Consumer ethics: A review and research agenda

Abstract

Consumer ethics continues to draw the attention of academicians and practitioners as a significant economic and social issue globally. Consumer ethics refers to moral principles that govern a consumer's behaviour. This literature review seeks to enrich the discourse on consumer ethics through a comprehensive and detailed review of 106 articles, covering 21 journals from 2010 to 2020. Through an examination of theories, contexts, characteristics, and methodologies used in consumer ethics research, our review (1) presents a comprehensive and up‐to‐date overview of the research in this field and (2) sets a future research agenda to spur scholarly research. We found studies have primarily relied on a single theoretical lens such as the theory of marketing ethics, planned behaviour, and neutralization theory. Further consumer ethics research focuses on advanced countries, with a narrow focus on developing countries. We have diagnosed the need to examine boundary conditions impacting consumer ethics. Finally, we provide actionable inputs to combat unethical consumer actions as well as promote ethical consumption.

Alexa, what do we know about conversational commerce? Insights from a systematic literature review

“…Finally , a comprehensive and systematic review of conversational commerce is arguably best undertaken and published by Psychology & Marketing because (1) conversational commerce is a marketing phenomenon that reflects the deployment of conversational agents for value creation and service delivery in the marketplace, and in the process of doing so, influences customer behavior, which can be explained by the psychological process involving a myriad of perception and evaluation influencing factors, (2) the journal is home to psychological studies of marketing phenomenon, (3) the journal has explicitly called for papers in this area (Mariani & Perez‐Vega, 2020; Pentina & Bailey, 2022), and (4) the journal has a prolific and recent track record of publishing comprehensive and systematic reviews (Hassan et al, 2022; Mariani et al, 2022), including those relying on a bibliometric methodology (Adler & Sarstedt, 2021; Donthu et al, 2021a; Khan et al, 2020), with a review on conversational commerce or conversational agents virtually nonexistent.…”

How and when Narcissism and faith in humanity drive sustainable consumption

“…In response to the need to develop novel insights into the personal and psychological factors that can explain responsible consumer behavior (cit. Hassan et al, 2022), we show that narcissism and faith in humanity are two relevant personality drivers of (un)sustainable consumption. Specifically, we observe that while narcissism has a detrimental impact, faith in humanity drives product reuse.…”

“…Second, in response to the scant attention given to personality traits, apart for the Big Five, as drivers of sustainable consumption (Table 2) and to recent calls for more research on how traits may prompt responsible consumer behavior (cit. Hassan et al, 2022), we combine personality trait theory work with insights from the principle of trait activation, examining the conditional effects of social exclusion and subjective norms as trait-relevant psychological and social situational cues (Tett & Burnett, 2003). We advance understanding with respect to how (the process by which) and when (the conditions under which) narcissism and faith in humanity drive consumers to engage in product reuse.…”

“…An essential theoretical perspective for understanding consumer sustainable behavior is personality trait theory (cit. Hassan et al, 2022).…”

Does psychological distance and religiosity influence fraudulent customer behaviour?

“…Ethical decision‐making can occur at any time of the day or situation and can influence how individuals observe, review, and have behavioural intentions (Jones, 1991; Wen‐yeh, 2018). Customer ethics has been studied as a topic of much research (Hassan et al., 2021). These ethical decisions can often be affected positively or negatively depending on the intensity of an ethical predicament, individual experience, and situational issues (Wen‐yeh, 2018).…”