Ethical consumption in Vietnam – do moral philosophy, values and demographics differences matter? A research proposal

Ha Tran Thi Phuong, Nhan Tran Danh/ MICA 2018 Proceedings

International Conference on Marketing in the Connected Age (MICA-2018), October 6^th, 2018

Danang City, Vietnam

Ethical Consumption in Vietnam – Do Moral Philosophy,

Values and Demographics Differences Matter? A Research

Proposal

Ha Tran Thi Phuong^a*, Nhan Tran Danh^b

^aFaculty of Marketing, University of Economics – The University of Danang, Danang 59000, Vietnam

^bFaculty of E-Commerce, University of Economics – The University of Danang, Danang 59000, Vietnam

A B S T R A C T

Ethical consumption has become a big dimension to those carrying out study into ethical decision-making.

Among various factors have been proposed as predictors of ethical behaviours in literature, this study expects

to prove the influences of moral philosophy, values, and demographics differences on individual’s ethical

buying choices, as well as the extent to which these factors lead consumer’s ethical choice different by

empirical evidence from quantitative data. A literature review about ethical consumption and antecedent

factors has been done, hypotheses are built, then a proposal for a quantitative research would be suggested to

employ in Vietnam market. The present study would significantly contribute as a pioneering works to

understand Vietnamese consumer’s ethical choice in academic area with a strong evidence from an empirical

statistic. In addition, the results of this study could be an important reference source to be pragmatically

applied in marketing efforts to guide business toward a better position to generate new interest in their

products with a deep understanding of customers in Vietnam, especially in the market of new era.

Keywords: Ethical consumption; Values; Moral philosophy; Demographics difference;

1. Introduction

In order to pursue the sustainable development strategy, more and more businesses recognize the importance

of concerning environmental issues and social welfare in their decision-making process during the past decade

(Chow & Chen, 2012; Sudbury-Riley & Kohlbacher, 2016). Along with businesses’ concerns of the sustainable,

on the consumer’s perspective, it is worth to mention that the trend of “ethical consumption” with the customer’s

considerations on human welfare and natural environment has been increasing significantly among consumers

around the world (Dubuisson-Quellier, 2016). Carrigan, M., Szmigin, I., & Wright, J. (2004) admited that ethical

marketing decisions becomes a core mission to every business to enhances the happiness of its target customers

under the impact of ethical consumerism trend. This phenomenon has been noted and has received an increased

attention in academic research by a lot of scientists for more than a decade (Carrington et al. 2010; Strong 1996).

Although the number of researches into ethical consumption field has increased dramatically, ‘relatively little

attention has been given to how ethical considerations in consumption are thought about by consumers (Belk et

al., 2005). As more ethical choices enter consumer consciousness during his/her decision-making (Cherrier and

Murray, 2002; Memery et al., 2005), understanding why those choices are made has become an important area of

* Corresponding author. E-mail address: phuongha.jian[email protected]

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consumer research. However, few studies have been done to define the influencing factors would impact on

consumer’s ethical buying behavior (Bray, J., Johns, N., & Kilburn, D., 2011). Furthermore, there is also a lack

of research that empirically examines the extent to which factors influence buyer’s actual ethical consumption

(Andorfer and Liebe, 2012; Hamari, J., Sjöklint, M., & Ukkonen, A, 2016).

Hunt and Vitell (1993) had noticed that individual’s personal characteristics are important factors which

influence his/her perceived ethical situations and then impact on the whole ethical decision-making process

which leads to the final ethical behavior. Craft (2013) in her review of empirical study on ethical decision-

making has indicated that the increased numbers of research about individual factors in ethical decision-making

process has remained consistent over three decades and is expected to continue. This trend is a strong evidence

which emphasizes the significant role of personal factors in predicting customer’s differences on ethical

behaviors. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to define the personal factors would strongly influence on

consumer’s ethical purchase choices. In literature review, the arguments have been discussed to improve the

impact of personal values, individual moral philosophy, and personal demographics differences on buyer’s

ethical consumption, then a framework is built with hypotheses about the relationship between variables, then

data analysis process is expected to be done to empirically examine the extent to which these factors make the

buyer’s actual ethical consumption different.

Moreover, the study is conducted on the sample of Vietnam consumers where the concept of “ethical

consumption” seems to be still a new dimension. There are some important reasons which motivate the research

would be focus in Vietnam market. First, although ethical consumption is a significant academic concept which

attract scientist’s attention around the world, there is few studies on this field has been done in Vietnam,

especially with some narrower concepts: “green consumption” and “green products”, sustainable consumption

(KN Nguyen, 2015; HTB Thoa, 2015; Lobo & Greenland, 2016). Second, the dramatic development in

economics of emerging countries, such as Vietnam, would be a cause of increasing consumption which leads to

terribly spread of solid waste production and air pollution during last decades. Chi, N. K., & Long, P. Q. (2011)

asserted the effort of Vietnam government in 3R policy (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) that was established to

increase the quantity of national waste separation at source by implementing the National Strategy on Integrated

Solid Waste Management until 2025. However, in spite of government’s determination in 3R policy, a large

proportion of Vietnamese consumers “apparently suffer from a lack of knowledge and money to live sustainably”

(De Koning, Crul et al. 2015). The present study would be conducted with an expectation to contribute on the

understanding of Vietnamese consumer’s ethical behavior and its antecedents, such as personal factors, in

academic area with a strong evidence from empirical statistic. In addition, the results of this study could be an

important reference source to be pragmatically applied in marketing efforts to guide business toward a better

position to generate new interest in their products with a deep understanding of customers in Vietnam.

2. Literature review

2.1. Ethical Consumption

The term "ethical consumption" has become a trendy phrase in the modern consumer academy, however it has

not yet been clearly demonstrated in reality. Clavin and Lewis (2005) indicated that it is difficult to define

“ethical consumption” exactly. Cooper-Martin and Holbrook (1993) had defined ethical consumption as a

process of decision-making behavior, purchasing, consuming or other experiences which are made under the

influence of ethical concerns, interestingly, the phrase “ethical concerns” seems to imply multiple layers of

hidden meaning. According to Carrigan, M., Szmigin, I., & Wright, J. (2004), the concept of ethical consumption

is boarder than “green consumption” which had been known before as representative for a consumer’s

environmentally positive choice, that means there are some other considerations also taken in customer’s ethics

perspective during their ethical purchasing behavior. In the same point of view, Cowe and Williams (2001)

agreed that ethical consumers are often influenced by moral beliefs, and then the impact of their own concerns of

ecological environment and “more” would predict what they decide to buy. Carrigan, M., Szmigin, I., & Wright,

J. (2004) pointed out that, beside environmental caring, customers are also mindful of animal welfare, fair trade,

as well as social well-being such as human right, labour standards, or even fair wages before purchasing.

Moreover, Harrison, Newholm, & Shaw (2005) said that every moral purchaser has political, religious,

otherworldly, environmental, social or different thought processes in picking one item over another choice, and

along with it, customer also cares about the consequences of his/her buying decision. Importantly, ethical

consumption additionally fills in as a medium for ethical/moral activity under the impact of moral subjective

judgments which are related to a specific item/brand over the cycle of manufacturing process, customer’s

utilization and disposition (Brunk, 2010). Therefore, in conclusion, this study comes up with an agreement on the

definition of ethical consumption, which denotes consumer’s ethical buying choices with consideration of issues

in both social and environmental aspects.

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There have been a number of studies in ethical consumption field associated with environmentally friendly

behaviors (Gilg, Barr, & Ford, 2005; Niva & Timonen, 2001; Abdul-Muhmin, 2007), and the number is still

growing. Among them, most of the studies specifically address ethical consumers in buying and using the

products that could be used as recycled ones before making a purchase decision (Autio, Heiskanen, & Heinonen,

2009; Laroche, M., Bergeron, J., & Barbaro-Forleo, G, 2001; Vicente & Reis, 2007; Nguyen & Lobo, 2017).

This means that consumers are increasingly inclined to consider the environmental relevance of a particular

product as they engage in procurement and consumption behavior with consideration of packaging materials,

resources in production processes as well as everyday wastes discharged into the environment from factories

during manufacturing. The fact that more researchers focus specifically on consumers' ethical consumer behavior

with recycling products can be explained by household waste recycling is becoming a common daily behavior of

many people under the control of recycling policies and campaigns in many countries around the world

(Sudbury-Riley & Kohlbacher, 2016). In addition, the terms green products or organic products have become

increasingly popular, which proves the evolution of consumer’s environmentally friendly trends in using and

buying products.

In the aspect of buyer’s ethical decisions that made based on his/her attention on social justice and human

rights issues, researchers often emphasizes the consumer concerns about labor exploitation in the manufacturing,

working conditions, workers' wages and even human rights under the business’s polices (Brenton & Ten Hacken,

2006; Eckhardt, Belk, & Devinney, 2010; Valor, C., & De La Cuesta, M., 2007). It is understood that consumers

pay much attention to the social welfare issues of a business while forming a buying behavior. Product

companies have a better reputation around the issues of working environment for employees, employee welfare,

social equity or social welfare, while there is an opposite tendency for Businesses lack good performance and

ethical behavior in these matters. In addition to the major research areas of social justice and human rights,

broader ethical consumer research topics also focus on animal welfare (Megicks, Memery, & Williams, 2008).

In addition to these two main aspects of consumer concerns in making ethical purchase decisions, another

issue that is also of interest to researchers is the behavior from refuse, intentionally refuse to buy the product, or

boycott the product (Carrigan et al., 2004). According to Papaoikonomou, Valverde & Ryan (2012), boycotts are

defined as anti-procurement behaviors targeted at specific products because they harm the environment.

2.2. Personal Factors as Influences on Ethical Consumption

One important issue must be expressed is that “What is ethical?” may be a question which receives different

answers from each individual (Carrington, Neville, and Whitwell, 2014). In previous researches, many authors

had argued about some different factors that have the influences on people’s ethical decision-making process.

Hunt and Vitell (1986) described the evidences of the cultural, industrial, organizational, and personal variables’

influences ethical perception in the first place, before these factors effect on ethical judgments and ethical

intentions, and finally behavior in process of making ethical decision. However, among multiple factors, Hunt

and Vitell (1993) had noticed that individuals’ personal characteristics are important components could strongly

influence one’s moral ethical situations, then leads to the dissimilarity in final behaviors. These factors

interdependently and causally shape ethical or unethical evaluations (Ferrell & Gresham, 1985). The result is

“the personal situational differences occurring among these factors may well conduce to variances in individuals’

action toward various ethical situations” (Huang et al., 2006). Additionally, Craft (2013) in her review of

empirical study on ethical decision-making has indicated that the trend of increased numbers on research about

individual factors in ethical decision-making process and proved the importance of individual differences in the

explanation of the dissimilarity in people’s ethical behaviors. Some key personal elements was explored and

examined in previous studies in the consideration of their impacts on individual’s ethical decision-making

process, such as age, gender, education, cultural background, religion, ethical philosophy, values, moral

development, personality traits, life experiences (Craft, 2013).

Individual Moral Philosophy

Moral philosophy fundamentally implies to the general “guiding ideology” which people engage to evaluate a

situation as “right or wrong” and it will affect their moral perception as well as moral behaviors (A. J. Dubinsky

et al., 2004; Forsyth, 1980). Ferrell and Gresham (1985) also stated that individual moral standards primarily

develop from a set of moral philosophies that judge what is ethically right or wrong. It means that moral

philosophy would be considered as the primary guiding ideology that individuals apply before evaluating the

rightness or wrongness of a situation. Similarly, according to the emphasis of normative approaches in the

literature, it was proposed that that marketers might develop their guidelines and rules for ethical behavior based

on moral philosophy (Ferrell & Gresham, 1985). Sharing the same opinion, Forsyth (1980)’s model showed that

individual’s moral philosophy effect his/her moral judgments and moral behaviors.

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Additionally, Forsyth (1980) implied that, for ethical ideology, it could be described in two dimensions:

relativism and idealism. The first, idealism implies the degree to which one believes that favorable outcomes will

emanate from ethical actions (Davis, Andersen, & Curtis, 2001). That means, high idealist individuals have a

tendency to be more noteworthy worry for the others' welfare, while one with low level one may be more

cynical, who trusts that moral practices will bring about great favorable results for a few and negative outcomes

for others (Barnett, Bass, & Brown, 1996). The second, relativism, measuring the extent to which person rejects

(abjures) to apply universal codes of moral behaviors or conducts, universal moral norms, rules when making

moral judgments (Davis et al., 2001; Forsyth, 1980, 1992). People who are in high level of relativistic in their

ethical ideology tend to abjure rigid moral standards in deciding if a demonstrative is moral or deceptive; though

people with a lower level of relativism accept emphatically in supreme standards while deciding if a

demonstration is moral or not (Barnett et al., 1996).

Various studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between individual moral philosophy and

ethical behavior. A. J. Dubinsky et al. (2004) examined the influence of relativism and idealism in the process of

making moral judgments and ethical choices by comparing the individual perception toward questionable

behaviors or situations based on their different degree of relativism and idealism. The researchers posited that

people’s moral philosophy influences on his/her moral judgment and the degree that people place high or low on

relativism and idealism would likely influence the degree of that individual perceives a given behavior/situation

as ethical or unethical. In other empirical researches on ethical decision-making, researches exposed fairly

consistent findings that idealism is generally positively related to ethical decisions, while relativism is generally

negatively related to ethical decisions (Sparks & Hunt, 1998; Yetmar & Eastman, 2000). Valentine and Bateman

(2011) suggested that individuals in business tend to recognize moral issue in a sales context more when they use

an idealistic ethical ideology. Furthermore, Marques and Azevedo-Pereira (2009) fount out relativism had a

stronger effect on ethical judgments than idealism, as well as ethical ideologies did not differ in terms of ethical

judgments. Similarly, A. J. Dubinsky et al. (2004) also suggested that salespeople’s moral philosophy is related

with their perceptions of ethical issues; while relativism did not correlated to salespeople’s ethical perceptions,

salespeople with idealism belief is generally observed to be negatively related with the perception of potentially

ethically questionable problems. Fernando and Chowdhury (2010) also affirmed a weak relationship between

spiritual wellbeing and relativism, but a strong correlation between spiritual wellbeing and predictive of idealism.

Recently, Ramasamy and Yeung (2013) showed the result that the relationship between individual’s idealism and

ethical judgments is more successfully proved than the linkage between relativism and ethical judgments, and

higher on relativism moral philosophy would lead to higher variations in ethical judgments.

Particularly, in term of relativism moral philosophy, various arguments were made by previous scholars in the

respect of its influence on the way people perceive questionable behaviors or situations. Robertson et al. (2012)

posited that relativistic individuals reject the possibility of formulating and relying on moral principles when

making moral judgments when nonrelativistic evaluators accept such principles. Reidenbach and Robin (1990)

also argued that relativists uphold their decision about what is ethical is a function of a culture or individual, and

therefore, “no universal rules exist that apply to everyone”. Their assessment of a given behavior would be

guided by their knowledge of the situation and the situation’s context due to the fact that there is no overriding

set of moral principles that can prescribe appropriate action in every situation. In relativists’ point of view, all

moral norms are depending either on who is presenting them or relative to a particular culture and that an act is

right when it is approved by the social group to which one belongs (Kujala, 2001). Moreover, individual that

believes on relativism would view ethical issues simply base on how that person feels or how a culture

accommodates the desires of its peoples, however, not based on any deeper set of objectively justifiable beliefs

(Beauchamp & Bowie, 1983). In addition, individuals who are high relativistic in their moral philosophy tend to

abjure rigid moral standards in the determination as to whether an act is ethical or unethical; while individuals

who are low in degree of relativism would strongly believe in the moral principles when they determine whether

a behavior is ethical or unethical (Barnett et al., 1996; A. J. Dubinsky et al., 2004). Besides, according to

Robertson and Fadil (1999), the importance is what considered as right or wrong is strictly a matter for

individuals to determine based on the ethical principle, values they have chosen to adopt; then, they determine

the ethicality of the actions/situations. Therefore, a high relativistic salesperson, who usually rejects the rigid

moral standards to evaluate situations, may often follows the peer’s opinions or listens to his/her own feeling

about situation without relying on any deeper set of objectively justifiable beliefs, would possibly tend to see

more favorable toward ethically questionable behaviors, due to they are unlikely to disagree with an ethically

questionable situation without full understanding of it (Alan J Dubinsky, Nataraajan, & Huang, 2005).

Conversely, consumers who are low in relativism would hold universal moral laws as the guiding for judging any

given action (A. J. Dubinsky et al., 2004). Accordingly, they might be stricter in their view toward a questionable

situation with their own belief. In other empirical researches, the consistent results show that relativism is

generally negatively related to ethical decision-making (Sparks & Hunt, 1998; Yetmar & Eastman, 2000).

Callanan, Rotenberry, Perri, and Oehlers (2010) also found out that individuals with a greater relativistic

orientation were more likely to make unethical choices than those individuals with a low degree of relativism

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while Fernando and Chowdhury (2010) showed the result of the relationship between spiritual wellbeing and

relativism was weak.

In term of idealism belief, on the other hand, various researchers have showed the positive impacts of idealism

moral philosophy on the degree of strictness people view questionable behaviors or situations. According to A. J.

Dubinsky et al. (2004), high idealistic persons always believe that the appropriate action would lead to desirable

consequences with favorable impacts on others. With this belief, the consumer’s behavior is guided by the

outcome of the final behavior, therefore only action that gives favorable impacts on others would be taken. The

important thing with this belief is that only ethically responsible action would lead to positive results (A. J.

Dubinsky et al., 2004). For this reason, the high idealistic buyers seem to perceive some ethically questionable

practices as unethical because it might cause some potential negative, harmful results to others. In contrast,

consumers who are low in idealism believe that the ethical behaviors do not always lead to propitious

consequences. In another word, they may perceive both favorable and unfavorable outcomes would be created by

a certain action even when that action is ethical. In another study, the researcher also affirmed that high idealistic

individuals apt to see questionable situations as unethical since it may cause potential unfavorable outcome to

others (Alan J Dubinsky et al., 2005). In addition, Bass et al. (1998) argued that high idealistic individuals are

likely to question more harshly than non-idealistic individuals because they believe that acting more morally can

help avoiding harm to others. Callanan et al. (2010) also found that individuals with higher degree of idealism

were more likely to choose more ethical options than those who displayed a lower degree of idealism.

Furthermore, in a recent empirical study of Valentine and Bateman (2011), the results showed that individuals

tended to identify a moral issue when they applied an idealistic ethical ideology.

Based on the discussion about the influence of moral philosophy on individual’s ethical choice above, an

application could be adapted in individual’s ethical consumption area, following hypotheses are proposed:

H1: Consumer’s idealism is positively correlated with the extent to which he/she behaves ethically in

consumption practices

H2: Consumer’s relativism is negatively correlated with the extent to which he/she behaves ethically in ethical

consumption practices

Personal Values

Value is defined as “a conception, explicit or implicit, distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group,

of the desirable, which influences the selection from available modes means, and ends of action” (Kluckhohn,

1954). Similarly, Williams, Davies, Jones, and Roberts (1968) stated that a person’s values serve as “the criteria

or standards of preference”; and “actual selections of behavior result from concrete motivations in specific

situations, which are partly determined by prior beliefs and values of the actor”. It means that values would be

considered as the “criteria of preference”, that guiding individual’s evaluation, even behaviors. In addition,

Singhapakdi and Vitell (1993) indicated that value is nature and enduring, so it might be stable to make possible

continuity of human personality and society, but at the same time, also unstable to allow for individual and social

change. To conclude on key features of values based on its common conceptions in literature, Schwartz and

Bilsky (1987) presented that is values are the concepts/beliefs about suitable/desirable actions/behaviors. Values

also go beyond the range of specific situations and drive selection or evaluation of behavior and events, and be

ordered by the degree of relative importance (Hitlin & Piliavin, 2004). Moreover, scholars assumed that values

are relatively stable across the lifetime after being formed during people’s late adolescence stage (Hitlin &

Piliavin, 2004)

Furthermore, numerous previous studies posited the important role of personal values in ethical decision

making process and denoted the impact of values on personal ethical conducts. Personal values are highlighted as

evaluative principles that established “affective and cognitive elements” to drive people to the world (Hitlin &

Piliavin, 2004). From a moral perspective, Meglino and Ravlin (1998) proposed that values denote one’s

personal beliefs/principles on how he or she ‘should’ or ‘ought’ to behave” in his/her society. Similarly, values

are acknowledged as the function of guiding standards for judging others' (and one's own) behaviors (Hitlin &

Piliavin, 2004). Thus, in general one’s behavior is a result of his/her values (Fritzsche & Oz, 2007). The links

between personal values and ethical practices also were investigated across studies and posited that personal

activated values guide the planning of action after being activated (Verplanken & Holland, 2002; Şener, A., &

Hazer, O., 2008), motivating the priority of certain actions over others (Feather, 1992), and influencing attention,

perception, and interpretation about situations (Hitlin & Piliavin, 2004).

One of the most popular models that provides a steady theoretical basis for measuring values is Schwartz

model (Hitlin & Piliavin, 2004). Schwartz (1994) established a taxonomy of ten motivationally distinct types of

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values, called achievement, benevolence, conformity, hedonism, power, security, self-direction, stimulation,

tradition, universalism based on human general requirements that every individual must handle. The model

viability is supported by plenty of evidences from samples across the nations and found to be appropriate for

cross-cultural studies of differences in individual values (Schwartz, 1992, 1994). Incorporating values identified

in a diversity of cultural settings, the construct validity and the measurement reliability of Schwartz models have

been cross-culturally proved by samples in 44 countries, including both western and eastern countries (Schwartz,

1992, 1994; Schwartz & Ros, 1995). In more detailed, the researcher presented these types of values into four

higher order value types of a circumplex. Among these four value types, scholars argued that the “openness to

change” value is the representative of the importance that people place on independence in thinking, personal

autonomy, self-direction, as well as the desire of gaining and facing to challenges, varieties, and excitements in

life (Egri & Ralston, 2004; Schwartz, 1992). Conversely, on the opposite end of the continuum, the

“conservative” values represent people’s self-control and with the placement the importance on safety, harmony,

stability, security, and tradition values. Therefore “openness to change” and “conservative” values expose the

degree to which individuals emphasize self-direction versus conformity in their decision-making (Schwartz,

1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990). In the next value set, “self-enhancement” value implies to one’s achievements

of personal success with the competence, fulfillment of social status and prestige, as well as gaining authority,

power over people while “self-transcendence” values, in the opposed side, reflect individuals’ concern with

protecting, enhancing the well-being of their friends and colleagues, as well as appreciation, tolerance, and

protection of the happiness of all human and nature (Egri & Ralston, 2004). Thus, individuals who highlight

values of self- enhancement tend to place importance on personal success, such as power, achievements, and

hedonism while universalism and benevolence are more important to people that higher value self-transcendence

(Schwartz, 1992). This circumplex model of values suggests that the values from contiguous sections are more

similar than values from opposed sections.

Personal value is asserted as the guiding principles for individuals’ ethical decision-making, surely including

ethical behavior (Ferrell & Gresham, 1985; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987), and among the preceding studies’ results

in finding the linkage, there are some specific types of personal values that were examined as being related with

ethical decisions while some others did not show the relationship. In the effort to investigate the relationship

between personal values and ethical judgment, Singhapakdi and Vitell (1993) showed the result that marketers’

ethical judgments are related to some values in personal values system, among them the value of “self-respect”

and "being well respected" are examined as positively correlated to more moral practices, while the value of

“accomplishment” just is the anathema toward sales behaviors not in marketing sector. In another study,

Fritzsche and Oz (2007) provide the results of an important positive influence of altruistic values on ethical

decision-making while self-enhancement values were suggested that are significantly negative impact

individual’s ethical decision-making. Mencl and May (2009) showed that empathy slightly predicts moral

intention; and when the cognitive empathy is high, the connection between consequences and principle-based

evaluation is strong and positive. Watson, Berkley, and Papamarcos (2009) provided a significant correlation

between the seeking for pleasure and unethical decisions, particularly in the ethical judgment category.

Moreover, in this study, Watson et al. (2009) also found that the values of benevolence, universalism, hedonism,

and power add significantly impact on moral reasoning, at a result these values simultaneously effect ethical

decisions. O’Fallon and Butterfield (2011) also found a relationship between extraversion and ethical decision-

making. Watson and Berkley (2009) showed significant effect the combination of the values of traditionalism,

conformity, and stimulation on unethical decision-making. This finding was partly consistent with the previous

study’s result of Singhapakdi and Vitell (1993) when these scholars found that some specific personal values,

including security, self-fulfillment, and fun and enjoyment in life were not significantly impact on marketer’s

ethical judgments. The preceding results gave a suggestion that different types of values would differently

contribute to individual’s behaviors toward ethical matters.

On the perspective of ethical consumption, personal values also show some strong evidence of its impact on

customer’s ethical buying decisions. Thøgersen, J., & Ölander, F. (2002) used to prove the influence of value on

ethical behavior with the research data shown that people gave more importance to the benevolence and

universalism value types would acted more for environmental protection. The sustainable consumption behaviors

of Turkish women were examined as strongly influenced by their universalism and benevolence values (Şener,

A., & Hazer, O., 2008). Similarly, a convincing relationship was found to explain the influences of universalism

values and self-direction values on consumer’s fair trade purchase in US while conformity, values, security

values and achievement values were found as significantly negatively related to fair trade purchase (Doran, C. J.,

2009).

Based on the literature review, the hypotheses would be established:

H3: Self-transcendence values have a positive influence on consumer’s ethical consumption choice

H4: Self-enhancement values have a negative influence on consumer’s ethical consumption choice

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H5: Openness to change values have a negative influence on consumer’s ethical consumption choice

H6: Conservation values have a positive influence on consumer’s ethical consumption choice

Demographic characteristics

Gender difference has been indicated as one of the most important factors which lead to the dissimilarity in

individual’s consumption behavior, but it also requires more attention from academic research (Bampton &

Maclagan, 2009). Gender socialization theory (Gilligan 1982) could be a good explanation for the difference

between males and females’ ethical perception. The dissimilarity in socialization would make the way males and

females realize and evaluate ethical issues differently. The reason for the inconsistency would come from the set

of value, moral standards and moral reasoning which these two genders employ (O’Fallon & Butterfield, 2005).

There is a number of researches has been done to prove the role of gender in one’s process of making decision,

however, the findings are not always consistent. While some researches agreed that males tend to behave less

ethically then females, which means females have a more ethical orientation than do males do (Church et al.,

2005; Singhapakdi, 2004; Oumlil and Balloun, 2009). Some other works also indicated that women concerns

more for duty, obligation, and even more “care” in the process of decision-making then men do, the higher

ethical sensitivities lead women perceive questionable consumer situations as more unethical in the comparison

to men (Vermeir and Van Kenhove, 2008; Oumlil and Balloun, 2009). Atakan et al. (2008) also posited that it is

more difficult for woman to conduct an unethical behavior then men. Based on the aforementioned common

attributes of gender difference on ethical behavior, a similar result is expected to find in the comparison of ethial

buying behavior between males and females, the hypothesis 7 is established:

H7: Female consumers tend to behave more ethically in questionable consumption situations than males do.

Beside the impact of gender on ethical behavior, age also has been posited as a determinant which makes

individual’s actions different. Moores & Chang (2006) suggested that when people fully understand their role in

society, they become more likely to behave ethically toward situations due to the development of moral

cognition. A direct relationship has been investigated between customer’s age and personal ethics, which means

older consumers tend to behave ethically than younger do (Muncy & Vitell, 1992). De Pelsmacker et al. (2005)

shared the same idea when he found a strong evidence of a positive influence of age on consumer’s ethical

behaviors. Adapting the results from preceding studies, in this context, authors would expect that older

consumers behave more ethically in questionable consumption situations, the hypothesis 8 is established:

H8: Older consumers tend to behave more ethically in questionable consumption situations than younger ones

do.

Moreover, many evidences in previous studies show a strong idea that an individual with higher level of

education would behave more ethically then the ones with lower educated (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001; Dickson

and Littrell, 1997). Therefore, in ethical consumption context, a similar result is expected to be found.

H9: Higher educated consumers tend to behave more ethically in questionable consumption situations than

lower educated ones do.

3. Research Design and Methodology

Firstly, in order to test hypotheses, the data collection is needed, then the survey would be used to get the data.

The initial draft of questionnaire is built for the pretest. The pretest is to check whether the questionnaire is

suitable for the respondents. After pretest is conducted, the final draft of questionnaire should be prepared. Then

the next step is to administer the questionnaire to the respondents. After finish collecting data, the final step

involves analyzing the data and discussion. A detailed discussion would be presented to explain the meaning of

data and to compare with the results of previous studies in the past.

3.1. Construct Measurement

Moral philosophy measurement

To examine respondent’s relativism and idealism, Forsyth (1980)’s Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) was

applied. In this measure, the EPQ includes ten items that measure relativism and ten items that measure idealism.

The previous studies already showed the psychometric properties of the EPQ were adequate (Forsyth, 1980;

Tansey et al., 1994). Moreover, this EPQ has been frequently used to measure relativism and idealism in ethics

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studies in the marketing and selling arenas (Bass et al., 1998; Callanan et al., 2010; A. J. Dubinsky et al., 2004;

Marques & Azevedo-Pereira, 2009; Singhapakdi, Rawwas, Marta, & Ismail Ahmed, 1999; Tansey et al., 1994).

The respondents were asked the question about the extent of their agreement level in 5-Likert scales with each

item on 20 items from 1 is very disagree to 5 is very agree. The cores of relativism and idealism were then

calculated for each scale by summing responses to both sets of ten items.

Value measurement

To examine value of consumers, the modified version of Schwartz’s instrument (Schwartz, 1994) developed

by Stern, Dietz et al. (1998) was used to collect data on values. There are some reasons for choosing this in

investigating the results. Firstly, value measures defined as in Schwartz’s model also have proved to be strong

predictors of attitudes and behavior (Dietz, Frisch et al. 1995; Stern, Dietz et al. 1995; Karp, 1996) However, the

scale of 56 items is much difficult to examine in empirical research. Fritzsche and Oz (2007) suggested that with

the effort to shorten the scale, Stern, Dietz et al. (1998)’s model of values still maintaining adequate reliability

and usefulness as predictors of relevant attitudes and behavior in their samples as the Schwartz (1994). This scale

is shorter with reduced value structures might make respondents feel more free and easy to respond. In Stern’s

model, with the same meaning of the items, they renamed the self-transcendence structure as altruistic values.

In order to test respondents’ personal values, respondents were asked to rate each value items on a five-point

scale anchored with the bipolar adjectives not important and extremely important "as a guiding principle in my

life”. This was consistent with the Stern, Dietz et al. (1998) and Fritzsche and Oz (2007) approach, scored from 1

to 5 with not important represented by 1 and of extremely very importance scored as 5.

Ethical consumption measurement

Among theoretical studies of ethical consumption behavior scales, very few works that viewed ethical

consumption in both consumer-driven dimensions, includes environmental and social issues (Sudbury-Riley, L.,

& Kohlbacher, F, 2016). Therefore, there is no measurement measuring the wide range of both the ethical aspects

at the same time, except for the 26-item SRCB by Rorberts and his colleages (Roberts, 1995). This scale asks

respondents to recall and report their past and present behavior instead of asking about their attitudes or

intentions in the future. By focusing on the study of past and present behavior, this scale outweighs the attitudes

or intentions of anticipating future consumer behaviors, particularly is for ethical consumer behavior (Ajzen,

1991). The SRCB has been shown to be useful over time (Webb, Mohr, & Harris, 2008) and has been used by

researchers in a number of studies in various countries. For this reason, the SRCB scale would be used to

measure the ethical consumer behavior of respondents.

The SRCB core scale consists of 26 variables that measure ethical consumer behavior based on two aspects:

Consumer ECCB and Consumer Social Responsibility (SCCB). The ECCB consists of 18 observational variables

and the SCCB consists of 8 observable variables. However, after considering the actual context in Vietnam with

a pretest of 30 respondents, the authors found that respondents did not understand some of the observable

variables, includes labor working environment in South Africa, table grape, aerosol container and imported petrol

issue in the SRCB scale. The authors argue that these are issues that are out of the knowlegde of the most

respondents and are not consistent with actual consumption behavior in Vietnam. As a result, we decided to

eliminate the four observable variables in the SRCB scale to facilitate the response and the accuracy of the

survey results.

3.2. Samples

In order to pursue the purposes of study, selected respondents in this study are consumers who are conducting

purchase activities for daily life in Vietnam. Convenience sampling method is used to select respondents.

However, to ensure that the respondents have all the ability to control their behavior and responsible for his/her

in daily life, the respondents for this study are chosen to be above eighteen years old. The respondents who

involve in the research also need to have a good awareness on the purpose of the research, and should be told

how and when they will receive feedback on the findings.

The data would be collected by self-administered questionnaire through the on-line questionnaire website.

Moreover, according to this questionnaire concerning about the individual’s ethics, and it may be regarded as the

privacy by the respondents, they were guaranteed their anonymity. Before sending the online questionnaire link

to respondents, researchers expect to explain clearly the purpose of the study.

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The sample size is expected of at least 300 respondents. Hair and et al (2006) showed that the sample size of

study must be at least five times of the number of observed variables. In this research, there are total 60 items of

observed variables, therefore, 300 to 400 is expected as an reasonable sample size.

A preliminary version of the questionnaire would be designed for a pretest. A pre-test will be conducted to

make sure all questions are concrete, clear, consistent, and do not cause any bias or misunderstood. The

questionnaire was carefully translated in Vietnamese language so that respondents can understand and answer all

the questions in survey in the most appropriate way and reduce the bias in analysis part which ensure the

translation version could remain perfectly the meaning of original scales.

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Apendix A - Construct measurement

Table 1. Values measurement scale

Types of Value

Items

A world at peace, free of war and conflict

Social justice, correcting injustice, care for the weak

Self-transcendence

(Altruistic)

Equality, equal opportunity for all

Honoring parents and elders, showing respect

Family security, safety for loved ones

Conservation

Self-discipline, self-restraint, resistance to temptation

Authority, the right to lead or command

Self-enhancement

Openness to change

Influential, having an impact on people and events

Wealth, material possessions, money

A varied life, filled with challenge, novelty, and change

An exciting life, stimulating experiences

Curious, interested in everything, exploring

Table 2. Moral philosophy measurement scale (Idealism and Relativism) – EPQ

Scale

No

Items

1

A person should make certain that their actions never intentionally harm another

even to a small degree.

Idealism

2

3

Risks to another should never be tolerated, irrespective of how small the risks might

be.

The existence of potential harm to others is always wrong, irrespective of the

benefits to be gained.

4

5

One should never psychologically or physically harm another person.

One should not perform an action which might in any way threaten the dignity and

welfare of another individual.

6

7

If an action could harm an innocent other, then it should not be done.

Deciding whether or not to perform an act by balancing the positive consequences

of the act against the negative consequences of the act is immoral.

The dignity and welfare of people should be the most important concern in any

society.

8

9

It is never necessary to sacrifice the welfare of others.

10 Moral actions are those which closely match ideals of the most "perfect" action.

1

There are no ethical principles that are so important that they should be a part of any

code of ethics.

Relativism

2

3

What is ethical varies from one situation and society to another.

Moral standards should be seen as being individualistic; what one person considers

to be moral may be judged to be immoral by another person

Different types of moralities cannot be compared as to "rightness."

Questions of what is ethical for everyone can never be resolved since what is moral

or immoral is up to the individual.

4

5

6

7

8

9

Moral standards are simple personal rules which indicate how a person should

behave, and are not to be applied in making judgments of others.

Ethical considerations in interpersonal relations are so complex that individuals

should be allowed to formulate their own individual codes.

Rigidly codifying an ethical option that prevents certain types of actions could stand

in the way of better human relations and adjustment.

No rule concerning lying can be formulated; whether a lie is permissible or not

permissible totally depends upon the situation.

10 Whether a lie is judged to be moral or immoral depends upon the circumstances

surround the action.

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Table 3. Ethical consumption measurement scale

Ethical consumption

Items

I have purchased products because they cause less pollution. ꢀ

When I purchase products, I always make a conscious effort to buy those products

that are low in pollutants. ꢀ

I make every effort to buy paper products made from recycled paper. ꢀ

When I have a choice between 2 equal products, I always purchase the one which

is less harmful to the environment. ꢀ

I try only to buy products that can be recycled. ꢀ

I use a recycling centre or in some way recycle some of my household trash.

When there is a choice, I always choose the product which contributes to the least

amount of pollution.

Whenever possible, I buy products packaged in reusable containers. ꢀ

If I understand the potential damage to the environment that some products can

cause, I do not purchase them. ꢀ

Ecologically conscious

consumer behavior

(ECCB)

I use a low-phosphate detergent or soap for my laundry. ꢀ

I have convinced members of my family or friends not to buy some products

which are harmful to the environment.

I do not buy household products that harm the environment.

I do not buy products in aerosol containers.

I buy paper towels made from recycled paper

To reduce our reliance on foreign oil, I drive my car as little as possible

I buy toilet paper made from recycled paper.

I normally make a conscious effort to limit my use of products that are made or

use scarce resources.

I have switched products for ecological reasons.

I do not buy products which use advertising that depicts minority groups in a

negative way.

I do not buy products from companies who discriminate against minorities

I do not buy products from companies who have investments in South Africa. ꢀ

Socially conscious

consumer behavior

(SCCB)

ꢀ

In the past, I have not purchased a product because its advertising depicted women

in a negative way

I will not buy a product that uses deceptive advertising.

I do not buy products from companies involved in a labor dispute

I do not buy table grapes because of the conditions under which the workers who

pick them must live. ꢀ

I try to purchase products from companies who make donations to charity.

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