The Ethics of Students’ Behavior: Between Intentions, Judgment and Action

Abstract

Consumption behavior -not long ago a neglected and marginalized domain -has shifted its focus towards exploring questionable ethical behaviors. While in the past consumers were questioned especially with regard to their opinions as to business ethics, today they are questioned as to the ethics of their consumption behavior. This study focuses upon the possible explanations of ethically questionable consumer behavior, namely the ethics of students' behavior from a comparative perspective: the students from the Faculties of Business and Faculties of Medicine from Romania and Bulgaria. Our results indicate the fact that there are no significant differences as to the ethical buying behavior between the two groups of students from the two countries. Moreover, there are no significant differences between the students of the two approached majors in Romania and Bulgaria in terms of knowledge and information related to ethical/non-ethical conduct. Despite all this, our research proves that when faced with real shopping situations, most students have the tendency of acting unethically, using different types of pretexts ("super-stories") in order to justify their "sideslip" from the declared behavior. This mismatch between the declared behavior (intention to buy ethically) and the real behavior (action) can be explained by means of social factors (situational conditions). In our case, theoretical education, information and the students' efforts to behave ethically as consumers seem to be highly undermined by the realities of the standard of living, expressed through their families' level of income. In other words, behavioral intentions are affected by ethical judgments: when given the opportunity, students make judgments: perceived unfairness, though context specific, show signs of significant influence on the practice of unethical behavior.

Ethical Consumption: What Makes People Buy "Ethical" Products

“…Sing and Verma (2017) presented the same result, that income is a potential factor that influences actual behaviour towards ethical products. Also, a study by Coman et al (2016) confirmed that income or economic situation, in general, has a significant impact on the actual preference for ethical products in purchasing decisions. Ethical food consumption, as a specific area of ethical shopping, is also framed in the accounts of people living in affluent societies.…”