Content area
Full Text
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.
Keywords: school principals, Taiwan, ethics, morals, school marketing, education.
In Confucian societies such as Taiwan, educators are expected to uphold high moral and ethical standards, and this is especially important for school principals, whose integrity and leadership skills play an essential role in creating a positive school environment (Y?lmaz, 2010). As a result, the use of unethical marketing techniques in education typically generates widespread condemnation. In the past, school principals' marketing campaigns were usually carried out in a low-key and subtle manner. Recently, however, there have been major changes. As the education marketplace has become more competitive, school principals are increasingly willing to lower their ethical standards and adopt dubious marketing techniques, thereby tarnishing the previously pure image of Taiwanese education.
In recent years, one of the most prominent international trends in education has been the adoption of the entrepreneurial spirit as a way of increasing the efficiency of school administration (Bagley, 2006). Taiwan is no exception. For some years, the government has been actively promoting the marketization of education, and schools are given significant latitude regarding the strategies they employ (Ho, 2010b). At the same time, however, individual schools are expected to take responsibility for the outcome of their marketing efforts, and poor results can result in schools being closed or merged with other schools (Huang & Ho, 2012). Unfortunately, the birth rate in Taiwan has fallen dramatically in recent years, and is now amongst the lowest in the world (Lai, 2011; Republic of China, 2012, 2012). As the school-age population...