Hucksters in the Classroom: Outline and Analysis - Case Study Example

Hucksters in the room: Outline and Analysis Part Outline Is education marketing initiative for profit or beingsocially responsible? 1. Introduction. A. . Education marketing is a type of marketing where organizations market their products in the form of educational resources to college students. The students can entice their parents to purchase products that they have been informed about in these educational materials. However, the motives of the organizations are questionable because of the profit making involved in the initiative. 2. This initiative result in an ethical dilemma because on one hand it caters for the students and teachers in dire need of these resources, but on the other hand, it takes advantage of their situation to make profits. 3. The stakeholders’ analysis reveals that these students together with their teachers are more advantaged compared to the demerits that they also experience. I. In stakeholders’ analysis, both the students and teachers are analyzed in terms of the impact that this initiative brings to them as the adopters of this education marketing A. Positive impacts of the marketing initiative. a. Students and the educational facilities receive cheap or free educational materials. b. The initiatives help students develop their students writing skills. c. Students have good understanding of the products that they consume. d. This initiative also presents an avenue through which students can make extra cash; thus it is a source of income. e. Finally, other positive impacts derived from the initiative are reduced teachers’ workload, educed constrain in the school budget, and free corporate freebies for the teachers. B. The negative impact of the education marketing initiative. a. Students are held captive for the organization to make a profit. b. Writing competition is biased as it is based on the organizations products only. c. The materials are impartial and comprehensive. II. The organizations analysis reveals that they also gain from the initiative a. This is a profit making venture for the organization involved in student marketing b. Organizations also achieve widespread and in-depth exposure of their products. c. Through the initiative organizations attains avenue of creating good public relations. d. However, on the negative side they incur high cost in producing the resources and materials supplied to the schools. 4. The ethical analysis uses the utilitarian perspective of ethical theories to determine benefits that each of the stakeholders gets from the initiative A. The one that gets the most benefit to the most people is then taken as the most ethically correct action 5. Conclusion and the recommendations A. Evidently, from the analysis, the students and the teachers get the most benefit. B. As a recommendation, the organizations should make profit making the key purpose of the initiative in order to eliminate the ethical dilemma. Part 2: Case Analysis Introduction Education marketing has become common in educational institutions. This is due to the fact that youngest consumers have money and also influence their parents purchasing choices. Due to this; most companies have been attracted to these young age consumers to the extent that they do the marketing of their products through the print and audiovisual materials for classrooms. This has led to an ethical dilemma of whether the companies are socially responsible by assisting the youth in their educational studies by providing them with teaching materials or are providing these to benefit them by increasing their companies’ profits. This dilemma is due to various factors such as increased students’ workload (General Ethical Foundation, 2014). The world has been dynamic; therefore, there is a change in the amount of knowledge and information required by students in their studies. This forces the teachers and the students to look for other information and materials elsewhere. Another factor is the corporate responsibility of the companies. It has all along been a government policy for the corporate world to give back to the society. Therefore, the companies have responded by giving support to the community more so the student community by providing educational materials so as to have a society which is well informed. Big budgets in educational institutions are also a factor that has created this dilemma. Due to little finance to cater for the educational budgets in schools has driven the school management boards to look for assistance from elsewhere. Besides, economic factor has contributed to the dilemma. As competition becomes stiff most corporate seek market for their products in untouched markets mostly using the young who are endowed with money and the power to influence their parents’ purchasing power. The advertisement cost in other platform has also become very expensive for the companies compared to the resource books where there is also spread and the in-depth product exposure. Stakeholders Analysis There are various stakeholders involved in the education marketing of the various corporate bodies. These stakeholders are impacted in different ways by the marketing initiatives which are becoming more prevalent in the educational sector or institutions. To begin with, the students who use these materials given by the business industries are advantageous and disadvantageous with this educational marketing. Some of the advantages that they realize are such as; they acquire up-to-date commercial information and are exposed to the industrial world, which increases their knowledge in addition to the class learning. They get access to educational materials which increases their intellectuality and academically. Some of the students engage in writing competitions which increase their writing skills. They also write about various company products in these competitions, which give the students a better hedge to understand the type of the products they consume, and, therefore, can make a good decision on their consumption levels. Students also earn some money for entering the competition program and this is a source of income, which they may use to cater for their daily needs. They acquire industrial knowledge and helps shape the life of the students and also help improve their talents a For instance, channel one offers newscast for high school students as reported by William and Barry (1992) who notes a statement of one of the students “one thing I really liked was the reporters were our own age….they kept our attention. ”On the other hand, the disadvantages that the students face include students are a captive of the companies as they are used to make money for these companies without their consent or free willingness to do so. The information in these educational materials are also impartial as they only discuss the products that are being offered by these companies; therefore, they are not being given the full information that they really need for their academic work. The essay writing competition is also based on the company’s products or services that are offered by these companies, and this is a strategy of enticing the students to like their products rather than improving their writing skills. This may make the students lose sight on other important areas that they are also required to study. The second factor which is also impacted so much in the educational area is the teachers. They have been impacted in different ways by the educational marketing. Positively, their student workload has been reduced by being provided with the print and audiovisual materials which they use for teaching their students. Their school budget deficit has been solved as they can receive some money in dollars, receiving free educational materials and free electronic gadgets. They also go for corporate freebies for free softball player at the corporate picnics. Teachers also face the negativity of this education marketing of the corporate; These materials that they use are impartial, and, therefore, does not have enough information that they require to teach their students, and this may create confusion and challenges in the teaching curriculum as most of the materials are sponsored and curtailed to the company’s needs, and are addressed mostly to boost the company’s interest. The other stakeholders impacted by the education marketing are the organizations. These are the corporate that carry out the educational marketing to the young in the learning institutions. They have also been impacted differently due to this their marketing strategy both positively and negatively. On the positive part, these companies have gained a lot of profits from this their marketing strategy; they have enhanced the spread and in-depth exposure of their products to the students and teachers who use these educational materials, they have also enlarged their market territory as most of the students are endowed with a lot of money and also have an influence in their parents purchasing choices (Ethical Principles, 2014). This enables them to have some form of loyalty and favoritism of their products. It enables them to create good public relations hence their products are perceived positively, some get revenues from the companies that advertise in these education materials. The negative impact that these companies face is the cost that are incurred in advertising in these educational resources, the cost of giving back to the society, for example, the cost incurred in producing the materials, assistance they give inform of money and other free gifts such as the electronic gadgets. Ethical analysis There exists an ethical dilemma to whether the organizations that use the education marketing initiative are using this for their own benefit or are being socially responsible. The dilemma can be analyzed from the utilitarian perspective. This perspective is built on the on the ability to predict the consequence of an action. To utilitarian according to Penslar and Robin L. (1995) is “the choice that yields the greatest benefit to the most people is the choice that is ethically correct” (67). The students and the teachers have gained some benefits from the education marketing. These benefits are such as; students acquire up-to-date information, get free education materials, increase their writing skills, they earn some income from entering the writing competition, well informed about the products that they consume, talent development and students encouragement, reduced workload for the teachers, capable of financing the school budget, receiving money, receiving electronic gadgets for the school and teachers go for free corporate freebies (Ridley & Aaron, 1998). On the other hand, the corporations that have introduced this education marketing initiative also get some benefit in return such as; they get profit from the initiative, create widespread and in-depth exposure of their products, increase their market share, get revenue from other organizations that market in these education resources and creates good public relations. These benefits from the two sides when compared, it is the students and the teachers that get the most benefit from the organization’s education marketing initiative. Conclusion and Recommendation To conclude, the organizational education marketing initiative has both negative and positive impacts to the stakeholders. Analysis of the ethical theory of the utilitarian reveals that the students and the teachers are the ones that get the most benefit compared to those organizations that are using the initiative. In conclusion, education marketing initiative is socially responsible, and it is not meant for profit making by the organizations. Thus, recommendation is for the organizations that use this initiative to prevent or should stop accepting any profit generating motive or action that could lead into more dilemmas in the future or any other initiative. References Barry, Vincent; Shaw, William H. (1992). Moral issues in Business. (5thEd). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. "Ethical Principles." Online. Accessed March 14, 2014. http://peds.ufl.edu/ethics_course/Ethics,%20Ethical%20Principles.htm "General Ethical Foundation." Online. Accessed March 14, 2014. http://stedwards.edu/urswery/norm.htm Penslar and Robin L.(1995). Research Ethics: Cases and Materials. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ridley and Aaron (1998). Beginning Bioethics. New York: St. Martins Press. Read More