Abstract
This manuscript reviews and synthesizes most of the major research studies in the area of consumer ethics that have appeared since 1990. It examines both conceptual and empirical works with an objective of encouraging researchers to pursue research in the consumer ethics area. Toward this end, the paper also suggests directions for future research.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Albers-Miller, Nancy: 1999, ‘Consumer Misbehavior: Why People Buy Illicit Goods’, Journal of Consumer Marketing 16(3), 273–287.
Al-Khatib, Jamal, Kathryn Dobie and Scott J. Vitell: 1995, ‘Consumer Ethics in Developing Countries: An Empirical Investigation’, Journal of Euro-Marketing 4(2), 87–105.
Al-Khatib, Jamal, Christopher Robertson, Mohammed Al-Habib and Scott J. Vitell: 2002, ‘Ethical Beliefs and Orientations in the Middle East: Are Arab Consumers Alike?’ (unpublished working paper).
Al-Khatib, Jamal, Scott J. Vitell and Mohammed Y. A. Rawwas: 1997, ‘Consumer Ethics: A Cross-Cultural Investigation’, European Journal of Marketing 31(11/12), 750–767.
Ang, Swee Hoon, Peng Sim Cheng, Elison A. C. Lim and Siok Kuan Tambyah: 2001, ‘Spot the Difference: Consumer Responses Towards Counterfeits’, Journal of Consumer Marketing 18(3), 219–235.
Bagozzi, Richard P.: 1995, ‘Reflections on Relationship Marketing in Consumer Markets’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 23(4), 272–277.
Bateman, Connie Rae, John P. Fraedrich and Rajesh Iyer: 2002, ‘Framing Effects Within the Ethical Decision Making Process of Consumers’, Journal of Business Ethics 36 (March), 119–140.
Baumhart, R.: 1961, ‘How Ethical Are Businessmen?’, Harvard Business Review 38 (July-August), 6–31.
Brenner, Steven N. and Earl A. Molander: 1977, ‘Is the Ethics of Business Executives Changing?’, Harvard Business Review 55 ( January-February), 57–71.
Chan, Andrew, Simon Wong and Paul Leung: 1998, ‘Ethical Beliefs of Chinese Consumers in Hong Kong’, Journal of Business Ethics 17 (August), 1163–1170.
De Paulo, P. J.: 1986, ‘Ethical Perceptions of Deceptive Bargaining Tactics Used by Salespersons and Customers: A Double Standard’, in Joel G. Sagert (ed.), Proceedings of the Division of Consumer Psychology (American Psychological Association, Washington, DC).
Dodge, H. Robert, Elizabeth A. Edwards and Sam Fullerton: 1996, ‘Consumer Transgressions in the Marketplace: Consumers' Perspectives’, Psychology and Marketing 13 (December), 821–835.
Erffmeyer, Robert, Bruce Keillor and Debbie Thorne LeClair: 1999, ‘An Empirical Investigation of Japanese Consumer Ethics’, Journal of Business Ethics 18 ( January I), 35–50.
Ferrell, O. C. and Larry G. Gresham: 1985, ‘A Contingency Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision Making in Marketing’, Journal of Marketing 49 (Summer), 87–96.
Ferrell, O. C., Larry G. Gresham and John Fraedrich: 1989, ‘A Synthesis of Ethical Decision Model for Marketing’, Journal of Macromarketing 11 (Fall), 55–64.
Fullerton, Sam, Kathleen B. Kerch and H. Robert Dodge: 1996, ‘Consumer Ethics: An Assessment of Individual Behavior in the Market Place’, Journal of Business Ethics 15 ( July), 805–814.
Gardner, David M., Jim Harris and Junyong Kim: 1999, ‘The Fraudulent Consumer’, in Gregory Gundlach, William Wilkie and Patrick Murphy (eds.), Marketing and Public Policy Conference Proceedings, pp. 48–54.
Hunt, Shelby D. and Scott J. Vitell: 1986, ‘A General Theory of Marketing Ethics’, Journal of Macromarketing 8 (Spring), 5–16.
Hunt, Shelby D. and Scott J. Vitell: 1993, ‘The General Theory of Marketing Ethics: A Retrospective and Revision’, in N. Craig Smith and John A. Quelch (eds.), Ethics in Marketing (Irwin Inc., Homewood, IL), pp. 775–784.
Hunt, Shelby D. and Arturo Z. Vasquez-Parraga: 1993, ‘Organizational Consequences, Marketing Ethics, and Salesforce Supervision’, Journal of Marketing Research 30 (February), 78–90.
Kohlberg, Lawrence: 1981, The Meaning and Measurement of Moral Development (Clark University Press, Worcester, Massachusetts).
Lascu, Dana-Nicoleta: 1993, ‘Assessing Consumer Ethics: Scale Development Considerations for International Marketing’, in Rajan Varadarajan and Bernard Jaworski (eds.), Proceedings of the American Marketing Association Winter Educators' Conference, pp. 57–61.
Mayo, Michael A. and Lawrence J. Marks: 1990, ‘An Empirical Investigation of “The General Theory of Marketing Ethics”’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 18(2), 163–171.
Moschis, George P. and Gilbert Churchill, Jr.: 1978, ‘Consumer Socialization: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis’, Journal of Marketing Research 15 (November), 599–609.
Moschis, George P. and Judith D. Powell: 1986, ‘The Juvenile Shoplifter’, The Marketing Mix 10(1), 1.
Muncy, J. A. and S. J. Vitell: 1992, ‘Consumer Ethics: An Investigation of the Ethical Beliefs of the Final Consumer’, Journal of Business Research 24 ( June), 297–311.
Muncy, J. A. and Jacqueline K. Eastman: 1998, ‘Materialism and Consumer Ethics: An Exploratory Study’, Journal of Business Ethics 171 ( January II), 137–145.
Murphy, Patrick E. and Gene R. Laczniak: 1981, ‘Marketing Ethics: A Review with Implications for Managers, Educators and Researchers’, in Ben M. Enis and Kenneth J. Roering (eds.), Review of Marketing 1981 (American Marketing Association, Chicago), pp. 251–266.
Polonsky, Michael J., Pedro Q. Brito, Jorge Pinto and Nicola Higgs-Kleyn: 2001, ‘Consumer Ethics in the European Union: A Comparison of Northern and Southern Views’, Journal of Business Ethics 31 (May II), 117–130.
Rallapalli, Kumar C., Scott J. Vitell, Frank A. Wiebe and James H. Barnes: 1994, ‘Consumer Ethical Beliefs and Personality Traits: An Exploratory Analysis’, Journal of Business Ethics 13 (July), 487–495.
Rawwas, Mohammed Y. A.: 1996, ‘Consumer Ethics: An Empirical Investigation of the Ethical Beliefs of Austrian Consumers’, Journal of Business Ethics 15 (September), 1009–1019.
Rawwas, Mohammed Y. A.: 2001, ‘Culture, Personality and Morality: A Typology of International Consumers' Ethical Beliefs’, International Marketing Review 18(2), 188–209.
Rawwas, Mohammed Y. A., Gordon Patzer and Michael Klassen: 1995, ‘Consumer Ethics in Cross Cultural Settings’, European Journal of Marketing 29(7), 62–78.
Rawwas, Mohammed Y. A., Gordon Patzer and Scott J. Vitell: 1998, ‘A Cross Cultural Investigation of the Ethical Values of Consumers: The Potential Effect of War and Civil Disruption’, Journal of Business Ethics 17 (March), 435–448.
Rawwas, Mohammed Y. A. and Anusorn Singhapakdi: 1998, ‘Do Consumers' Ethical Beliefs Vary with Age? A Substantiation of Kohlberg's Typology in Marketing’, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 6 (Spring), 26–38.
Rawwas, Mohammed Y. A., David Strutton and Lester W. Johnson: 1996, ‘An Exploratory Investigation of the Ethical Values of American and Australian Consumers’, Journal of Direct Marketing 10 (Autumn), 52–63.
Rawwas, Mohammed Y. A., Scott J. Vitell and Jamal Al-Khatib: 1994, ‘Consumer Ethics: The Possible Effects of Terrorism and Civil Unrest on the Ethical Values of Consumers’, Journal of Business Ethics 13 (March), 223–231.
Singhapakdi, Anusorn, Mohammed Rawwas, Janet Marta and Mohammed Ismail Ahmed: 1999, ‘A Cross-Cultural Study of Consumer Perceptions about Marketing Ethics’, Journal of Consumer Marketing 16(3), 257–272.
Strutton, David, Scott J. Vitell and Lou E. Pelton: 1994, ‘How Consumers May Justify Inappropriate Behavior in Market Settings: An Application on the Techniques of Neutralization’, Journal of Business Research 30, 253–260.
Swaidan, Ziad: 1999, Consumer Ethics and Acculturation: The Case of the Muslim Minority in the U.S. (unpublished doctoral dissertation), University of Mississippi.
Sykes, Gresham and David Matza: 1957, ‘Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency’, American Sociological Review 22 (December 1957), 664–670.
Thong, James Y. L. and Chee-Sing Yap: 1998, ‘Testing an Ethical Decision-Making Theory: The Case of Softlifting’, Journal of Management Information Systems 15 (summer), 213–237.
Trevino, Linda: 1986, ‘Ethical Decision Making in Organizations: A Person-Situation Interactionist Model’, Academy of Management Review, 601–617.
Van Kenhove, Patrick, Iris Vermeir and Steven Verniers: 2001, ‘An Empirical Investigation of the Relationships Between Ethical Beliefs, Ethical Ideology, Political Preference and Need for Closure’, Journal of Business Ethics 32 (August II), 347–361.
Vitell, Scott J. and T. Festervand: 1987, Business Ethics: Conflicts, Practices and Beliefs of Industrial Executives’, Journal of Business Ethics 6 (February), 111–122.
Vitell, Scott J. and Shelby D. Hunt: 1990, ‘The General Theory of Marketing Ethics: A Partial Test of the Model’, Research in Marketing 10, 237–265.
Vitell, S. J., J. R. Lumpkin and M. Y. A. Rawwas: 1991, ‘Consumer Ethics: An Investigation of the Ethical Beliefs of Elderly Consumers’, Journal of Business Ethics (May), 365–375.
Vitell, Scott J. and James Muncy: 1992, ‘Consumer Ethics: An Empirical Investigation of Factors Influencing Ethical Judgments of the Final Consumer’, Journal of Business Ethics 11 (August), 585–597.
Vitell, Scott J., Anusorn Singhapakdi and James Thomas: 2001, ‘Consumer Ethics: An Application and Empirical Testing of the Hunt-Vitell Theory of Ethics’, Journal of Consumer Marketing 18(2), 153–178.
Wilkes, R. E.: 1978, ‘Fraudulent Behavior by Consumers’, Journal of Marketing (October), 67–75.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vitell, S.J. Consumer Ethics Research: Review, Synthesis and Suggestions for the Future. Journal of Business Ethics 43, 33–47 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022907014295
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022907014295