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Un/ethical Company and Brand Perceptions: Conceptualising and Operationalising Consumer Meanings

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Abstract

Based on three empirical studies, this research sets out to conceptualise and subsequently operationalise the construct of consumer perceived ethicality (CPE) of a company or brand. Study 1 investigates consumer meanings of the term ethical and reveals that, contrary to philosophical scholars’ exclusively consequentialist or nonconsequentialist positions, consumers’ ethical judgments are a function of both these evaluation principles, illustrating that not any one scholarly definition of ethics alone is capable of capturing the content domain. The resulting conceptualisation identifies six key themes explicating the construct. Building upon these findings, studies 2 and 3 were conducted to operationalise CPE. Such operationalisation is an essential prerequisite for future explorations and theory development given the absence of a suitable tool to capture and quantify the strength and direction of CPE. The key focus was on developing a valid and reliable multi-item measurement tool that is practical, parsimonious and easy to administer. The scale’s general applicability allows deployment in academic and business contexts as well as different research areas and doing thus facilitates the much-needed theory building in this new research area.

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Notes

  1. A one-item manipulation check (‘How ethically right or wrong is it for company … to engage in the practice described by the scenario’) was performed, measuring perceived ethicality of the actual practice and not the impact on global CPE of the brand/company.

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Acknowledgments

As the holder of a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (IEF), the author would like to thank the European Union for supporting this project. The author is grateful to Adamantios Diamantopoulos, Radu-Mihai Dimitriu Angela Sommerfeld, and Caroline Wiertz for providing the support and feedback.

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  1. ESMT European School of Management and Technology, Schlossplatz 1, 10178, Berlin, Germany

    Katja H. Brunk

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Correspondence to Katja H. Brunk.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 4 and 5.

Table 4 Studies 2 and 3: demographic characteristics of survey samples
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Table 5 CPE scale scores by brand
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Brunk, K.H. Un/ethical Company and Brand Perceptions: Conceptualising and Operationalising Consumer Meanings. J Bus Ethics 111, 551–565 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1339-x

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