ABSTRACT

 This study examined the determinants of unethical marketing behaviour and sales force orientation in food industries in Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: identify unethical issues in food industries in Nigeria; examine the effect ofunethical marketing behavior on safes value; examine consumer/sales force awareness of unethical behaviours in food industries; ascertain factors influencing unethical marketing behavior in the study area. The data used in this study were primary data collected through the distribution of questionnaires. The Taro Yahmane method of sample size determination was used to select 100 sales force in the industry. The Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS 22.0) was deployed in running the analysis. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the sales force are still very young, active and productive and literate with mean value of 12.7200. The result further showed that most of the sales force have work experience of not less than four years in the job with mean value of 4.6300 and has sales volume of 17852 per month. The result showed that majority ofthe respondents were aware of unethical behavior and its implications. The result showed that product, price, promotion and place/ distribution related issues have great impact on unethical behaviour. The result also showed that clarification, formal ethical codes/behaviours, ethical training, whistleblower policy, management support for ethical behaviours, maintenance ofstrong ethical behaviour were the means of creating awareness on the unethical behaviour in the organization thereby enhancing the establishment of good orientation of the sale force. The result showed that there was a negative correlation between unethical marketing behavior and sales volume. The result further showed that family background and personal experience from the individual variables, written rules, conduct of code, organizational objectives and targeting, positioning and segmentation, harsh business environment, economic situation/cycle corruption and regulatory system, were the factors influencing unethical marketing behavior in the study area. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommended that the government should set up programmes to enlighten the sales force on unethical marketing and the constraints they faced and also the government should set up policies on how to educate sales force agents on the use of new unethical marketing strategies.