School principals’ unethical marketing practices in Taiwan

In recent years, the Taiwan government’s active promotion of the marketization of education, coupled with a decreasing number of school-age children, has given rise to a highly competitive educational market. As a result, school principals (at all levels) feel compelled to resort to unethical marketing practices to ensure the survival of their schools. The main purpose in this study was to identify the unethical marketing practices commonly used by school principals in Taiwan, and then determine their prevalence, the degree to which they contravene established ethical norms, and the circumstances in which school principals are likely to employ them. The results show that whereas bribery is regarded as the most unethical marketing strategy, invasion of privacy was seen as much less serious.