Individual and collective ethical stances regarding ethical consumption and related outcomes are usually seen as both a form of concern about extant market offerings and as opportunities to develop new offerings. In this sense, demand and supply are traditionally portrayed as interacting dialectically on the basis of extant business models. In general, this perspective implicitly assumes the juxtaposition of demand side ethical stances and supply side corporate initiatives. The Eataly story describes, however, a different approach to market transformation; in this (...) case a company and a social movement (Slow Food) have negotiated and collaborated prior to initiating a new business model. This collaboration process and its outcomes are described, focusing specifically on ordinary Eataly customers’ and Slow Food members’ reactions. Given that Eataly can be regarded as a case of mainstreaming, ordinary customers seem satisfied with the new offering and the Slow Food support for the initiative; the more purist members of the Slow Food movement had critical concerns, however, as happened in similar conditions, according to literature, with regard to Fair Trade. The Slow Food endorsement of the new venture has also been observed from the attitude–behaviour gap perspective, as it contributed to addressing the factors affecting the gap between attitudes and actual behaviours. Extensive qualitative data were collected and analysed over a 3-year period. The main study implications refer to the ways in which companies and social movements could interact to co-design new business models, as well as outlining consumers’ attitudes and behaviours towards such new offerings. (shrink)

An overview and assessment of the current state of research on individual consumption of Fair Trade (FT) products is given on the basis of 51 journal publications. Arranging this field of ethical consumption research according to key research objectives, theoretical approaches, methods, and study population, the review suggests that most studies apply social psychological approaches focusing mainly on consumer attitudes. Fewer studies draw on economic approaches focusing on consumers’ willingness to pay ethical premia for FT products or sociological approaches relying (...) on the concept of consumer identity. Experimental, qualitative and conventional survey methods are used approximately equally often. Almost all studies draw on convenience or purposive samples and most studies are conducted in the USA or the United Kingdom. Several problems in current research are identified: amongst others, studies’ rather narrow theoretical focus, potential hypothetical and social desirability bias of conventional survey data, and a lack of generalizability of empirical findings. In turn, we suggest that research would benefit from both a multiple-motives and a multiple-methods perspective. Considering competing theories can help to single out key behavioral determinants of individual FT consumption. The combination of different methods such as conventional surveys and field experiments contributes to uncovering respondents’ truthful answers and improves generalizability of results. Scholars in the field of ethical consumption research should use experiments to detect causal relations proposed by theories and conduct cross-country surveys to gather insights as to how differences in market structures, cultural traits, and other path dependencies affect patterns of individual FT consumption. (shrink)

Consumers often intend to create a socially responsible identity by consuming ethically. Observers, however, do not limit their inferences to the specific identity consumers intend to project. To illustrate, we examine how observers make inferences about consumers on the basis of their ethical consumption. Across four studies we find that, in addition to being viewed as ethical, consumers are viewed as less masculine and more feminine when they consume ethical products. We also identify two boundary conditions to this effect, including (...) the use of self-benefit/other-benefit advertising appeals and the use of descriptive norms to establish gender appropriate behavior. We finally examine how consumers resolve the conflict of creating ethical and gender-congruent identities. We find that when male consumers are in the presence of observers of the opposite sex, they are more likely to prioritize ethical identity even when it threatens their gender orientation. (shrink)

Normative and historical arguments support the idea that religion potentially shapes decisions to support fair trade products. That said, the question of how religion influences organizational decision-makers to purchase fair trade products in a business-to-business context has remained largely unaddressed. This research examines the interactive effect of individual religious commitment and contextual religious salience on an individual’s willingness to pay a price premium for a fair trade product, when buying on behalf of an organization. Findings from two experimental studies reveal (...) that the effect of a decision-maker’s religious commitment on his or her willingness to pay a price premium, for the purchase of a fair trade product on behalf of an organization, is moderated by the contextual salience of religion. Specifically, when religion is highly salient in the organizational context, religious commitment is positively related to the decision-maker’s willingness to pay a premium for the fair trade product; when contextual religious salience is low, religious commitment and willingness to pay a premium are unrelated. Implications for theory and practice are presented. (shrink)

Social network sites are a new communication channel to convey CSR information. They are interactive channels that let users participate, spread content and generate positive and negative electronic word-of-mouth about companies that can dramatically affect their reputation and future business. To identify the factors behind this behaviour, we designed a causal model to explain the intention to both comment on and share a negative corporate social responsibility news posted on Facebook. We included the following as explanatory variables: social consciousness, environmental (...) consciousness, information usefulness, corporate image and attitude towards sharing and commenting on CSR news. We surveyed 208 Facebook users who evaluated a fictitious news item about an environmental issue. We observed that social and environmental consciousness influences the usefulness of information and the attitude towards behaviour, which may explain the eWOM intention of the specific news. However, corporate image can cause people to refrain from generating eWOM and spreading the news on their friend social network. (shrink)

The article reports the findings of an empirical study among consumers, regarding the impact of physical, social, and psychological proximity on their engagement to the fair trade idea and purchasing behavior. Based on a random sample of 211 British and 112 Indian consumers and using structural equation modeling, it was found that high levels of physical, social, and psychological proximity leads to high consumer fair trade engagement. Moreover, consumer fair trade engagement was confirmed to have a positive impact on fair (...) trade purchasing behavior. Furthermore, consumer empathic concern was found to positively moderate the association between proximity and consumer fair trade engagement, while the opposite was true with regard to consumer hypocrisy. Finally, consumer nationality was found to have a control effect on physical, social, and psychological proximity, with the latter felt stronger among Indian, as opposed to British consumers. (shrink)

This conceptual article applies the customer value (CV) concept in the context of green marketing aiming to provide insights on the factors that motivate and/or hinder the development of consumer–green brand relationships. The article draws upon existing literature on the streams of CV, relationship marketing and environmental behaviour and synthesises relevant findings to propose an integrated conceptual framework entailing all identified types of value and cost, psychographic characteristics, as well as dimensions of relationship quality (RQ) and loyalty. Furthermore, it addresses (...) existing questions on the links among constructs and proposes several relationships that may lead to a better understanding of consumer behaviour towards green brands. Through the here-proposed conceptual model, the article initiates the process of empirically examining the consumer adoption of and relationship development with green brands. The CV framework adopted here may provide practitioners with knowledge on the value and sacrifice factors, as well as the dimensions of RQ that are the most important in targeting green consumers and designing relationship marketing strategies. The article also fulfils an identified gap in the literature, as it is the first that brings together and applies research findings from CV and relationship marketing fields in the green marketing context and proposes an integrated approach to understanding consumer–green brands relationships. (shrink)

The growing availability and consumption of Fairtrade products is recognised as one of the most widespread ethically inspired market developments, and as an example of activist-driven change within the wider marketing system. The Fairtrade Towns movement, now operating in over 1700 towns and cities globally, represents a comparatively recent extension of Fairtrade marketing driven by local activists seeking to promote positive change in production and consumption systems. This paper briefly explores the conventional framing of the role that ethically related activism (...) plays in the operation of markets and in influencing market participants. It then presents key insights gathered from a grounded theory exploration of Fairtrade Towns as activist-driven marketing systems, revealing the atypical nature of the activism involved. The findings demonstrate how local activists leverage their social networks to exert pressure and generate support to promote ethical consumption. The study suggests that Fairtrade Towns offer a new role for activists as Fairtrade itself becomes more mainstream, and considers the role they are fulfilling as ‘informal’ local marketers. The marketing dynamics revealed represent a complex and distinctive form of relational activism that seeks to build Fairtrade markets and highlight their positive benefits, with potential lessons for other local ethical market-building efforts in future. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a surge in popularity of the fair-trade industry, which seeks to improve trading conditions and to promote the rights of marginalized workers. Although research suggests that fair-trade products are perceived as promoting social and economic responsibility, some individuals—namely, those who seek to maintain existing group inequalities or those induced to think inequality is a good thing—may not share this perception. Across three studies, we found that SDO relates negatively to fair-trade consumption, and this relationship (...) is mediated by the tendency for high-SDO individuals to see fair-trade products as less compatible with their conception of social justice. Our findings held after controlling for related individual-differences variables, and regardless of whether SDO was measured or manipulated. Implications for how to maximize the likelihood that people will perceive fair-trade products as “fair” are discussed. (shrink)

Workplace incivility is a current challenge in organizations, including smaller firms, as is the development of programs that enhance employees’ treatment of coworkers and ethical decision making. Ethics programs in particular might attenuate tendencies toward interpersonal misconduct, which can harm ethical reasoning. Consequently, this study evaluated the relationships among the presence of ethics codes and employees’ locus of control, social aversion/malevolence, and ethical judgments of incivility using information secured from a sample of businesspersons employed in smaller organizations. Results indicated that (...) ethics code presence was associated with a more internal locus of control and stronger ethical judgment of workplace incivility. Social aversion/malevolence was negatively related to ethical judgment, and internal locus of control was positively related to ethical judgment. Smaller firms should develop ethics codes to manage individuals’ perceptions of control, thus encouraging enhanced ethical reasoning in situations that involve the mistreatment of coworkers; they should also monitor counterproductive tendencies that harm such reasoning and precipitate incivility. (shrink)

The certification-based Fair Trade initiative has been steadily growing during the last two decades. While many scholars have analyzed its main characteristics and developments, only a few have assessed it against a concept of justice. And those exceptional cases have only focused on distributive justice, proving unable to grasp the important ethical elements that Fair Trade integrates in its project. In reaction to this, this article intends to critically examine what the Fair Trade movement proposes to be ‘fair’ by resorting (...) to the thought of the French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas. To accomplish this goal, a new understanding of his conception of justice is presented, one that seeks to overcome the limitations that the two most common interpretations in the literature suffer. The idea of Lévinas’ ‘dialectics of justice’ is used to discuss Fair Trade’s relation of alterity, its appropriation of the notion of ‘face’ and its commitment to and responsibility for marginalized producers and workers. This analysis shows that Fair Trade operates with what could be described as a fetishized understanding of Levinasian ethics that justifies a deeply unjust praxis. (shrink)