Why ethical consumers buy products from unethical companies: consumers’ ambivalent responses towards fashion companies’ unethical activities

• Date: 07 March 2023
• Pages: 303-319
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOES-07-2022-0156
• Published date: 07 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Economics,Social economics
• Author: Jihyun Lee

Why ethical consumers buy

products from unethical companies:

consumers’ambivalent responses

towards fashion companies’

unethical activities

Jihyun Lee

Department of Smart Fashion Design, Korea Polytechnics,

Yeongnam Convergence Technology Campus, Daegu, Republic of Korea

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of consumers’moral preferences between

moral and economic benef‌its and consumers’moral and rational behaviour intentions based on moral

decision-makingmodels of previous studies.

Design/methodology/approach –Respondentswere asked to answer a questionnaire measuring moral

and economic benef‌its, consumers’moral preferences and moral and rational behaviour intention after

reading a stimulusdescribing imaginary fashion brandA’s unethical activities.

Findings –Moral and economic benef‌its directly and signif‌icantly affect moral and rational behaviour

intention. Homo economicus evoked by an economic benef‌it had a negative effect on moral behaviour

intention.

Research limitations/implications –This study focused only on a moral benef‌it and an economic

benef‌it as factors evoking consumers’moral preferences. This study was also conducted only in a Korean

context and considered a specif‌icindustry. In future research, the results of this study should beextended to

design the “possibility of punishment”to encourage moral behaviour by discouraging the effect of homo

economicus.The results have implications for companiessuch as social enterprises and charities thatwant to

promote consumers’moralbehaviour.

Originality/value –This study provides evidence on why ethical consumersdo not always make ethical

decisions by conf‌irming that homo economicus has a signif‌icant inf‌luence on not only rational behaviour

intentionbut also moral behaviour intention.

Keywords Homo moralis, Homo economicus, Moral preference, Moral behaviour,

Rational behaviour

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

An economic proposition is that humans respond to incentives (Levitt and Dubner, 2005),

and a moral proposition is thatmorals distinguish humans from animals. In 1996, a photo of

a young boy who was sewing a Nike soccerball on the ground triggered a boycott against

Nike. As a result, Nike had to recover its image of corporate citizenship. This example

demonstrates how consumersethically respond to and aggressively demand that companies

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National

Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2018S1A5A8027565).

Fashion

companies’

unethical

activities

303

Received12 July 2022

Revised8 December 2022

Accepted31 January 2023

InternationalJournal of Ethics and

Systems

Vol.40 No. 2, 2024

pp. 303-319

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2514-9369

DOI 10.1108/IJOES-07-2022-0156

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2514-9369.htm

change unethical activities. This ethical aspect of human nature is called homo moralis

(Alger and Weibull, 2013;B

egue, 2011;Skitka, 2009;Skitka and Bauman, 2008). However,

consumers may not always act on homo moralis. For example, a global fast fashion

company producing brand A, which distributes fashion products manufactured in

developing countries at a low price, has been criticized because of its sweatshops. Despite

this controversy,consumers have continued to buy brand A products with the incentivethat

they can buy moderate-quality fashion products at a low price. This economic aspect of

humans responding to economic incentives is called homo economicus (Alger and Weibull,

2013;B

egue, 2011;Skitka,2009).

Consumers usually believe that they are ethical and have reported that they would be

willing to pay a higher price for a product made by a socially responsible company

(GlobeScan et al.,2013). Consumers have asserted their will by participating in boycotts

avoiding buying merchandise made by companies that have done business immorally.

However, despite unethical practices such as sweatshops, global fast fashion brand A has

continued to experiencethe best sales record every year. In contrast, anethically responsible

company, TOMS shoe brand, almost went bankrupt, which means that consumers who

think of themselves as ethical may be willing to purchasegoods from unethical companies.

Why do these typically ethicalconsumers buy products from unethical companies? What is

their decision-making processwhen they purchase products from companies that engage in

unethical activities? What factors affect their decision-making process? Answering these

questions is important because, accordingto Hassan et al. (2013), consumers may feel guilty

when they buy and use unethical companies’productsas they are indirectly participating in

the unethical activities by buying and using the products. Negative emotions including

feeling guilty could negatively affect society (Bolger et al.,1989) and decrease consumers’

self-esteem and self-eff‌iciency (Gardner and Pierce, 1998). In contrast, ethical consumption

could lead to a positive emotion such as pride (Antonetti and Maklan, 2014). Specif‌ically,

when consumption is consistentwith consumers’personal norms, it may enhance their pride

(Antonetti and Maklan, 2014;Gregory-Smith et al.,2013). Thus, encouraging consumers to

behave morally could contributeto society’s and individuals’well-being. It is also important

for companies because consumerswho are proud of the company’s activities may have more

positive attitudes and higher purchase intention towards the products (Antonetti and

Maklan, 2014). This studyuses two concepts related to consumers’moral preferences:homo

moralis (i.e. doing the right thing) and homo economicus (i.e. responding to economic

incentives).

The fashion industry is labor-intensive and the working conditions are often

substandard or unethical (Cookeand He, 2010). Consumers’responses to fashion companies’

unethical activities may be different than other industries, “because a brand image in the

fashion industry is one of the importantfactors affecting consumers’decision making”(Lee

and Lee, 2013, p. 388). Therefore, we wouldexpect that consumers would have more ethical

behaviour in their consumption of fashion products. However, Joergens (2006) argued that

although consumers recognize fashion companies’unethical activities, they are not

necessarily concerned about these activities. Other scholars have also argued that fashion

consumers are less likelyto purchase eco-fashion products despite having a positiveattitude

towards environmental issues (Joergens, 2006;Ochoa, 2011). It may be that consumers’

decisions about fashion products are different than for products in other industries

(Niinimäki, 2010). However, little is known about this consumer ambivalence in the fashion

industry. Thus, this study focuses on consumers’ambivalent responses to the unethical

activities of fashioncompanies.

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