ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS

Attitude and beliefs of an individual form the foundation of his decision making
process. These keep changing with learning and experiences. Indian ethos is
embedded with attitudes and beliefs. Vedantic living gives 4 goals of human life:
• Dharma: Stands for right thought and actions
• Artha: Economic permits
• Kama: Desires and need fulfillment
• Moksha: Emancipation

Artha and Kama are the pursuits of man in the society.

Attitudes and Beliefs

Attitudes are predisposed and evaluative feelings of the people about objects,
people or events. Whenever one sees something he expresses his favorable or
unfavorable feelings based on the childhood experiences, background, learning or
one’s own value system. Attitudes are human behaviors based on what a person
perceives rather than what the reality is.

Attitudes and beliefs differ between different cultures, societies, cities and change
from time to time.

Market Focus

Markets are the battlefields for business and industry. Large volumes of money
and material transactions take place. Hence ethical issues crop up. Many
marketers want to gain market access or sell goods market profits by any means.
Unethical means could also be adopted to reach the top of the management
ladder. Most of the business organizations perceives market success as real and
personal success. The ethical behavior in markets depends on the following:

• Industry dynamics: Each industry has its own type of markets, customer
profile, company and pricing strategies. The ethical standards go with the
type of industry. For eg the match stick employs small children despite the
presence of various laws and society being aware of this.

• Market competition: The market competition brings unethical practices to

the fore. For eg adulterated milk, adulterated petrol/diesel.
 • Market Leaders: Market leaders in a particular industry set standards of
ethical behavior.

Environmental Ethics

Prior to 1950 industries used the natural resources and the environment as an
unlimited one and free. Since then, the rise of industries and no consideration
given to pollution aspects has increased air and water pollution apart from
spreading of materials of hazardous nature. This environmental degradation is a
result of human and industrial activities.

The reasons for environmental pollutions are:

• Customer affluence
• Materialistic and cultural values lifestyles.
• Urbanisation
• Population explosion
• Unplanned industrial activities
• Technologies without pollution controls

This environmental degradation can be stopped by ethical practices:

• Proper environment laws and their strict enforcement in industries and on
individuals
• Following value based stakeholder management practices and the
environment
• Adopting green marketing

Environmental activists world over are keeping an eye on important industrial

activities and projects, so that they do not degrade the environment. Some
examples are the Chipko movement, Narmada Bachao Andolan etc.