Consumers’ perceptions regarding questionable consumption practices in China

Abstract

Purpose Since East Asian Confucian societies are relational societies that view harmonious relationships with others as important, the issue of consumer ethics has received considerable attention in the quest to improve the effectiveness of business transactions. This is especially true of China, a large developing country with many business investment opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between consumer ethical beliefs and the personality traits of consumer relationship proneness, religiousness, attitude toward business and love of money, which are seldom explored in the literature. Design/methodology/approach The sample is collected by systematic sampling in China and a sample of 434 individuals is surveyed. This study performs confirmatory factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity and then uses the evaluation of the structural equation model exhibited a good fit between the model and the observed data to test the hypotheses via LISREL 8.7. Findings Findings show that individuals with stronger relationship proneness and high religiousness tend to more strongly consider many questionable consumer practices as unacceptable. Attitude toward business and love of money partially impact consumer unethical beliefs. Originality/value While there cultural differences between East Asian and western societies, consumer relationship proneness and the three other constructs featuring Chinese characteristics should be considered a vital personality in Chinese society. The results of this study offer findings which are not fully consistent with the findings of studies conducted in other countries and can improve friendly relationship marketing practices with Chinese consumers. More research is necessary to understand consumer ethical behavior in the varied cultures of Asia.