A Cross-Sectional Study on Ethical Buyer Behavior towards Cruelty-Free Cosmetics: What Consequences for Female Leadership Practices?

Abstract

This study extends the theory of planned behavior model and examines the humane factors (altruism, environmental knowledge, personal appearance concerns, attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms) that shape attitudes and buyer behavior toward cruelty-free cosmetics and the consumer characteristics that reflect their behavior toward such products. Recent global occurrences have affected human behavioral patterns, namely, the COVID-19 pandemic, which we aim to study. Has behavior changed to become more ethical? A survey was carried out involving a sample of 425 Portuguese participants (a feminine culture), following a convenience- and snowball-sampling procedure. Significant correlations were found between environmental knowledge, subjective norms, and buyer behavior toward cruelty-free cosmetics with attitude and environmental knowledge and buyer behavior. Through structural equation modeling to evaluate the conceptual model, a good model fit was found, being that standardized values in the model are significant except for regressions from perceived behavior control and personal appearance concerns to buyer behavior toward cruelty-free cosmetics. Women present higher values than men on attitude, altruism, environmental knowledge, and buyer behavior, in line with what is expected in a traditional and conservative feminine culture such as that to be found in Portugal. Such a result points to the need to promote increased gender equality, for example, in senior leadership roles, as women are seen to have the desirable qualities required for a more sustainable, cruelty-free, and humane society. This is an alert for human-resource managers in the region.

What Influences Green Cosmetics Purchase Intention and Behavior? A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda

“…Attitude Among the TPB variables, attitude was the most frequently demonstrated predictor of GCPI and GCPB (27 times). A variety of attitudes were assessed in the surveyed literature, which ranged from the general attitude to green cosmetics consumption [2,3,9,[13][14][15][16][17]32,35,36,41,42,46,48,52,53,57] to other minor attitudes such as hedonic and utilitarian attitudes [58], the attitude toward cannabis-based skincare cosmetics [22], and the attitude toward cruelty-free cosmetics [20,40].…”

“…Several studies (e.g., [2,8,14,15,20,32,35,36,44]) established perceived behavioral control as a significant predictor of GCPI and GCPB. However, other studies reported an insignificant relationship [16,40].…”

“…Consumers' consciousness concerns were the fourth most significant predictor of GCPI and GCPB after TPB constructs and marketing mix-related variables; consciousness was mentioned in the surveyed literature eleven times. This included concern for consequences [59], environmentally conscious awareness/concern/value/pro-environmental belief [22,24,52]; health consciousness [19]; awareness of consequences [51], halal green awareness [42], awareness of green cosmetics [56], ethical concern/ethical consumerism [21], animal welfare/well-being concern [40], and self-image/self-appearance/personal appearance concern/consciousness [20,21].…”

“…Consumer values were the next significant predictor of GCPI and GCPB, appearing ten times in the surveyed literature. These included altruistic value, egoistic motivation [19][20][21], functional value/perceived benefits [23,24], and lifestyle/LOHAS consumption tendency [21]. However, some value-related findings were equivocal; for instance, Suphasomboon and Vassanadumrongdee [24] found that perceived emotional value did not significantly impact purchase intention.…”

“…Furthermore, there is an anomaly in the literature regarding the role of values. For instance, challenging preconceptions that pro-environmental beliefs depend on altruistic values, Jaini et al [18] found no effect of altruistic values on pro-environmental beliefs, while others found significant effects of altruistic values and egoistic motivation [19][20][21]. Moreover, Hansen et al [13] and Ribeiro et al [22] did not find a significant impact of openness to change on GCPI; however, Kumar et al [23] found that openness to change affects behavioral intention through perceived benefits and risk.…”