The Role of Culture and Religion on the Dimensions of Consumers’ Ethical Beliefs with the Mediatory Role of Morality: Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Consumer’s ethical predisposition is a complex and highly subjective phenomenon. Individual differences may determine why one consumer recognizes an issue as a moral issue, whereas another does not. Some have argued that although many acts unethically because they intend to, others simply do not recognize the moral aspects of the situations in which they are involved and thus do not initiate the moral decision-making process. These Ethical Beliefs can be influenced by external factors such as Religion and culture, as well as individual moral identity. We proposed a theoretical framework explaining how Consumer’s ethical predisposition are shaped linking religious and cultural factors. These factors affect ethical beliefs through the internalization of moral identity. For that, we modified (Huang & Lu, 2015) model of consumer ethics and combine it with (J. Vitell, et al., 2015) model to include moral identity. To measure consumer ethics, we applied (Vitell & Muncy, 1992) scale consisting of following dimensions (a) actively benefiting from illegal activities; (b) passively benefiting from questionable activities; (c) actively benefiting from deceptive legal activities; and (d) engaging in no harm and no foul activities. To empirically establish its validity, we apply this model to a sample size of 209 Pakistani consumers by means of a close-ended questionnaire. The data was later analyzed using structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis. The results suggested that Religion/spirituality has found to be positively and significantly affecting all four dimensions of consumer ethics. Moreover, the internalization of moral identity seems to affect all consumer ethics except No harm dimension. Similarly, Collectivism has a significant impact on all consumer ethics except with Actively Benefiting and no harm dimension. Hence this implies that Consumers of Pakistan, who have high internalization of moral identity, Religion/spirituality beliefs, and collective culture are generally more ethical consumers.