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Understanding Consumer’s Responses to Enterprise’s Ethical Behaviors: An Investigation in China

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Abstract

The response of consumers to a firm’s ethical behavior and the underlying factors influencing/forming each consumer’s response outcome is analyzed in this article based on information obtained through interviews. The results indicate that, in the Chinese context, the responding outcome can be boiled down to five types, namely, resistance, questioning, indifference, praise, and support. Additionally, consumers’ responses were mainly influenced by the specific consumer’s ethical consciousness, ethical cognitive effort, perception of ethical justice, motivation judgment, institutional rationality, and corporate social responsibility–corporate ability (CSR–CA) belief. Based on these results, a generalized framework of consumer’s ethical responses is developed which provides a number of insightful suggestions upon how to motivate a consumer’s support of a firm’s ethical behavior and to transfer this kind of support into truly positive purchasing behavior.

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Notes

  1. In evidence, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and philanthropic action have not only mutual connections, but differences. The highest level of CSR is a firm’s philanthropy. However, CSR involves not only a firm’s philanthropy but also issues of a wider scope, such as economic responsibility, legal responsibility, and ethical responsibility.

  2. The underlying factors forming the different consumers’ responding outcome has been articulated more clearly in Fig. 2.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Projects No.: 70902053).

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Xinming Deng

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Deng, X. Understanding Consumer’s Responses to Enterprise’s Ethical Behaviors: An Investigation in China. J Bus Ethics 107, 159–181 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1031-6

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