Ethical Consumerism and Oxfam: Approaches and Factors Influencing Buying Behavior

This presentation discusses ethical consumerism and Oxfam's approaches to operate ethically. It also explores the factors influencing buying behavior, including personal and social factors. The study concludes that businesses need to adopt ethical consumerism to produce or source ethical products or services. The main purpose of adopting such a concept by Oxfam is to overcome poverty and improve the standard of living of poor people.

STUDY SKILLS

Ethical consumerism
 Ethical consumerism can be stated as moral purchasing which is
practiced by consumers through positive buying of ethical products and
boycotting the negative purchasing that harm or damages the
environment or society.
 Ethical consumerism is a behaviour that is adopted by people nowadays
in order protect the products and services.
 The individual behaviour focuses on positive buying that considers
customers to purchase the goods that is produced through ethical
investment.

Company claiming to operate
ethically
 Oxfam has three motives to improve the upliftment of community
living in poverty for long time, carrying out humanitarian work and
providing assistance to people that are affected from natural disaster.
 Business also obtains specific vision to create the world free from
poverty. Thus, in order to fulfil such aim, it organizes varied
development programmes, workshops, campaigns and so on.
 However, it also helps the business to maintain transparency and
accountability in order to achieve the desired results. Hence, through
carrying out such humanitarian activities, business claims to operate its
business ethically.

Different approaches used by Oxfam
to operate ethically
Equality act- It is an effective legislation passed in 2010 by UK
government. Main aim of such act is to provide equality to workers at
the workplace by providing equal rights and opportunities in order to
improve their skills and quality. Thus, Oxfam also involves this act in
order to develop proper functioning and to execute the best practices
with attaining the desired results. Business provides equality among
workers so that they can be satisfied from their job and provide the
best results in terms of profitability.

Contd....
Not for profit approach- Here, it can be stated that Oxfam operates its
business not for profit and provides community a better chance of
improving their living standard. Thus, working as a not for profit
approach, it relays on donations and grants from big corporate houses
in order to support community as a social cause. Hence, company
uses such amount in order to support the poor people to overcome
poverty and enhance their standard of living.

Factors influencing buying behvaior
Personal factors- It involves different personal factors that affects the
purchasing behaviour of individuals such as age, religion and sex. For
example, it can be evaluated that the needs and wants of purchasing
ethical products differs as per their age. It is a crucial factor that
influences the tastes and preferences of consumers. Likewise, the
aged people will prefer to consume food which is not so spicy as
compared to young people who prefer to try something chilly and
spicy. Thus, carrying out survey on the taste and preference of GSM
students analysed that they prefer to consume different products but
which are sold ethically in market.

Contd...
Social factors- It is another critical factor that affects the purchasing
decision of buyers. The families of GSM students are also involved in
survey and by analysing their responses, it has been found that they
are loyal towards purchasing ethical goods so that poor people can be
safeguarded. Thus, buying behaviour of people is changing and
focusing on adopting ethical goods and services as their main aim is
to promote poor people to enhance their living standard.

Conclusion
 From the above study it can be articulated that each and every business
is required to develop ethical consumerism concept in order to produce
of source products or services.
 Further, the main purpose of adopting such concept by Oxfam in order
to overcome the poor people from poverty and improve their standard
of living.
 Business also undertakes varied approaches such as unethical practices,
equality act etc. in order to serve people better and also , to improve the
overall image of enterprise.

REFERENCES
Bucic, T., Harris, J. and Arli, D., 2012. Ethical consumers
among the millennials: A cross-national study. Journal of
Business Ethics. 110(1). pp. 113-131.
Leonidou, L. C. and et.al., 2013. Business unethicality as an
impediment to consumer trust: The moderating role of
demographic and cultural characteristics. Journal of
business ethics. 112(3). pp. 397-415.
Carrington, M. J., Neville, B. A. and Whitwell, G. J., 2010.
Why ethical consumers don’t walk their talk: Towards a
framework for understanding the gap between the ethical
purchase intentions and actual buying behaviour of ethically
minded consumers. Journal of Business Ethics. 97(1).
pp.139-158.

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