Murdoch University: Ethics of Consumption's Effect on Purchasing

This report provides a systematic literature review examining the impact of ethics on consumer purchasing decisions. It investigates the cognitive processes and moral reasoning that influence buying behavior, focusing on the effects of ethical consumption. The research addresses the question: Does the ethics of consumption affect the purchasing decision? The report includes inclusion and exclusion criteria for article selection, critical analysis of the literature from databases like ProQuest, and discussion of the role of e-commerce, social media, and corporate sustainability. The findings suggest that ethical considerations significantly impact consumer choices. The report concludes with implications, noting the positive implications of ethical consumption on buyer behavior, and identifies gaps in the existing literature, particularly regarding the direct influence of organizational ethical practices on consumer decision-making. A summary table and references are also provided.

Does the ethics of
consumption affect
purchasing decision?

1
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
The approach of the search process.............................................................................................................2
Inclusion and the exclusion criteria.............................................................................................................3
Critical analysis of the literature..................................................................................................................4
Implications and conclusions.......................................................................................................................7
Summary table.............................................................................................................................................7
References.................................................................................................................................................14

2
Introduction
The ethical concern of business practices plays a vital role in the purchasing decision of the
buyers. Following this procedure, the paper aims to provide the effect of ethics on the purchasing
decision of the consumers. The purpose of the research is to demonstrate the cognitive processes
and the moral reasoning that should be useful for shaping the impact of ethical consumption on
the purchasing decision of an individual. The research will focus on the impact of ethics on the
buyer’s decision and the way that it influences the purchaser to buy. The research process will be
conducted with the help of a systematic review so that it helps the reader to understand the
impact of ethical consumption on purchasing any goods and services by the buyers. Besides this,
the objectives of the research are as follows:
 To demonstrate the impact of ethics of consumption that affects the purchasing decision of
the individual persons
 To understand the role of ethics on the purchasing decision
The research question that will be generated from this study is provided below:
 Does the ethics of consumption affects the purchasing decision?
The approach of the search process
The systematic literature review process demonstrates the researcher’s view regarding the effect
of ethics on the purchasing decision of the buyers. It provides evidence in terms of narrative style
reviews by using both replicable and understandable method. The systematic review process
provides a clear view of the research topic that has been chosen for this context1. The systematic
1 Mansour Naser Alraja and Maryam Ali Said Kashoob, "Transformation To Electronic Purchasing: An Empirical
Investigation", TELKOMNIKA (Telecommunication Computing Electronics And Control) 17, no. 3 (2019): 1209.

3
review that has been used in this paper focuses on a single question, and it is demonstrated by
using selection protocols and explicating search process based on both exclusion and inclusion
criteria. By this procedure, replicable designer elements have been provided that helps in
conducting the research fruitfully. The resultant that has been developed from this systematic
review provides a depth analysis of the topic chosen for this research2. It reflects the
methodological and geographic gaps of the literature, which is important for identifying the
future agendas of the research. Hence with this research process a brief view of the ethical
approach can be understood that may impact the purchasing decision of the buyers.
Inclusion and the exclusion criteria
Following the initial search regarding the several kinds of literature by using the keywords:
consumer behaviour, sustainable manufacturing, ethical consumer market and purchasing
decision, various articles are selected for this study which defines the impact of ethical aspects
on the decision-making process of consumers3. In the search procedure, several numbers of
exclusion and inclusion criteria were developed that addresses the chosen research question. By
using both exclusion and inclusion criteria, it becomes easy to narrow down the relevant results
of the study. The inclusion criteria that is used for a searching article on the topic are the article
must be published in between 2015 to 2019, and it should demonstrate the consumer behavior on
the ethical concepts that are used in an organization. In addition, the exclusion criteria that were
involved in the search process are that the articles should relate to business ethics, and it should
provide a brief view of the consumers related to the businesses. However, the absence of
2 Ruby Saine, Alexander J. Kull, Ali Besharat, and Sajeev Varki. "I See Me: The Role of Observer Imagery in Reducing
Consumer Transgressions." Journal of Business Ethics(2019): 1-12.
3 Lukáš Kakalejčík, Jozef Bucko, and Martin Vejačka. "Differences in buyer journey between high-and
low-value customers of e-commerce business." Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce
Research 14, no. 2 (2019): 47-58.

4
appropriate online database searching created a limitation for the systematic literature review
process and this should be considered for future research.
Critical analysis of the literature
The material that has been included in this section are collected from the ProQuest database, and
the articles are selected in such a manner that it should be beneficial in discussing the research
topic properly. Ethics of consumption is necessary for every organization to get positive results
in terms of purchasing decision of their consumers4. In today's environment, most of the people
shifted their interest from offline shopping mall to online e-commerce market. The reason for
shifting is that according to the consumers in the online procedure, the organization maintains an
ethical consumption that has increased their purchasing interest towards this digital shopping
mode5. On the other hand, in terms of a traditional market, people have a tendency of bargaining
the products while purchasing it. Hence, for this reason, some people get the product at a higher
cost as well as some people get it at the exact prices.
Presence of such unethical approach has influenced the purchasing decision of the buyers, and
thus they prefer to shop from e-commerce market where no discrimination or biasness has taken
place. It is necessary for every organization to follow a code of conduct as it influences a
customer’s moral judgment over their goods and services6. However, it is noticed that most of
the organizations failed to follow all the code of conduct, and due to this reason, they lose their
targeted consumer base. Absence of ethical consumption has reduced their consumer’s interest
4 Garima Gupta, and Aastha Verma Vohra. "Social Media Usage Intensity: Impact Assessment on Buyers’
Behavioural Traits." FIIB Business Review (2019): 2319714519843689.
5 Nebojša Vasić, Milorad Kilibarda, and Tanja Kaurin. "The influence of online shopping determinants on customer
satisfaction in the Serbian market." Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research 14, no. 2
(2019): 70-89.
6 Karin Tollin, and Lars Bech Christensen. "Sustainability marketing commitment: Empirical insights about its drivers
at the corporate and functional level of marketing." Journal of Business Ethics 156, no. 4 (2019): 1165-1185.

5
over the firm. It develops a negative purchasing decision of the consumers, and it does not allow
them to buy the products and services from such organizations who do not follow the code of
ethics properly.
In such a situation to grab the attention of their consumers, it is important for the firm to follow
the normative moral theory that can help them to maintain an actor-imagery perspective of their
company7. By following this theory, the firm can influence their moral compassion and moral
stringency towards their customer. Hence with the help of this approach, the firm can become
successful in increasing their attention towards their products and services. From this aspect, it is
seen that the ethics of consumption provides a huge effect on the purchasing decision of the
consumers. The social media approaches also plays an important role in shaping the purchasing
decision of the buyers8. Most of the organizations showcase their goods and service range
through social media, which improves the online purchasing decision of the consumers.
According to the management team of many firms, the best way of maintaining the ethical
approach with the consumers is to provide all the details of their goods so that it becomes easier
for them to select their desired product from any location of the world9.
In order to provide such an ethical approach and to generate an impact on the buying decision of
the consumer, social media platform is considered to be the best way for most of the companies.
For maintaining a sustainable approach that influences the ethical consumption aspects of the
7 Karin Tollin, and Lars Bech Christensen. "Sustainability marketing commitment: Empirical insights about its drivers
at the corporate and functional level of marketing." Journal of Business Ethics 156, no. 4 (2019): 1165-1185.
8 Chitresh Saraswat, Pankaj Kumar, Rajarshi Dasgupta, Ram Avtar, and Prashant Bhalani. "Sustainability assessment
of the groundwater quality in the Western India to achieve urban water security." Applied Water Science 9, no. 4
(2019): 73.
9 Siti Falindah Padlee, Cheong Yun Thaw, and Siti Nur 'Atikah Zulkiffli. "The relationships between service quality,
customer satisfaction and buying intentions in the private hospital industry." South African journal of business
management 25, no. 1 (2019): 1-19.

6
business, it is important for firm to develop best corporate sustainability activities10. Corporate
sustainability aspect enables the businesses to develop appropriate value orientation strategy that
helps in influences the purchasing decision of the consumers. It is analyzed that if the firms can
maintain an ethical approach, then it can easily help them to grab their consumer’s attention and
it also attracts them to purchase products from these organization instead of buying the similar
products from other firms11.
It also demonstrates that the ethics of consumption has also possessed some impact on the
decision-making process of the buyers. A sustainable organization must possess a positive
impact on the buying decision of their selected consumers12. In order to maintain the
sustainability rate, it is essential for the firm to follow ethical behavior with the people, including
both the employees and consumers. The ethical relationship among the staff members enables
them to easily elaborate their product range with the customers through proper calm and quite
manner13. It also helps the employee to solve every query of the people with great ease. This
procedure easily grabs the attention of the consumers, and they can convince to buy the goods
from this firm only apart from the other similar firms. Hence from these prospects, it is clear that
sustainability, ethics and purchasing decision are linked with each other that generate a positive
impact on the organization. After reviewing all the articles, it is seen that the ethics of
consumption has possessed a huge impact on the decision-making procedure of a purchaser.
10 Nannan Yang, and Jung E. Ha-Brookshire. "Truly sustainable or not? An exploratory assessment of sustainability
capability of textile and apparel corporations in China from the moral responsibility perspective." Fashion and
Textiles 6, no. 1 (2019): 15.
11 María Inés Cabot, Amalia Luque, Ana de las Heras, and Francisco Aguayo. "Aspects of sustainability
and design engineering for the production of interconnected smart food packaging." PloS one 14, no. 5
(2019): e0216555.
12 Rachel Alexander, "Emerging roles of lead buyer governance for sustainability across global production
networks." Journal of Business Ethics (2019): 1-22.
13 Dudhale Prateek, and Patil Milind Ruparao. "Case Study: A Study of Source of Information towards buying
decisions of Customers with reference to Budget Segment Car in Malwa Region." Advances in Management 12, no.
2 (2019): 36-38.

7
Implications and conclusions
The systematic literature review main aim was to provide the significance of ethics of
consumption on the purchasing decision of the people. From the review, it is concluded that the
ethics of consumption provide some impact on the buying decision of people. Thus for
maintaining their ethical approach as well as sustainability, most of the organization introduce
online shopping process of the e-commerce market. By incorporating this digital procedure, the
organizations become to maintain their stability and increase the consumer purchasing decision.
In the traditional procedure of offline shopping method, the people sometimes bargain for some
particular product, and this possesses an unethical attribute to the other consumers. Due to this
reason, most of the people change their interest in shopping from traditional mode to a digital
one. Hence it is seen that ethics of consumption provide positive implications on the decision-
making approach of the buyers. In this research, three themes have been used; one is the e-
commerce process, social media platform and sustainable approaches. Based on these themes,
the whole study has been conducted. However, it is noticed that no such data has been found
regarding the maintenance of an ethical approach by the organisation that can directly influence
the decision-making procedure of the purchasers. Hence the absence of appropriate data has
generated a gap in the literature review context of this study.
Summary table
References Summary
Alraja, Mansour Naser,
and Maryam Ali Said
Kashoob. "Transformation
to electronic purchasing: an
The paper has demonstrated the four constructs procedure
such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease, social
influences, and facilitating conditions which provide a huge
impact on the purchasing decision of people. The findings

8
empirical
investigation." Telkomnika,
17, no. 3 (2019): 1209-1219.
define that all these procedures help the firm in maintaining
their ethical approaches towards their consumers.
Saine, Ruby, Alexander J.
Kull, Ali Besharat, and
Sajeev Varki. "I See Me:
The Role of Observer
Imagery in Reducing
Consumer
Transgressions." Journal of
Business Ethics(2019): 1-12.
The article discusses the reason for reducing consumers in the
organization. In the current trend, it is noticed that most of the
organizations do not follow the code of conduct of their
business, and this causes a negative impact on the purchasing
decision of consumers.
Gupta, Garima, and Aastha
Verma Vohra. "Social
Media Usage Intensity:
Impact Assessment on
Buyers’ Behavioural
Traits." FIIB Business
Review (2019):
2319714519843689.
Social media plays an important role in shaping consumer
behavior and attitude. In addition, it also influences
organizations to maintain an ethical approach with their
consumers. By using social media, the firms increase the
impact of online purchases of their consumers.
Vasić, Nebojša, Milorad
Kilibarda, and Tanja
By online shopping approach, customers are most satisfied
than the traditional offline approach. This article provides the

9
Kaurin. "The influence of
online shopping
determinants on customer
satisfaction in the Serbian
market." Journal of
Theoretical and Applied
Electronic Commerce
Research 14, no. 2 (2019):
70-89.
impact of online determinants on the consumer purchasing
decision. For determining this, a conceptual model has used
that briefly discusses the influence of online procedure over
people decision of purchasing goods and services.
Tollin, Karin, and Lars
Bech Christensen.
"Sustainability marketing
commitment: Empirical
insights about its drivers at
the corporate and
functional level of
marketing." Journal of
Business Ethics 156, no. 4
(2019): 1165-1185.
The paper discusses the importance of corporate social
responsibility for an organization. Maintaining appropriate
CSR activity, the firm increases its sustainability approach,
which thus helps them to create a positive impact on the
buying decisions of their consumers.
Yang, Nannan, and Jung E.
Ha-Brookshire. "Truly
sustainable or not? An
The article demonstrates that for maintaining sustainability in
a firm, it is important for them to follow the moral
responsibility theory. With the help theory, they not only

10
exploratory assessment of
sustainability capability of
textile and apparel
corporations in China from
the moral responsibility
perspective." Fashion and
Textiles 6, no. 1 (2019): 15.
perceive sustainability but also can reach their goals by
maintaining an ethical approach in relation to their business.
Alexander, Rachel.
"Emerging roles of lead
buyer governance for
sustainability across global
production
networks." Journal of
Business Ethics (2019): 1-
22.
The paper demonstrates that for maintaining the sustainability
approaches of the Global Production Networks (GPNs), it is
essential for the firm to follow proper governmental roles and
maintain an ethical standard in business. By this approach,
they easily influence the decision-making process of
purchases and also maintain their business sustainability
activity.
Saraswat, Chitresh, Pankaj
Kumar, Rajarshi Dasgupta,
Ram Avtar, and Prashant
Bhalani. "Sustainability
assessment of the
groundwater quality in
Western India to achieve
The articles demonstrate that an exploratory investigation was
done on the hydrothermal characteristics of the groundwater
procedure in order to know the way by which the management
can bring a positive impact on the business. For maintaining
sustainability and creating a positive impact, it is essential for
the company to maintain ethical standards in its business

11
urban water
security." Applied Water
Science 9, no. 4 (2019): 73.
procedure.
Padlee, Siti Falindah,
Cheong Yun Thaw, and Siti
Nur 'Atikah Zulkiffli. "The
relationships between
service quality, customer
satisfaction, and buying
intentions in the private
hospital industry." South
African journal of business
management 25, no. 1
(2019): 1-19.
The paper reveals that service quality plays a vital role in
increasing the consumer satisfaction level. It helps the
organization to maintain their ethical standards that can
influence the decision makers to purchase products from the
companies who follow the ethics properly.
Cabot, María Inés, Amalia
Luque, Ana de las Heras,
and Francisco Aguayo.
"Aspects of sustainability
and design engineering for
the production of
interconnected smart food
packaging." PloS one 14,
The article discusses the life cycle assessment tool, which is
essential for innovating smart goods for the consumer. The
tool is beneficial as it influences the purchasing decision of the
consumers. In addition, the paper also defines the importance
of this tool on maintaining the ethics of consumption by the
organization.

12
no. 5 (2019): e0216555.
Prateek, Dudhale, and Patil
Milind Ruparao. "Case
Study: A Study of Source of
Information towards
buying decisions of
Customers concerning
Budget Segment Car in
Malwa Region." Advances
in Management 12, no. 2
(2019): 36-38.
The study demonstrates the way by which the purchasing
decision of the people changes. It is seen that social media
platform are quite essential for changing the purchasing
decision of the buyers.
Kakalejčík, Lukáš, Jozef
Bucko, and Martin
Vejačka. "Differences in
the buyer journey between
high-and low-value
customers of the e-
commerce business."
Journal of Theoretical and
Applied Electronic
Commerce Research 14, no.
The articles discuss the procedure by which an organization
can easily differentiate between low value and high-value
consumer. For making high-value consumer it is essential for
the firms to follows all the ethical rules and maintain a
positive attitude with their consumer.

13
2 (2019): 47-58.

14
References
Alexander, Rachel. "Emerging roles of lead buyer governance for sustainability across global
production networks." Journal of Business Ethics (2019): 1-22.
Alraja, Mansour Naser, and Maryam Ali Said Kashoob. "Transformation to electronic
purchasing: an empirical investigation." Telkomnika, 17, no. 3 (2019): 1209-1219.
Cabot, María Inés, Amalia Luque, Ana de las Heras, and Francisco Aguayo. "Aspects of
sustainability and design engineering for the production of interconnected smart food
packaging." PloS one 14, no. 5 (2019): e0216555.
Gupta, Garima, and Aastha Verma Vohra. "Social Media Usage Intensity: Impact Assessment on
Buyers’ Behavioural Traits." FIIB Business Review (2019): 2319714519843689.
Kakalejčík, Lukáš, Jozef Bucko, and Martin Vejačka. "Differences in buyer journey between
high-and low-value customers of the e-commerce business." Journal of Theoretical and
Applied Electronic Commerce Research 14, no. 2 (2019): 47-58.
Padlee, Siti Falindah, Cheong Yun Thaw, and Siti Nur 'Atikah Zulkiffli. "The relationships
between service quality, customer satisfaction, and buying intentions in the private
hospital industry." South African journal of business management 25, no. 1 (2019): 1-19.
Prateek, Dudhale, and Patil Milind Ruparao. "Case Study: A Study of Source of Information
towards buying decisions of Customers concerning Budget Segment Car in Malwa
Region." Advances in Management 12, no. 2 (2019): 36-38.

15
Saine, Ruby, Alexander J. Kull, Ali Besharat, and Sajeev Varki. "I See Me: The Role of
Observer Imagery in Reducing Consumer Transgressions." Journal of Business
Ethics(2019): 1-12.
Saraswat, Chitresh, Pankaj Kumar, Rajarshi Dasgupta, Ram Avtar, and Prashant Bhalani.
"Sustainability assessment of the groundwater quality in Western India to achieve urban
water security." Applied Water Science 9, no. 4 (2019): 73.
Tollin, Karin, and Lars Bech Christensen. "Sustainability marketing commitment: Empirical
insights about its drivers at the corporate and functional level of marketing." Journal of
Business Ethics 156, no. 4 (2019): 1165-1185.
Vasić, Nebojša, Milorad Kilibarda, and Tanja Kaurin. "The influence of online shopping
determinants on customer satisfaction in the Serbian market." Journal of Theoretical and
Applied Electronic Commerce Research 14, no. 2 (2019): 70-89.
Yang, Nannan, and Jung E. Ha-Brookshire. "Truly sustainable or not? An exploratory
assessment of sustainability capability of textile and apparel corporations in China from
the moral responsibility perspective." Fashion and Textiles 6, no. 1 (2019): 15.