Exploring the Effect of Ethical Concerns on Consumer’s Buying Behaviour

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature Review
Topic: Exploring the effect of ethical concerns on consumer’s buying behaviour
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1LITERATURE REVIEW
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Overview of ethical concerns about consumer buying behaviour...................................................2
Theoretical understanding of consumer buying behaviour.............................................................4
Concept of ethical consumerism......................................................................................................7
Five ethical approaches....................................................................................................................9
Five stages of Consumer Decision-Making...................................................................................10
Factors influencing buying behaviour...........................................................................................11
Effect of ethical concerns on consumer buying behaviour............................................................13
Gap in literature.............................................................................................................................14
Summary........................................................................................................................................15
Reference List................................................................................................................................16

2LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Ethics are principles of right behaviour which direct the decisions along with activities of
a person. The society has a general set of standards and the society expects that each of the
members must adhere to ethnic morals and norms of the society. The organisations need to study
and satisfy the ethical concerns of society and the organisations also avoid developing the
advertisements and products which may lead to undesirable consumer behaviour. In marketing,
ethical consumerism is a consumer activism which based on consumer choice. Positivism buying
of the consumers refers to the ethical products and negative purchasing is associated with moral-
boycotting along with company-based purchasing. The organisations always do marketing to
convince the consumers to choose their products and it is up to the consumer which products
they would purchase from. In this literature review, mostly secondary data sources are gathered
to analyse the scholars’ perspectives on ethical consumerism and consumers’ buying behaviour.
Theoretical frameworks are used to underpin the literary concept of consumer behaviour and
industry examples are used to show the practicality of consumer behaviour.
Overview of ethical concerns about consumer buying behaviour
Ethical behaviour of the organisations refers to morally and ethically correct conduct of
the management according to the society. Ethical behaviour is correct in the eyes of law and
ethical behaviour is also based on the interests of the people which may lead to the welfare of
society. As stated by Lin et al. (2014), radical changes of economic, technological, political and
legal and cultural factors lead to bring significant changes in the consumer behaviour. Marketing
is still in need to adapt to the changes, both in terms of the application of the techniques and
methods. According to Pappas (2016), marketing is solely a business concept and the aim of the

3LITERATURE REVIEW
marketers to reach consumers with their products. The authors further stated that the major role
of the marketers to use the distribution channel to reach the customers with promotions. On the
other side, as argued by Sharma (2014), the application of the marketing techniques and
functions in both social and economic process bring value to the customers. Value of the
marketing is not just limited to the money as the organisations must be aware of the promotions
and goods and services related to this. Marketing in today is not just the exchanging of the ideas
and products which are motivated only by profitability. Different values are transferred from
organisations to the different parties with the aiming of satisfying the economic goals, wants and
needs of the organisations as well.
Horner and Swarbroke (2016) believed that consumerism triumphed in the battle of
ideology in the 20th Century which represents the rudimentary characteristics of modern nations
and society. Today, consumerism is the social movement which finds the ways to enhance the
power and rights of the consumers than the sellers and manufacturers. The consumers are aware
of the marketing ethics which are related to the moral assessment of individual marketing related
behaviour. In the article named Ethical Consumer Behaviour in Marketing, authors Ruzica
Kovac and others stated that corporate marketing behaviour is associated with consumer
behaviour as each of the organisations has its consumers or vice versa. The consumers search for
the background information and CSR activities of the organisation prior to making the purchase
from the organisations as today's customers are getting informed through the internet. The
consumer behaviour is surpassing just the cultural aspect and it has become more
multidisciplinary as it could be understood and influenced by the Theory of Planned Behaviour
Model. As opined by Montano and Kasprzyk (2015), Theory of Planned Behaviour stated hat
purchase intentions of the consumers are directly generated and motivated by their own set of