DENG Xinming

Publication:

Geoforum(Vol. 67, 2015, Pages: 204—213)

Abstract:

Through a two-stage study, this paper analyzes those underlying factors that prevent consumers from translating their stated ethical intentions into actual ethical buying behavior. An initial qualitative study uses in-depth interviews with 36 consumers and identifies 6 consumer personal factors and 5 shopping situational factors impeding the transformation of consumers’ stated ethical intentions into actual ethical behavior. In the second stage, a quantitative study uses a large-scale questionnaire, investigating 1200 consumers, to test the adaptability of these personal and situational factors and to investigate their moderating effects on the relationship between ethical intentions and behavior. The research obtains some important implications on corporate marketing practices as follows. Firstly, the firm should pay a great deal of attention to the implementation of ethical marketing strategies. The findings confirm that nearly 58% of consumers will produce ethical purchasing intention and around 13% will make real purchasing response. Therefore, enterprises should care about the existence of this specific portion of the consumer population, and when actively implementing ethical marketing strategies, they should carry out marketing communications targeted at these consumers as a means to create more market opportunities. Secondly, enterprises should try to advocate and lead an ethical consumption culture and atmosphere through the medias (such as TV, internet, and etc.) which could be accessed by consumer usually. Thirdly, corporations should focus on the retail terminal construction of ethical products, aiming to help consumers readily achieve (rather than impede) the transformation from ethical buying intention into purchasing behavior. Fourthly, corporations are supposed to focus on the disclosure of social responsibility report/information. Consumers, in reality, do require more information to make a better ethical judgment.

Key words: Ethical buying decision making; Ethical consumerism; Intention-behavior gap; Qualitative study; Quantitative study