This research examines how and why reactions to other consumers’ unethical behavior differ among consumers and vary in different situations. Drawing on construal level theory, the authors propose that the relationship between other consumers’ unethical behavior and focal consumers’ unethical behavior is moderated by focal consumers’ construal level, and self-expressiveness mediates this moderating effect. Specifically, consumers at higher construal levels tend to view their behavior as more self-expressive and are thus less likely to imitate other consumers’ unethical behavior. Study 1 (...) indicates that focal consumers who have a chronic tendency to construe information at high levels are less likely to replicate other consumers’ unethical behavior than those who have a chronic tendency to construe information at low levels. Studies 2, 3a and 3b show that when primed with higher-level construals, consumers are less likely to follow other consumers’ unethical behavior than when primed with lower-level construals. The mediating effect of self-expressiveness was tested and supported in Study 1 and Study 3b. These findings help to better understand consumers’ reactions to other consumers’ unethical behavior. (shrink)

Widespread unethical corporate misconduct in an industry triggers industry-wide crises. This research investigates how industry misconduct affects consumers’ trust in the industry, by incorporating insights from a micro-level psychological aspect of institutions. The conceptual framework proposes that consumer legitimacy judgement lies at the core of industry trust, following an industry-wide crisis. The results demonstrate that perception of normalisation of misconduct affects industry trust through consumer legitimacy judgement. Moreover, the PNM-CLJ-industry trust relationship is stronger during industry-wide crises compared with crises that (...) involve only one firm, and this relationship is not dependent on the frequency of crises. This research contributes to the knowledge of product-harm crisis by deepening understanding of the trust erosion mechanism during industry-wide crises, with a focus on legitimacy judgement. The findings have implications for prevention of industry-wide crises and for boosting ethically desirable business activities. (shrink)

This study seeks to understand how consumers make unethical decisions and how unethical consumer behavior 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 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. (shrink)

The growing uses of algorithm-based decision-making in human resources management have drawn considerable attention from different stakeholders. While prior literature mainly focused on stakeholders directly related to HR decisions (e.g., employees), this paper pertained to a third-party observer perspective and investigated how consumers would respond to companies’ adoption of algorithm-based HR decision-making. Through five experimental studies, we showed that the adoption of algorithm-based (vs. human-based) HR decision-making could induce consumers’ unfavorable ethicality inferences of the company (study 1); because implementing a (...) calculative and data-driven approach (i.e. algorithm-based) to make employee-related decisions violates the deontological principles of respectful employee treatment (study 2). However, this effect was attenuated when consumers had high (vs. low) power distance beliefs (study 3); the algorithm served as assistance (vs. replacement) for human decisions (study 4); or the adoption was framed as employee-oriented (vs. company-oriented) motivated (study 5). Our findings suggested that consumers are aversive to algorithm-based HR decision-making because it is deontologically problematic regardless of its decision quality (i.e. accuracy). This paper contributes to the extant understanding of stakeholders’ responses to algorithm-based HR decision-making and consumers’ attitudes toward algorithm users. (shrink)

Interactions between human beings and chatbots are gradually becoming part of our everyday social lives. It is still unclear how human–chatbot interactions, compared to human–human interactions, influence individual morality. Building on the dual-process theory of moral judgment, a secondary data analysis, and two scenario-based experiments provide sufficient evidence that HCIs support utilitarian judgments, which reduce participants' donation amount. Study 3 further demonstrates that the negative effects of HCIs can be attenuated by inducing a social-oriented communication style in chatbots’ verbal language (...) designs. These findings highlight the negative impacts of HCIs on relationships among human beings and suggest a practical intervention for nonprofit organization managers. (shrink)

本书以邓小平理论和 "三个代表" 重要思想为指导, 在充分调研和广泛占有资料的基础上, 对儒家道德文化及其在云南少数民族地区的传播与传承挖掘整理, 作了深入系统的研究, 通过理性的思考和哲学的反思, 加以高度的归纳和概括, 并结合社会主义建设的实际, 赋予了新的时代精神.

The initial online publication contained a typesetting mistake in the author information. The original article has been corrected.

This study focuses on two specific privacy policies, namely privacy assurance and personalization declaration. Specifically, we investigate how these distinct privacy policies affect customers’ privacy concerns and subsequent purchase responses. We have developed a conceptual model that addresses the independent effects of privacy assurance and personalization declaration, as well as the mechanism of these effects. Our model is grounded in motivation theory and supported by a field experiment and a controlled experiment. Our study demonstrates that privacy assurance that claims security (...) protection negatively affects customers’ purchase probability and purchase amount. By contrast, personalization declaration that addresses personalized benefits positively affects customers’ purchase probability and purchase amount. Privacy concerns significantly mediate the negative effects of privacy assurance on purchase responses and the positive effects of personalization declaration on purchase responses. Overall, our findings inform managers of how to deploy privacy policies to reduce customers’ privacy concerns and boost purchase responses. (shrink)

China is a country that has undertaken a great transformation since the late 1970' s, and among these changes, has seen a massive growth in the advertising industry with the influx of foreign advertisers, and the development of regional and global media, such as satellite television and the Internet. This has resulted in the Chinese people of all ages having a greater opportunity of exposure to different types of advertising, including the advertising of potentially controversial products, which could clash with (...) traditional Chinese values. Using a stakeholder theory approach, this study analyzes the responses of 630 Chinese respondents to discover who is offended by controversial advertisements and determine ways potentially offensive advertising messages can be reduced, thereby assisting marketers in being more socially responsible in their advertising messages. (shrink)