Relationship between ethics and buying: A study of the beauty and healthcare sector in the Middle East

Abstract

Research in ethical consumerism has concentrated on attempts to either categorise ethical consumers or to uncover their decision-making processes, but to-date there have been few investigations into the key ethical drivers behind the decision-making process. This study attempts to identify these ethical drivers within their particular product groups by means of a survey of self-proclaimed ethical consumers distributed via a questionnaire through face to face interactions. The study analyses whether ethical decision making is dependent on product attributes or ethical attributes or both. A theoretical framework with hypothesised relationships is developed and tested in order to answer the research question. Data have been collected from 195 respondents in beauty and healthcare sector. The proposed relationships are tested using structural equations modelling. The findings indicate that positive relationships exist between the two exogenous constructs namely product attributes (PA), ethical attributes (EA) and the single endogenous construct while making a decision to buy ethical products (BE). The managerial and academic implications of the results are discussed.