During the past years, many internationally questioned scandals (e.g. Watergate, the Chernobyl disaster, the Dutroux case, Enron/Arthur Andersen fraud, Kerviel and the SociétéGénérale Banking scandal, Europe horsemeat outrage) have surfaced. These have been the drive to wide-ranging range serious questions about the role of ethics in today’s business and society. Also academicians of the marketing discipline have devoted significant conceptual and empirical work to research on these issues (e.g. Ferrell & Gresham, 1985; Hunt & Vitell, 1986). Although there is a large body of literature that has been developed regarding ethics in the marketplace, much of this study concentrated mainly on the seller side (Laczniak& Murphy 1991; Whalen, Pitts & Wong 1991; Whysall, 1998, 2000; Wood 1995). Nevertheless, buyers are key contributors in the business process and not taking them into consideration in ethics research could end in a partial understanding of that process as all aspects of consumer behaviour, for example, acquisition, use and disposition of goods or services have a tendency of having an essential ethical element (Vitell, 2003). Thus, the past decade has begun to yield an increase in research concentrating on the buyer side of the exchange process.
Consumer ethics involves defining, understanding and criticizing consumers and their behaviour from a moral perception. Recent literature mentions that consumer ethics is rising in importance influencing customer choices as well as increasing the role of social movements in the market process (Thompson, Coskuner-Balli, 2007; Thompson, 2004; Buechler, 2010; Hollenbeck, Zinkhan, 2010). Most consumer ethics studies have looked at consumer dishonesty. Not saying anything when receiving too much change, giving misleading price information and copying CDs are just a few examples of ethically questionable consumer practices. Since the negative behaviour of consumer is considered to be an important topic in consumer research, a substantial branch of literature has emerged from consumer ethics since the revolutionary studies of Muncy and Vitell (1992).
Consumer behaviour is the successful marketers‟ passion and obsession. The consumer buying process forms the core of the consumer behaviour theory.
II. Ethical Issues in Marketplaces
Taylor (1975) defines ethics as inquiry into the nature and grounds of morality where the termmorality is taken tomeanmoral judgments, standards and rules of conduct. Ethics within western tradition can be traced back to as far as Plato (427-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), according to Northouse (2004). Its root word ethos in Greek means “customs, conduct, or character”. As stated by Beauchamp and Norman (2003), “ethics is a systematic attempt, through the use of reason to make sense of our individual social and moral experiences, in such a way as to determine the rules that ought to govern human conduct and the values worth pursuing in life”.Hsing-Chau Tsenget al (2009) defines ethics as the study and philosophy of human conduct with anemphasis on the determination of either right or wrong.Therefore, ethics involves defining,evaluating and understanding concepts of right and wrong behaviour.
Fukukawa (2003) stated that there are two main lines of approaches in the literature on ethical issues in marketplaces: normative approaches and descriptive approaches. The first line, which is normative approach, is grounded in philosophical and theoretical discourse, and in finding principles and guidelines for ethical conduct in the marketplace. The second line, which is descriptive approach, uses knowledge based on psychology to explain the decision-making process for ethical situations in marketplaces. These two approaches represent different research perspectives in trying to understand ethics. The former ones are concerned with what individuals ought to do, while latter ones are concerned with what individuals actually do when facing ethical situations (Fukukawa 2003).
II (a) Normative Approaches
Normative approaches are also called as philosophical approaches. They emphases on the determination of ‘perspective ethics, identifying moral principles and methods of moral reasoning that justify rules and judgments of what is right and wrong’ (Smith 1995).Perspective ethics are specified and distinguished by various ethical theories in philosophy. The following are normative ethical theories that have been applied to ethics research in the marketplace and principles that decision-makers can follow :
1. Egoism
It concerns moral principles based on the goodness of self-interest and whereby the decision-maker pursues maximisation for his/her best interest. Such decisions may be evaluated as ethical, though the extent limited only to where other people have the same interest or receive no harm. Yet, some decisions result in harming the well-being of other members of a society and as a consequence can be perceived as morally questionable in a society.
2. Ethical relativism
It asserts that behaviour cannot be evaluated in terms of ethicality or rightness since one culture evaluates decisions differently from another.
3. Justice theory
This theory is supported by the principle of equal opportunities and their conditional violation. Every member of a society should be exposed equally to opportunity, wealth and burden, but where those principles are constrained, permissible inequalities are to be redefined.
4. Objectivism
It considers that ethics and ethical behaviour are ‘good’ although unlikely to be clearly observed in the ‘real’ world. In this sense, decision makers are encouraged at least to aspire to make ‘ethical’ decisions and also oppose ‘unethical’ behaviour.
5. Teleology
The consequences are evaluated by the degree of justification of social well-being, not by the benefits of decision-makers or other members of a society. Hence, when conditions are feasible to make the right decisions for social well-being, decision-makers areencouraged to do so even if those decisions do not result in their own benefits.
It is one form of teleology. Its aim is to achieve benefits for other members of a society as well as for decision-makers. Consequences should be of the greatest benefit or the least harm to everybody in the society. This theory is popular and considered relatively easy to apply in business practice.
7. Deontology
Deontology is based on Greek philosophy of ethics and later extended by Kant. It indicates moral duties that a human being has to follow under any circumstance. Differentiated from teleology theories in terms of its evaluations, this theory provides universal principles for goodness and badness in a society, while teleology refuses universal principles for the best results by decisions. Consequences are not evaluated because decision themselves are already predicated in the theory.
8. Virtue ethics
It is a counterpart of relativism, with the central idea being the pursuit of virtue in ethical decision-making. Although there may be no absolute moral discipline, the aim is not to react in terms of total moral disaster, but rather to think towards what should be done for the ideal future of individuals or organisations and for the well-being of a society. The process of questioning and attempting to introduce ethical rules or codes is believed to lead towards more ethical decision-making.
9. Hybrid theories
These theories consider the ambiguity of real life scenarios, and recognise the grey areas of many ethical dilemmas; cases in which the application of a single ethical standard or theory is often unsatisfactory. Hybrid theories in general emphasise the process of decision making in ethical situations, such as reasoning and determining a decision.
Egoism and ethical relativism are theories which refer to maximisation of benefits for individuals or members within the same culture. Egoism is used to define profit maximisation and is frequently called as Machiavellianism, while ethical relativism explorescultural impacts on ethics.Both concepts have consequences for ethics research in explaining profit maximisation by organisations and thoughtless materialistic consumption (Rawwas 1996). Justice theory, objectivism and utilitarianism consider the balance of individual benefits and social wellbeing. Commonly, these theoretical perspectives take an account of the wide spectrum of members of a society in terms of ethical judgments in decision-making. Teleology, deontology and virtue ethics encourage ethical decisions for the ‘good’ as defined from within these respective theories. The theories inherited a strong association of the importance of ethical decisions to the health of social well-being.
Each theory introduced above can be said to be more or less problematic in dealing with real situations (Fukukawa 2003). In reality, it is seen that there are various alternatives available as a set of judgments (decisions) for any given ethical situation. By examining a situation, a decision-maker might not just apply one principle as delineated in ethical theory but evaluate a number of alternatives. The decision-maker might then distinguish between these options while bearing in mind both the ethicality and result of a decision. This suggests that situations faced in real life are not simple and do not lend to the request of a single theory, or a set of theories, every time. To deal with such circumstances, hybrid theories (Malhotra & Miller 1998) have been developed to accentuate on the process of the reasoned decision making process, instead of in terms of determining the goodness of the behaviour. Hybrid theories seek to emphasise which imperative among the alternatives should be more important in a particular situation. Though other ethical theories cited previously are able to conceptualise ethical decisions in a certain manner, the hybrid theories inspire accommodating various interrelated disciplines and explain decisions through each decision-making process. These hybrid theories have influenced the emergence of descriptive approaches that aim to understand and develop a decision-making process with more practical implications (Malhotra & Miller 1998).
II (b) Descriptive Approaches
While normative approaches are beached in philosophical dissertation, descriptive approaches originate from developments in personal, behavioural and social psychology. Descriptive approaches, as well as empirical studies conducted by psychologists; stresses on behavioural tendency of decision-makers with regards to ethics (Fukukawa 2003). Descriptive approaches in ethics study are generally distinguished between a cognitive approach and a social learning approach (Ho et al. 1997). The cognitive approach is originated from the hypothesis that “morality can be studied in terms of recognizably distinct patterns of reasoning about justice that develop in an invariant sequence” (Kohlberg 1969 cited in Ho et al. 1997, p.118). The emphasis is on personal elements of decision-making. Conversely, social learning approaches assume that ‘understanding social conditioning is more important than rational consideration in explaining morality’ (Ho et al. 1997, p. 117). Henceforth, its emphasis is on social elements of decision-making.
A cognitive approach is used to describe the decision-making process and conceptualise behaviour. Decision-making models within this method are built upon frameworks of information processing theories (Foxall, Goldsmith &Brown 1998), and components of behaviour are observed through extended attitude theories (Lutz 1991). Researchers using a cognitive approach emphasis on the internal mechanism and phases of a decision-making process, including for example purchase behaviour, need recognition, search, pre-purchase alternative evaluation, purchase, consumption and post purchase behaviour (Engel, Blackwell &Miniard 1995). Ethics researchers using such a cognitive approach examine judgments for a variety of ethical situations by examining internal reasoning.
In the domain of consumer ethics research, a number of studies considered as cognitive in their approach have examined ethical beliefs and judgment in ethical situations. These researches are concerned in identifying dimensions or distinct features of ethical judgment and are applied to several different scenarios. Muncy and Vitell’s (1992) consumer ethics scale (CES) has shown to be a typical conveyer for this type of research. Muncy and Vitell’s initial model considered consumer judgments toward ‘unethical’ behaviour for the purpose of identifying possible reasons of resulting unethical behaviour. Hereafter, it is reasonable to argue that many following studies that have applied the consumer ethics scale also make the assumption that the judgments will be the key cause of, or noteworthy influence on subsequent behaviour (Fukukawa 2003).
The social learning approach appeared as a response to the criticisms of the cognitive approach that is considered as inadequate in dealing with the effect of external features such as cultural and sociological factors (Engel, Blackwell &Miniard 1995). Especially, the social learning approach has been considered as being more suitable in scrutinizing external influences on judgment. Henceforth, for the social learning philosopher, ‘understanding social conditioning is more important than rational considerations in explaining morality’ (Hoet al. 1997, p.117). Therefore, a social learning approach engaged researchers in the examination of individual differences and their social setting in the global decision-making process. This method has now received great consideration mostly where environmental aspects take on distinctive characteristics because of the specific organisational and marketing settings (Fukukawa 2003).
Researchers in consumer ethics have also examined individual and environmental features influencing consumer decision-making. Nevertheless, researches tend to focus on a few limited areas. Individual ideologies offer popular constructs that help to recognise the dissimilarity in ethical judgments between consumers. The Ethical Position Questionnaire (Forsyth 1980), involving idealism / relativism constructs, has been successively applied to recognize main ethical ideologies of consumers (Rawwas 1996). The measurements of Machiavellianism have been used to understand the effects of egoism that apparently clash with ethical values such as Machiavellianism (Al-Khatib, Vitell &Rawwas 1997).
III Mauritian Consumers (data to be added)
IV The Hunt-Vitell Ethical Decision Making Model
When consumers make decisions that implicate ethical issues, they may use their ethical beliefs to judge several options in terms of their morality (Rest 1986). This is reliable with the idea of the theory of reasoned action, which says that an individual’s behavioural intention, which leads to his or her actual behaviour, is a function of his or hersubjective norms and attitude toward the behaviour, which in turn are determined by his or her beliefs(Fishbein&Ajzen 1975). Vitell (2003) states that there are generally three main comprehensive hypothetical models that could explain the ethical decision-making process of persons. They are the models of Ferrell and Gresham (1985), Hunt and Vitell (1986, 1993), and Trevino (1986). Nevertheless, only the Hunt-Vitell model can easily be applied to consumers’ ethical behaviour. The model identifies the individual’s moral philosophy or ethical ideology as the main feature in explaining the differences between the ethical judgments and behaviours of individuals.
The source and base of this study originated from the general marketing ethics model developed by Hunt and Vitell (1986, 1993). As stated by the Hunt and Vitell’s (1993) model, consumers make two types of ethical judgments: deontological and teleological. Deontologist believe that certain aspects of the act itself other than the value it brings into existence make an action or rule right while teleologists believe that there is one and only one basic or ultimate right-making characteristic. The deontological evaluation includes comparisons among the various choices and a set of established personal norms, whereas the teleological evaluation involves the consumer’s assessment of how much good or bad will result from the decision. In most situations a consumer’s ethical judgments are likely to be a function of both the deontological and teleological evaluation. The notion that people normally use both types of evaluations has been supported by empirical findings (Mayo & Marks 1990; Hunt & Vasquez-Parraga 1993). For example, when consumers realise their behaviour may harm their relationship with the retailer, they may change the behaviour, even if they consider it in-appropriate from an ethical perspective (Rao & Al-Wugayan 2005).
Ethical judgments, that is the extent to which one believes that a certain alternative is ethical or not, define behaviour through the intentions construct, but ethical judgments might differ somewhat from intentions because one’s teleological evaluation also touches intentions directly. To be exact, upon investigating the significances and deontological norms relative to a specific choice, a consumer might see it to be the most ethical. But, the individual might still plan to embrace a different choice because of some highly anticipated consequences flowing from it. Besides, the action control paradigm may cause behaviour to be unpredictable with both intentions and ethical judgments.
After the consumer chooses behaviour, there is an assessment of the actual concerns resulting from that behaviour. These concerns provide a response to the individual’s personal experiences when compared to the originally expected concerns. The Hunt Vitell model comprises some distinctive background features that affect the entire decision making-process. Yet, only the cultural environment and personal features are relevant to consumer ethics. The cultural environment contains culture and any sub-culture that might influence consumer choices in a situation containing ethical issues. Conversely,the personal features include several possible dimensions, for example the individual’s level of moral development and the individual’s personality.
V The Consumer Ethics Research
Taylor (1975) defined consumer ethics as ‘a moral term given to the behaviour and moral judgement, standards, rules, meaning the place of moral properties and based on survey’. Muncy& Vitell (1992) define consumer ethics as a guide to individual consumers select, purchase, or use of goods and services in the rules of conduct, principles, and standards. Consumer ethics have also been explained as the ‘rightnessas opposed to the wrongness of certain actions on the part of the buyer or potential buyer in consumer situations’ by Dodge, Edwards & Fullerton (1996). Overall, scholars have three views: the first view is that consumer ethics is to regulate the consumer behaviour principles and ideas of moral reflection; second view is that the consumer ethics is to regulate and guide people consumer behaviour and relationships ideas, principles, aspirations, emotions, and the sum of the practice; The third view is that consumer ethics is the power of the virtue of people’s beliefs, traditions, customs and public opinion, to evaluate the guidance, constraints, and change the way people consume.
V (a) Consumer Ethics Studies before 1990
Though most of the present consumer ethics literature appeared since 1990 (Vitell 2003), some consumer ethics research existed earlier to that date. These earlier researches can be categorized into five broad groups.
Primarily, some authors have empirically studied a distinct factor of unscrupulous consumer behaviour. Areas most frequently explored have been shoplifting (Kallis, Krentier& Vanier 1986; Moschis& Powell 1986), ecologically associated consumption (Antil 1984; Haldeman, Peters &Tripple 1987), and consumer opinions about ethical issues concerned with gambling and lottery playing (Burns et al. 1990).
Secondly, research tried to provide normative recommendations for businesses and consumers on ethically associated issues. Stampfl (1979) defined a code of ethics for consumers and Schubert (1979) implemented a set of strategies to fight against consumer abuses.
Thirdly, research studied the obvious ‘double standard’ that exists between what consumers perceive as acceptable consumer behaviour and what consumers believe are acceptable business practices. Traditionally, consumers are motivated to hold businesses to a higher standard of ethics than they, themselves, are willing to follow. Two researches supporting this notion of double standard are Davis (1979), using an adult sample and DePaulo (1987) a student sample.
Fourthly, research involved the development of theoretical models (Ferrell &Gresham 1985; Hunt & Vitell 1986; Trevino 1986). These researchers tried to develop a conceptual and empirical base for understanding ethical decision-making in marketing. These theories, though principally fixated on the ethical decision-making processes of marketers, not consumers. On the other hand, theories that address an individual’s standpoint of the ethical decision making process are provided by Grove, Vitell and Strutton (1989), Kohlberg (1981) and Rest (1986). Grove, Vitell and Strutton (1989) offered a model based on the methods of neutralization developed in sociology by Sykes and Matza(1957) that helps describe how some people may explain non-normative consumer behaviour.
Finally, research focused on consumer attitudes in relation to a range of hypothetically unethical consumer practices. Wilkes (1978) is one of the rather few researches that can be involved within this category. Although statistics were available on the degree of illegal or deceitful consumer behaviour, this is the only study that explored people’s perceptions of such behaviour. Especially, Wilkes (1978) studied how immoral consumers perceived certain activities to be, the degree of the perceived participation by consumers in these activities, and how grave consumers considered these actions to be.
V (b) Consumer Ethics Research after 1990
Vitell (2003) studied the major research studies concerning consumer behaviour that have appeared as 1990. Among the first consumer ethics study in this period, the researches of Vitell and Muncy(1992) should be cited. By developing a consumer ethics scale (CES), these authors studied the degree to which consumers believe that certain questionable behaviours are ethical or unethical and found that consumers’ ethical beliefs that distinguish their actions has four dimensions: (1) actively benefiting from illegal activities (e.g., changing price labels in a supermarket), (2) passively benefiting (e.g., getting too much change and not saying anything), (3) activelybenefiting from deceptive (questionable) practices (e.g., using an expired coupon for merchandise), and (4) no harm / no foul (e.g., copying and using computer software that the consumer did not buy) (Vitell &Muncy 1992). Their findings show that actions in the first concept are initiated by consumers, most of whom identify that these actions are illegal. The second construct includes actions where consumers passively benefit from sellers’ mistake. The third construct is also initiated by the consumers, yet these actions are not observed to be illegal. Yet, they are still morally questionable. Study findings indicated consumers believe that it is more unethical to actively benefit from an illegal activity than to passively benefit. Lastly, the fourth construct contains actions that most consumers observe as not even being wrong at all. Furthermost, these activities involve the copying of software, tapes or movies (Swaidan, Rawwas& Al-Khatib 2004; Vitell 2003).
Vitell and Muncy (1992) research were soon shadowed by many related studies, comprising some cross cultural studies, using the Muncy-Vitell consumer ethics scale. For instance, Lascu (1993) scrutinized the extent to which the Muncy-Vitell scale and other ethics scales might be suitable for use in cross-cultural researches. Lascu’s (1993) conclusion, based upon a board of expert assessments, was that the Muncy-Vitell scale is relatively suitable for use in cross-cultural studies though some of the items might have to be re-worded first (for example, ‘supermarket’ might need to be changed to ‘store’).
Many individual features affect consumers’ ethical behaviours. Among those individual features, demographic factors have been shown significant research attention. Researches that examined the relationships of age, gender, nationality, religion, and education with ethical decision-making have formed contradictory outcomes (Loe, Ferrell & Mansfield 2000; Lund 2000; Rawwas&Singhapakdi 1998; Vitell 2003; Vitell, Lumpkin &Rawwas 1991; Ford & Richardson 1994). Yet, age appears to be the most important demographic variable, with older consumers being more ethical (Vitell 2003).
Vitell, Lumpkin and Rawwas (1991) explored the ethical beliefs of senior consumers and found that though older ‘senior citizen’ are normally more ethical than slightly younger ‘senior citizens’, they are very different in terms of their ethical beliefs. Similarlyscrutinizing the age question, and comparing U.S. adults with teenagers and children, Rawwasand Singhapakdi (1998) found that age was noteworthy between these groups with adults (20 to 79 year olds) being more ethical than either teenagers (mostly 19 year olds) or children (10 to 12 year olds). Nevertheless, teenagers and children only contrasted on two of the four consumer ethics dimensions with teenagers seeming to be more ethical. Interestingly, the authors also found that adults such as family members and teachers functioned as role models in supporting children and teenagers in modelling their behaviours in an ethical direction. Concerning gender, even though research results are varied, some studies support that females are more ethical than males. Using an Austrian sample, Rawwas (1996) found that gender is an important element of not only the ‘actively benefiting from a questionable act’ dimension but also the ‘no harm / no foul’ dimension. Though, as Vitell (2003) pointed out, the research outcomes concerning gender are surely not conclusive. Concerning, the other demographic features such as educational level and income, more research is needed, since results using these variables are also inadequate.
In addition to demographic variables, several researchers have studied the role of personal values on ethical decision-making, as it has been revealed that personal values affect a wide range of attitudes and behaviours (Shafer, Fukukawa& Lee 2007). Several personal features were tested as factors influencing ethical decision-making. Among the most often studied factors, Machiavellianism (Erffmeyer, Keilor&LeClair 1999; Rawwas, Vitell & Al-Khatib 1994; Rawwas, Strutton& Johnson 1996; Van Kenhove, Vermier&Verniers 2001) and moral philosophy (Al-Khatib et al. 2002; Singhapakdi et al. 1999; Swaidan, Rawwas& Al-Khatib 2004) should be cited.
Vitell (2003) shows that less Machiavellian, less relativistic, and more idealistic consumers were found to be more ethical. Several other variables have also been inspected; for example, Rallapalli et al. (1994) observed the relationship between the consumer ethics scale and a number of personality traits, counting high tendency to take risks, high needs for independence, innovation, and aggression. Findings revealed that consumers with a high need to follow socially desirable behaviour tend to be more ethical, as those with strong problem-solving coping styles.
In a five-year study, Glover et al. (1997), conversely, piloted three separate research studies. In the first two studies, they examined the relationship between honesty / integrity and ethical decision choices an individual makes and the regulating effects of self-monitoring and self-consciousness. Results showed that the degree of the influence of a particular value on ethical decision choice rests on demographical or environmental factors. Thus, they stretched the third study by investigating the influence of the demographical factors that had provided the strongest results, including age, gender, and years of work experience, and some selected workplace values including achievement, fairness, and concern for others, on the ethical decision process. Results showed that gender, years of work experience, and achievement influence the ethical choices of individuals. In the study, women were found to be making more ethical decisions than men. Furthermore, years of work experience and high levels of need for achievement appeared to have connection with higher levels of ethical decision-making.
Along with personal characteristics, cultural environment has also appealed research responsiveness. Rao and Al-Wugayan (2005) state that cross-cultural studies have started to appear in consumer ethics. Yet, since the diversity of world cultures, their number is unsatisfactory. Moreover, most of them concentrate on a particular geographic region (Al-Khatib et al. 2002; Polonsky et al. 2001) or even in a single country (Al-Khatib, Dobie & Vitell 1995; Chan, Wong & Leung 1998; Erffmeyer, Keillor&LeClair 1999; Van Kenhove, Vermier&Verniers 2001). Nevertheless, cross-cultural researches comparing different cultures (Al-Khatib, Vitell &Rawwas 1997; Rawwas2001; Rawwas, Patzer&Klassen 1995) also exist.
Rawwas, Vitell and Al-Khatib (1994) used the consumer ethics scale in a cross-cultural study comparing consumers in Egypt and Lebanon. The outcomes showed that consumers in Lebanon, which had been torn by civil conflict and terrorism at the time, were more accepting of all of the ‘questionable’ consumer practices that involve the consumer ethics scale. They were also more Machiavellian, more relativistic and less idealistic than their Egyptian counterparts. A comparable study by Al-Khatib, Vitell and Rawwas (1997) compared consumers in the U.S. with those in Egypt. The U.S. consumers were considerably more ethical on three of the four consumer ethics dimensions. The U.S. consumers were also found to be both less idealistic and less relativistic than the Egyptian consumers. In a previous study using the same Egyptian sample, Al-Khatib, Dobie and Vitell (1995) foundthat an idealistic ethical viewpoint was associated to three of the four consumer ethics dimensions (more idealistic, higher ethical beliefs) while a relativistic viewpoint was considerably related to two of them (more relativistic, lower ethical beliefs).
In another cross-cultural study, Rawwas, Strutton and Johnson (1996) compared U.S. consumers to Australian consumers using the consumer ethics scale and found that Australian consumers were pointedly more intolerant (for three of the four dimensions) of these questionable consumer actions than were U.S. consumers. They further found that the Australian consumers were more Machiavellian than the U.S. consumers, but there were no differences in terms of either idealism or relativism. Rawwas, Strutton and Johnson (1996) speculate that the severe and deserted geographical conditions in Australia may have helped to develop a greater sense of individualism and, thus, also greater Machiavellianism in that country.
Swaidan (1999) inspected the ethical beliefs of Muslim immigrants in the U.S., comparing those who desire to keep their original culture and remain separate (separators) with those who want to integrate into American society but still keeping their original culture (integrators). Outcomes specified that the separators (about 26% of the total sample) tend to be less tolerant of questionable consumer practices than integrators (about 60% of the sample). Specifically, the separators perceived these practices as being more wrong than the integrators did. Actually, those who are more expected to integrate in various ways into theAmerican culture are also more expected to accept the questionable consumer practices of, at least some, American consumers as well.
Rawwas, Patzer and Klassen (1995) piloted a cross-cultural study comparing consumers in Northern Ireland to those in Hong Kong. They assumed that those exposed to a more chaotic form of colonialism (the Northern Irish consumer) would be more accepting of ‘questionable’ consumer practices than those subjected to a more stable form of colonialism (the Hong Kong consumers). Although their results tend to somewhat support their hypotheses, yet, the Northern Irish consumers were no different than the Hong Kong consumers in terms of their general ethical beliefs; they were about the same in terms of idealism and relativism with the Irish only slightly higher in terms of Machiavellianism. In another study, Rawwas, Patzerand Vitell (1998) compared the Northern Irish consumer with the Lebanese consumer and found that both groups wererelatively unaffected to consumer ethical issues, but that the Irish tend to be less sensitive. They were also less idealistic, more relativistic and more Machiavellian than the Lebanese. Both of the above studies, involving Irish consumers, supported the original factor structure of the Muncy and Vitell studies.
Chan, Wong and Leung (1998) administered the consumer ethics scale to a Hong Kong population and found support for a somewhat similar factor structure (and perhaps a similar consumer perspective) to that discovered in the original study. However, there were some interesting cultural elements present in the findings. For example, the items in the ‘no harm / no foul’ dimension were perceived as more wrong than those in the ‘actively benefiting from a questionable act’ dimension, in contrast to other studies. Besides, the authors asked the same attitudinal questions that Vitell and Muncy (1992) did, with the results indicating that respondents who had a more positive attitude toward business were less tolerant of passively ‘benefiting at the expense of others.’ Also, respondents that felt that man is mostly good tend to apply stricter standards towards ‘actively benefiting from questionable actions.’ The latter result was in direct contrast to the Vitell and Muncy (1992) results. Moreover, the Hong Kong consumers seemed to be less expected to allow personal attitudes to affect their ethical beliefs. For example, being pro-business did not seem to influence their ethical beliefs whereas it did for U.S. consumers.
Similarly using an Asian sample, but this time from Japan, Erffmeyer, Keilor and LeClair(1999) surveyed a total of 258 Japanese consumers. They indicated that a Machiavellianism attitude was significantly related to all four consumer ethics dimensions such that those who were more Machiavellian tend to believe that the various consumer practices were less wrong. In contrast, those consumers who were more idealistic tend to think all four consumer ethics dimensions were more wrong. Yet, a relativistic philosophy was only related to the ‘passively benefiting’ and ‘no harm / no foul’ dimensions. In these cases, the more relativistic that the consumer appeared to be the less wrong the perception of the consumer action. These authors also examined various demographic variables. Their most interesting result was that younger consumers tend to be more relativistic or Machiavellian and that they also tend to perceive these various consumer actions as less wrong. This concluding result is consistent with U.S. studies (Muncy& Vitell 1992; Vitell &Muncy 1992).
Van Kenhove, Vermier and Verniers (2001) observed a sample of Belgian consumers. Although they involved many of the constructs used previously such as the consumer ethics dimensions and Machiavellianism, they also added a new construct, the consumer’s ‘need for closure.’ They discovered that those with a high need for closure tend to have a more ethical consumer belief system and were less Machiavellian. They also tend to be more likely to follow an idealistic moral philosophy. Despite the different cultural setting, the same four dimensions were supported by factor analysis. In another unique aspect of the study, an examination of political preferences tend to show that a high preference for the politically extreme-left resulted in a more tolerant score for the ‘actively benefiting from a questionable act’ dimension while a high preference for the politically extreme-right resulted in a less tolerant score for the ‘no harm / no foul’ dimension. Lastly, gender was not significant in terms of determining any of the consumer ethics dimensions. Rawwas(1996), though, using an Austrian sample, showed gender as being a significant determinant of both the ‘actively benefiting from a questionable act’ dimension and the ‘no harm / no foul’ dimension. In these cases, females were more likely to find these activities unethical. There was, yet, agreement between males and females in terms of the ‘illegal activities’ and ‘passive activities’ dimensions.
Rawwas (2001) compared the ethical judgments of consumers from eight different countries, the U.S., Ireland, Austria, Egypt, Lebanon, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Australia. As before, the four dimension factor structure of the consumer ethics scale was supported. Moreover, the ‘actively benefiting’ items were almost universally perceived as being illegal and unethical. On the other hand, ‘actively benefiting from a questionable action’ was the best dimension in terms of discriminating among consumers from the cultures tested. For example, the U.S., Australia and Ireland tend to be more tolerant of these actions than consumers from Lebanon and Egypt while consumers from Austria and Hong Kong tend to take a moderate approach to these issues.
Another study by Polonsky et al. (2001) compared consumers in northern Europe against those in Southern Europe on the consumer ethics scale. As in previous studies, the four factor structure was supported and was generally consistent with previous research. While some slight differences existed between the two groups tested, consumers in the two regions generally perceived issues somewhat similarly.
Al-Khatib et al. (2002) compared consumers in four Middle Eastern countries: Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Egypt. Preliminary results indicate that the Saudi consumers were somewhat less accepting of these various ‘questionable’ consumer practices than their counterparts in the other three countries and that the Saudi consumers were also more idealistic. Still, no conclusive conclusions were reached by the authors.