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Ethical Consumption, Values Convergence/Divergence and Community Development

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Abstract

Ethical consumption is on the rise, however little is known about the degree and the implications of the sometime conflicting sets of values held by the broad category of consumers who report consuming ethically. This paper explores convergence and divergence of ethical consumption values through a study of organic, fair trade, and local food consumers in Colorado. Using survey and focus group results, we first examine demographic and attitudinal correlates of ethical consumption. We then report evidence that while many organic, fair trade, and local food consumers converge around similar values, some Colorado consumers support only local food, while opposing the consumption of organic and fair trade products. Next, we investigate how ethical consumers who converge and diverge frame their commitment to consuming ethically. The discussion and conclusion suggest that community development planners of projects that focus on ethical consumption will need to successfully traverse issues stemming from convergence and divergence to enjoy long-term sustained success.

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Notes

  1. The conflicting ethnicity findings may be due to different samples and data sources. Van Loo et al.’s (2010) sample came from a US consumer database, Stevens-Garmon et al. (2007) used U.S. Nielsen-Homescan data and Oyango et al. (2007) used a national U.S. survey.

  2. A reviewer pointed out that reflexive consumption is similar to Kneafsey et al.’s (2008: 42) conceptualization of “ethics of care,” where many consumers report taking concern for others into account when making purchasing decisions, however many of them do not report being ethical or political consumers.

  3. We recognize that there are other additional themes/rationales for purchasing organic, fair trade and local food, however we chose to focus on environmental, social, political, and location because they seem to be the most common in the literature.

  4. Author 2 has been an active member of the planning process since 2008. Author 1 participated for a period in 2009. The study described in this article was initiated prior to our involvement in the Community Marketplace project, and remained independent of the planning discussions throughout.

  5. The sample was purchased from Survey Sampling International. We purchased a sample of 1,000 Colorado residents, 18 years old and over from a sampling frame of all Colorado residents 18 years old and over. However, after the initial mailing, we discovered that 97 addresses where unusable (undeliverable or the respondent had changed residences), resulting in a usable sample of 903 respondents. We mailed a copy of the survey and a cover letter explaining the survey, after a week and a half, we mailed a reminder postcard, then after another week, we mailed a second copy of the survey and cover letter.

  6. Some scholars advocate that focus groups have between 6 and 12 respondents (Morgan 1997; Stewart et al. 2007) in order to obtain the best results, however Peek and Fothergill (2009: 37) note that smaller groups, between 3 and 5 participants, often run smoother than larger groups, and can work better for reasons such as time constraints and covering all the desired material. We chose to follow this model and keep our focus groups under 10 people. We had groups of 3, 5, 7 and 8 participants.

  7. All statistical analysis was performed with Stata 11.2.

  8. We also created the scale by standardizing both variables through Z-score transformations and adding the Z-scores. The results were very similar so we use the additive scale for simplicity.

  9. We place the value of “6” in the low category because when the correlations are done with the “6” category alone, the results are closer to the low category.

  10. We use the terms “attitude/attitudinal” to refer to all of the socio-political scale variables, even if the question asks about a behavior, such as frequency of recycling. We recognize that the well documented attitude-behavior gap in consumption studies (Vermeir and Verbeke 2006) positively biases our results. The majority of the socio-political statements refer to attitudes, however even when they ask about a behavior, we have not truly measured whether they have engaged in that behavior, we have only asked them about it, so we choose to refer to them as attitudes.

  11. The focus group respondents had a mean income of $51,000, were approximately two-thirds female, had an age range of 20-58, and the majority indicated that they had attended at least some college.

  12. By “identity” we are referring to the process of personal identity construction (Cerulo 1997). Many consumers use ethical consumption as a form of distinction, meaning they separate themselves from others through their consumption practices (Bourdieu 1984).

  13. We realize that the labels “Global Localists” and “Food Patriots” apply most directly to our specific case of organic, fair trade and local food. But we believe that similar dichotomies that exhibit divergence also exist and therefore the convergence/divergence debate and its implications are applicable in other similar situations, but where the conflicting ethical values and products may be different.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Bill Friedland, Laura Raynolds, Tom Shriver and the anonymous reviewers of earlier versions of this paper for their helpful comments.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Oklahoma State University, 431 Murray, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA

    Michael A. Long

  2. Department of Sociology, Colorado State University, B258 Clark Building, Ft. Collins, CO, 80523-1784, USA

    Douglas L. Murray

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Long, M.A., Murray, D.L. Ethical Consumption, Values Convergence/Divergence and Community Development. J Agric Environ Ethics 26, 351–375 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-012-9384-0

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