How does past behaviour stimulate consumers' intentions to repeat unethical behaviour? The roles of perceived risk and ethical beliefs

• Author: BaoChun Zhao,ChengHao Zeng,Mohammed Yahya Rawwas
• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12284
• Published date: 01 July 2020

602  

|

  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:602–616.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1 | INTRODUCTION

As in many other ma rkets, unethi cal consumer b ehaviours that

destroy mora l norms are a troub lesome social i ssue in China, a

country with a tremendous emerging market. Professional sur-

veys report th at these behaviours continue t o be a concern, even

after many years of g overnance. In 2017, the rate of unlice nsed

software installation reached 66%, representing a commercial

value of $6.842 bi llion (Business S oftware Al liance, 2018). One

vital reason gove rnance effor ts have been in effective is t he lack

of knowledge abou t the mechanism through w hich past behaviour

(PAB) drives consumer s to repeat uneth ical behaviou rs. As sug-

gested in some em pirical studies (e.g., Zeng , 2010), most such be-

haviours are ess entially a consequence of habi t, which consumers

may be barely consc ious of. Underst anding the role of PAB as a

driver of repeated unethical decisions is particularly important

because such b ehaviour car ries the innate tr ait of ji xi nan gai, a

Chinese saying i mplying that an ingra ined bad habit cannot b e cast

off overnight. U nfortunatel y, such behaviour is a Gor dian knot in

governance practices.

Received: 25 Feb ruary 2018 

|

  Revised: 11 March 2020 

|

  Accepted: 27 March 20 20

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12284

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

How does past behaviour stimulate consumers' intentions to

repeat unethical behaviour? The roles of perceived risk and

ethical beliefs

BaoChun Zhao1 | Mohammed Yahya Rawwas2 | ChengHao Zeng1

Abbreviat ion: CIRUB, cons umers' intenti ons to repeat unet hical behavi or

1School of Mana gement, South-C entral

University for Nationalities, Wuhan, China

2College of Business Administration,

Universit y of Northern Iowa , Cedar Falls,

Iowa, USA

Correspondence

BaoChun Zha o, School of Manageme nt,

South-Central University for Nationalities,

Wuhan, China.

Email: zhaobaochun@foxmail.com

Funding information

National Natu ral Science Found ation of

China, Grant/Award Number: 71472189

Abstract

Repeated unethica l behaviour by consumers is a serious chall enge for participants in

business transa ctions, including consumers, re tailers, and those responsible f or mar-

ket supervision. D ue to the inherent risk of su ch behaviours, we ex amine perceived

risk to uncover the psychol ogical mechanism by wh ich consumers conside r past be-

haviour (PAB) when deciding to rep eat unethical behaviour. We divide perceived ris k

into two categories, mater ial risk (MAR) and nonmaterial risk (NMR), based on t wo

kinds of ethical evalu ation and explore their mediati ng effects in the process t hrough

which PAB influences consume rs' intentions to repeat un ethical behaviou r (CIRUB).

We check the moderatin g effect of consume rs' ethical belief s on the relationship

between PAB and CIRUB. We use sur vey data from four typical ethic al scenarios to

test the proposed s tructural relationship s. Direct positive effect s of PAB on consum-

ers' intentions are observed in all four s cenarios. NMR has stable, positive mediating

effects in all scenarios. MAR is found to have negative mediating effects in two sce-

narios (switching price t ags and using an expired coupon) and a p ositive effect in one

scenario (copying soft ware). However, no effect is observed in the ben efiting from a

cashier's mista ke scenario. Finally, ethical b eliefs are proven to posit ively moderate

the relationship bet ween PAB and consumers' inte ntions in the firs t two scenarios,

but not the last two. T his study also discus ses the implicati ons of the findings an d

offers sugges tions for future research.