Counterfeit Luxuries: Does Moral Reasoning Strategy Influence Consumers’ Pursuit of Counterfeits?

Morality, in the context of luxury counterfeit goods, has been widely discussed in existing literature as having a strong association with decreased purchase intention. However, drawing on moral disengagement theory, we argue that individuals are motivated to justify their immoral behaviors through...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Authors: Chen, Jie (Author) ; Teng, Lefa (Author) ; Liao, Yonghai (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2018
In: Journal of business ethics
Further subjects:B Moral rationalization
B Moral decoupling
B Counterfeit purchase intention
B Moral Disengagement
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Morality, in the context of luxury counterfeit goods, has been widely discussed in existing literature as having a strong association with decreased purchase intention. However, drawing on moral disengagement theory, we argue that individuals are motivated to justify their immoral behaviors through guilt avoidance, thus increasing counterfeit purchase intention. This research demonstrates that consumers’ desire to purchase counterfeit luxuries hinges on (one of) two types of moral reasoning strategies: moral rationalization and moral decoupling. The empirical results show that each strategy increases purchase intention, but respectively through moral judgment and perceived benefit. Implications for researchers and managers are discussed.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3255-y