions of authority are involved (Gulden and Moestue, 2011). The research by Becker and Jaakkola (2020) provides a limited perception of customer experience that consumer invokes certain spontaneous reactions and responses which are non-deliberate towards particular stimuli (Becker and Jaakkola, 2020, p. 637). Now that Verhoef’s suggestion is that involves several touchpoints and interactions and not just a single point of evaluation, customer experience is not just a measure of satisfaction or perceived service quality (Laksana and Yudhiantoro, 2019). The research will use the idea by Verhoef because it capture multiple aspects that are mainly mentioned in the ethical marketing to formulate credible research that integrates evidence from other researches to express the influence of ethical marketing on the customer’s experience that how such

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The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 7 touchpoints can collectively promote sustainability of positive customer experience in the near future. 4. Research gap and research objectives Ethical marketing encompasses looking into the trends as well as the behaviour of the customers and discovering any predispositions that can assist in influencing purchases. Ethical marketing practices serve as enablers of the company to stay committed to integrity and honesty thereby establishing a strong and positive reputation hence, by linking it to customer experience it creates long-term loyalty while at the same attracting new consumers. However, there seems to exist a research gap of the proposed Ph.D. because this research paper ought to investigate the contradicting literature separate authors regarding customer experience first while at the same time identifying how ethical marketing has an influence on the customer experience and sustainability as well as future sustainability which incorporates multidimensional constructs that involve cognitive, emotional, and behavioural aspects while extending the research onto how stimuli alienate from other scholarly researches (Crul, 2006). The research proposal will use the following research objectives: A. Empirical investigation of the impact of ethical marketing on the experiences of individual consumers. B. Examining multiple disciplines on how they approach the concept of experiences encountered by the consumers within the field of ethical marketing because several disciplines present different concepts and evidence which can be compared regarding their legitimacy as well as how they fare in assisting marketers to gain inspiration for constructing new research questions and methods. Systematic literature will assist in increasing the validity and reliability of the research by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of previous research.

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 8 C. Generate outcomes following the systematic literature review together with the qualitative study so as to describe, outline and explain the aspects of the customer experience within ethical marketing. D. Provide the relationship between multidimensional constructs and stimuli of response and reaction when explaining the influence of socially responsible marketing on the customers’ experiences using quantitative measurements that will undergo empirical testing upon the improvised scales with respect to how they affect consumer experiences will be carried out after the project. 5. Implications of the study for the marketing literature This research proposal aims to explain customers’ experience and sustainability within the literature on ethical marketing by first examining the contradictory theory between separate scholars. the research offers an interpretative and explanatory nature as well as several other opportunities for future research in terms of both concept validation and theory development within the aspect of customer experience. In fact, more research will be able to refine and elaborate further on novel findings. The literature that has been presented about customer experiences by separate scholars does not provide firm insight into the marketers which is about to be provided in the research project. Thus, by utilising the multidimensional constructs as well as the reaction and response stimuli and the consumption perspectives it will be easier to explain the impact of ethical marketing on the customers’ experience while revealing other research works by different authors that integrate the idea of cognitive psychology in expounding the actual information. The current research will undertake and address the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural aspects and reflect them on customer experiences and expectations. However, this research invites

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 9 further examination of multiple ethical marketing strategies that can validate their impact on customer experiences. Further research is vital and can be used in shedding light on the customer’s experience and what can be done to diversify the idea of ethical marketing. 6. Methodology The research intends to use a mixed methods study that will integrate the qualitative and bibliometric methods and it will consist of four parts: Research Objective A : this is where the inductive qualitative research will involve 65 customers so as to investigate their perspective towards ethical marketing the multidimensional constructs and then thematically analyse the research outcome (Azungah, 2018). Research Objective B: the bibliometric systematic literature will be employed so as to review the perceptions of other disciplines regarding the customer experience within ethical marketing (Linnenluecke et al., 2019). Research Objective C : will encompass both qualitative study and synthesising of the bibliometric literature review to shed light on the two contradicting types of research about customer experience. Research Objective D : after the qualitative outcome the measurement scales will be modified for the quantitative testing. The project timetable for the study is three years as listed below. 1 st Year April- Jun Jul-Sept Oct-Dec Jan-March Revisiting the proposal/ethical approval

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The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 10 Systematic bibliographic literature view Analysis Conclusions and implications for a qualitative study Supervisory meeting (start of each month) 2 nd Year April- Jun Jul-Sept Oct-Dec Jan-March Design of inductive qualitative study Recruitment of research sample Start interviews Transcription Analysis Conclusions on construct Supervisory meeting (start of each month) 3 rd Year April- Jun Jul-Sept Oct-Dec Jan-March Analyse qualitative data for potential new measurement scale items. Design revised and new measurement scales Finalise scales for future testing

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 11 7. Ethical Consideration The research will abide by all the guidelines and ethical approval from the ethical committee where I will seek written consent from all individuals and organizations vital in conducting my research project. All the necessary measures will be applied to protect the information, including adherence to any organizational guidelines. Confidentiality, protection of participant information, and identification of participants will be given equal consideration and treated accordingly. The data collection process will not involve any sensitive or controversial topics, and will not involve children or vulnerable adults. References Angerer, T., & Eickenberg, V. 2022. Customer experience: Trust experience an human Touchpoints des Versicherungsvertriebs. Digitales Marketing und Management , 191- 247. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38004-5_4

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 12 Azungah, T. 2018. Qualitative research: Deductive and inductive approaches to data analysis. Qualitative Research Journal , 18 (4), 383- 400. https://doi.org/10.1108/qrj-d-18-00035 Baker, C. 2019. What is ethical marketing? BDJ In Practice , 32 (11), 20- 21. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41404-019-0218-x Becker, L., & Jaakkola, E. 2020. Customer experience: Fundamental premises and implications for research. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 48 (4), 630- 648. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00718-x Bhatia, M., & Priya, P. 2021. The business case for customer experience: Ignoring customer experience is an expensive mistake. Crafting Customer Experience Strategy , 155- 174. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83909-710-220211009 Crul, M. R. 2006. Design for sustainability: A practical approach for developing economies . Dahlstrand, U., & Biel, A. 1997. Pro-environmental habits: Propensity levels in behavioral Change1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology , 27 (7), 588- 601. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb00650.x Dwayne Ball, A., & Tasaki, L. H. 1992. The role and measurement of attachment in consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology , 1 (2), 155- 172. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1057-7408(08)80055-1 Gulden, T., & Moestue, C. 2011. Context of Experience: A Psychology-Based Design Tool, Towards sustainable Consumption Through Extending The product Lifetime. Diversity and Unity .

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The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 13 Iyengar, A., Gupta, P., & Priya, N. 2022. Inoculation against conspiracy theories: A consumer side approach to India's fake news problem. Applied Cognitive Psychology . https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3995 Lafrenière, D. 2019. Why is customer experience so important? Delivering Fantastic Customer Experience , 5-14. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429328091-2 Laksana, D. H., & Yudhiantoro, D. 2019. Effect of service quality and company image on customer loyalty through customer satisfaction at PT. POS Indonesia (Persero) Yogyakarta. Proceedings of the International Conference of Business, Economy, Entrepreneurship and Management . https://doi.org/10.5220/0009960601870192 Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. 2016. Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of Marketing , 80 (6), 69- 96. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.15.0420 Linnenluecke, M. K., Marrone, M., & Singh, A. K. 2019. Conducting systematic literature reviews and bibliometric analyses. Australian Journal of Management , 45 (2), 175- 194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0312896219877678 Mollenkamp, D. T. 2016, October 26. Sustainability definition . Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sustainability.asp Raab, M., MacMahon, C., Avugos, S., & Bar-Eli, M. 2019. Heuristics, biases, and decision making. Anticipation and Decision Making in Sport , 215- 231. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315146270-12 Sharafutdinova, K. G., Kulmamatova, F. K., & Haydarova, S. 2021. The role of cognitive psychology in the elimination of destructive behavior. ASIAN JOURNAL OF

The Influence of Ethical Marketing on Customer Experience 14 MULTIDIMENSIONAL RESEARCH , 10 (4), 957- 964. https://doi.org/10.5958/2278-4853.2021.00348.7 Van Boxtel, J. J., Tsuchiya, N., & Koch, C. 2010. Consciousness and attention: On sufficiency and necessity. Frontiers in Psychology , 1 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00217 Wereda, W., & Grzybowska, M. 2016. Customer experience – does it matter? Modern Management Review . https://doi.org/10.7862/rz.2016.mmr.35 Yoganathan, V., Osburg, V., & Akhtar, P. 2019. Sensory stimulation for sensible consumption: Multisensory marketing for E-tailing of ethical brands. Journal of Business Research , 96 , 386-396. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.06.005

817322622-PHD Research Proposal-2

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