The Developmental Process of Unethical Consumer Behavior: An Investigation Grounded in China

This study seeks to understand how consumers make unethical decisions and how unethical consumer behavior (UCB) is formed in a relational society. By taking a relational interactive perspective and adopting a grounded theory approach, we have developed a theoretical framework for examining UCB’s dev...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Liu, Zhiqiang (Author) ; Yang, Zhilin (Author) ; Zeng, Fue (Author) ; Waller, David (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 2015
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2015, Volume: 128, Issue: 2, Pages: 411-432
Further subjects:B Unethical consumer behavior
B Relational interaction
B Guanxi
B Consumer ethics
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Description
Summary:This study seeks to understand how consumers make unethical decisions and how unethical consumer behavior (UCB) is formed in a relational society. By taking a relational interactive perspective and adopting a grounded theory approach, we have developed a theoretical framework for examining UCB’s developmental process in a relational society. The framework reveals 4 levels (i.e., the socio-cultural, individual psychological, situational, and individual behavioral levels) and 12 paths of UCB formation. Importantly, this study finds that UCB in a relational society is influenced by guanxi-oriented social culture so deeply that it cannot be considered the result of a purely individual behavior choice.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2061-7