Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine whether users’ perceived moral affect explains the effect of perceived intensity of emotional distress on responsibility judgment of a perpetrator and company, respectively, in an ill and good intention breach.

Participants completed a questionnaire containing items measuring their perceived intensity of emotional distress, perceived moral affect and responsibility judgment of a perpetrator and company, respectively.

The results support the mediating hypothesis on responsibility judgment of a perpetrator regardless of intention. The mediating hypothesis is also supported in an ill intention breach in responsibility judgment of a company. However, the mediating effect is not observed in a good intention breach when users assess a company’s responsibility.

The findings support the notion that users use the consequentialism approach when assessing a perpetrator’s responsibility because they focus on the victims’ emotional distress and discount a perpetrator’s intent, resulting in similar mediating effect of perceived moral affect in an ill and good intention breach. The results also indicate that perceived moral affect increases the negative effect of perceived intensity of emotional distress on responsibility judgment of a company, suggesting that users may exhibit empathetic feelings toward a company and perceive it as a victim of an ill intention breach. The lack of mediating effect in responsibility judgment of a company in a good intention breach may be attributed to the diminished effect of a perpetrator’s feelings of regret, sorrow, guilt and shame for causing emotional distress to the victims.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of consumers’ moral preferences between moral and economic benefits and consumers’ moral and rational behaviour intentions based on moral decision-making models of previous studies.

Respondents were asked to answer a questionnaire measuring moral and economic benefits, consumers’ moral preferences and moral and rational behaviour intention after reading a stimulus describing imaginary fashion brand A’s unethical activities.

Moral and economic benefits directly and significantly affect moral and rational behaviour intention. Homo economicus evoked by an economic benefit had a negative effect on moral behaviour intention.

This study focused only on a moral benefit and an economic benefit as factors evoking consumers’ moral preferences. This study was also conducted only in a Korean context and considered a specific industry. In future research, the results of this study should be extended to design the “possibility of punishment” to encourage moral behaviour by discouraging the effect of homo economicus. The results have implications for companies such as social enterprises and charities that want to promote consumers’ moral behaviour.

This study provides evidence on why ethical consumers do not always make ethical decisions by confirming that homo economicus has a significant influence on not only rational behaviour intention but also moral behaviour intention.

This paper aims to investigate the role of affect and tolerance of ambiguity on ethical decision-making of management and accounting students.

Weisbrod’s (2009) questionnaire on ethical decision-making in individual and organizational situations, McDonald’s (1970)16-factor questionnaire on tolerance of ambiguity and Watson et al.’s (1988) Positive and Negative Affect Schedule were used to study the students’ views toward research hypotheses. The population used in this study includes graduate and PhD students of accounting and management during the academic year 2014-2015. The number of samples is 398 and sample members selected using simple random sampling method. Hypotheses test using structural equation modeling in the AMOS software version 18.

Results of hypotheses shows that individual characteristics of positive and negative affect and tolerance of ambiguity have no effect on accounting students’ ethical decision-making, but there is a significant positive relationship between management students’ negative affect and ethical decision-making, and a significant negative relationship between management students’ increased level of tolerance of ambiguity and ethical decision-making. The findings also show that affect (positive and negative) and tolerance of ambiguity have no interactive effect on accounting students’ ethical decision-making, whereas among students of management, there is a significant relationship between interactive effect of negative affect and tolerance of ambiguity on ethical decision-making. The results show that there is a significant difference between students of management and accounting based on negative effects and tolerance of ambiguity on ethical decision-making.

The current paper is almost the first paper which was conducted in developing countries.

The study aims to examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure does improve debt financing of listed firms with sustainable development agendas coupled with high chief executive officer (CEO) tenure in India.

Employing panel regression based on fixed effect and instrumental variable regression with fixed effect assumptions, the study examined data from the Bombay stock exchange from the period 2010 to 2019.

The study demonstrates that the disclosure of current exchange capital and moral capital cannot cause a firm to access short-term and long-term debt financing. However, lag investment in moral capital causes a positive effect on short-term debt financing. The second findings show that CEO tenure has a positive and statistically significant association with short-term debt financing and an insignificant association with long-term debt financing. The third findings show that the interaction of current CSR disclosure (moral and exchange capital) and CEO tenure is insignificant in affecting short-term and long-term debt finance. However, the interaction of lag CSR disclosure (moral and exchange capital) and CEO tenure positively affect short-term debt financing. The study addresses any endogeneity concerns arising from the CSR disclosure-debt financing association.

This study uses a single country to examine the inter-relationship between CEO tenure and debt financing and CSR measured by moral capital and exchange capital, thereby limiting the study's results for generalisation.

The observation is that moral capital investment and disclosure do not guarantee new entrants the chance to access debt financing, but subsequent and lag CSR disclosure ensures access.

No studies examine morality from CSR disclosure on debt financing. This study shows that decoupling CSR into exchange capital and moral capital in accessing debt financing presents new inputs for scholarly debate on CSR.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how psychological antecedents (i.e. consumer mindsets) and individual difference characteristics (i.e. moral identity) affect the intention to purchase Fair Trade products based on the triadic reciprocal causation model in social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986). The primary factors that influence ethical consumption decisions in ethnic Chinese societies were explored by integrating the unique cultural environment of the Chinese.

The study effective sample comprised university students and professors. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses and indirect effects. Results showed that moral identity internalization had a mediating effect on the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products.

A high moral identity symbolization had a moderating effect on the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products. This demonstrated that the two dimensions of moral identity, internalization and symbolization, play different roles and have different functions in regards to the intention to purchase Fair Trade products.

Future studies are urged to examine this issue at a cultural level by performing a cross-cultural comparison and to integrate consumer heterogeneity for a deeper examination of the interaction between demographic factors and psychological traits on consumer behaviours regarding Fair Trade products.

This study indicates that moral identity internalization is the primary factor that influences ethical consumption decisions in Chinese societies. In terms of the moderating effect of moral identity symbolization, results showed that the higher an individual’s moral identity symbolization, the stronger the relationship between a collectivistic mindset and the intention to purchase Fair Trade products is. These results can serve as a reference for marketing communications and market segmentation policies in the business world.

This paper aims to examine how observers evaluate a company that provides service failure (or excellence) to an immoral versus a moral customer. This study introduces the concept of deservingness to the service literature and suggests that observers appreciate when a company delivers “justice” – either bad service to an immoral customer or good service to a moral customer – and thus evaluate the company more favorably.

This paper presents three online studies using scenarios (ns = 205, 199 and 181) and one lab study (n = 89) using a confederate to manipulate customer morality.

Across four studies, this study finds that a service failure has a less negative impact on observers’ company evaluations when observers consider the target customer immoral, and thus deserving of the bad outcome. Conversely, the positive impact of observing service excellence is enhanced when observers consider the target customer to be moral, and thus deserving of a good outcome. This effect occurs because the perception of deservingness leads observers to experience more positive feelings about the service outcome and these positive feelings transfer over to observers’ evaluations of the service provider.

The mechanism shares some similarities with the concept of immanent justice reasoning, whereby individuals draw a causal link between someone’s prior immoral behavior and an unrelated negative outcome. However, the studies go one step further by showing that such causal reasoning, at least on a moral level, can impact the judgments of the other party (in this case, the company involved in the service outcome).

Service providers need to be particularly attentive when serving customers who are viewed in a positive light, as an observed failure that affects a moral customer can be particularly damaging to company evaluations. Conversely, companies should make efforts to publicize when exceptional service is given to nice, admirable customers, as this is particularly effective at improving evaluations.

Researchers have examined how allocations of responsibility affect observers' evaluation of service encounters. This paper adds deservingness as an alternate mechanism and examines service excellence as well.

Service employees are frequently exposed to moral dilemmas as a result of their boundary role, attending to the interests of both the organization and customers. The purpose of this paper is to explore organizational and personal values that generate moral dilemmas in the service context, as well as emotions related to employees’ moral decisions.

Using the critical incidents technique, data were collected from service providers about moral dilemmas in the workplace. The data were analyzed independently by each author, with an agreement rate of 84-88 percent.

The results show that service employees confront dilemmas as a result of conflicts between the following organizational and personal values: standardization vs personalization; profit vs integrity; and emotional display rules vs dignity. Moral decision making involves emotions generated by customer distress, negative emotions toward customers, and emotions of guilt, shame, or fear.

Little research has studied moral conflicts in service encounters from employees’ perspective. Using a qualitative approach, this study explores the role of personal values and moral emotions in such processes.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if transformational leadership has an effect on business‐to‐business salespeople's trust in the organization, whether trust in the organization affects moral judgment and if moral judgment in turn affects salesperson performance, specifically “world‐class” sales performance.

Through the utilization of a national survey of 345 business‐to‐business salespeople, this study explored linkages between transformational leadership, trust in the organization, moral judgment and world class sales performance using structural equation modeling.

Results suggest that transformational leadership can be used to influence sales performance through trust in the organization and salesperson moral judgment.

The paper furthers the understanding of transformational leadership and its impact on salespeople. The interaction of three variables (transformational leadership, trust in the organization, and the moral judgment of the salesperson) and their ability to relate to world class sales performance provide an interesting strategic guide for sales organizations, as well as a meaningful set of managerial tools that can assist in constructing a performance driven sales organization. These constructs have not been simultaneously investigated prior to this research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of moral equity, relativism, and attitude towards digital piracy behaviour in a developing country. End-user piracy is more difficult to detect than commercial piracy. Thus, an effective strategy to combat piracy needs a comprehensive understanding of both the supply and demand sides of piracy. The current study focuses on the demand side by investigating the impact of moral equity, relativism, and attitude on consumer piracy behaviour in Indonesia.

Using a convenient sample in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, questionnaires were distributed in a large private university. In addition, through snowball sampling techniques, the surveys were also distributed to other adults who live within a walking distance from the campus. The data collection resulted in 222 usable surveys (a response rate of 68 per cent).

In Indonesia, moral equity had a negative and significant impact on purchases of illegal copies of music CDs and pirated software. Relativism affects the purchase of pirated software positively, but its effect on purchases of illegal copies of CDs is insignificant. Attitude towards the act was negatively impacted by moral equity for CDs and software. Relativism only significantly affects the purchase of pirated software but in the opposite direction while it has failed to reach significance for illegal music CD purchases. Attitude towards the software piracy and purchases of illegal copies of music CDs positively affect consumer’s digital piracy behaviour. Finally, Indonesian consumers feel more morally wrong to purchase illegal copies of CDs than to buy pirated software.

In the context of Indonesia, higher moral equity has affected piracy behaviour negatively. Therefore, efforts to reduce piracy should focus on highlighting the importance of fairness and justice. One of the main drivers of digital piracy (e.g. buying, downloading, copying, and sharing digital materials illegally) is overpriced products. It has led many Indonesians to believe that it is acceptable to purchase pirated software and illegal copies of CDs. Nonetheless, if companies are able to lower prices; thus make it affordable to consumers, consumers will perceive fairness and justice in purchasing original copies of software and CDs.

There are very limited studies investigating factors impacting the purchase of pirated software and CDs in the developing countries specifically Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation in the world and one of the biggest markets for counterfeit products. This is one of first few studies exploring this issue in Indonesia.

Even though the definitions of morality may seem to provide straightforward criteria to assess the morality of individuals, moral judgments are challenging and less exact. This paper aims to advance extant work on morality and moral judgment by providing a conceptualization of boundary conditions in the relationship between moral judgments and consumer behavior.

An interdisciplinary literature review is conducted to integrate extant knowledge on morality, moral judgment and consumer behavior to identify and conceptualize boundary conditions affecting moral judgments and decision-making. The research draws on moral foundation theory and norm activation model, and the proposed factors and relationships are grounded in construal level theory and regulatory focus theory.

The research identifies cultural, individual and situational factors that influence moral judgments and decision-making and argues that moral judgments exhibit a similar pattern across types, but cultural factors determine the salience of each moral foundation type. Moreover, construal factors relevant to the situation (i.e. proximity vs distance) affect the extent and manner of moral judgments, and individual mindsets and their associated information processing styles (e.g. money vs time orientation and promotion vs prevention orientation) make moral judgments more malleable, adding a degree of variability to judgments within similar cultures and situations.

The research makes a rather unique contribution to consumer morality literature by identifying and discussing three different groups of factors with the potential to impact individuals’ judgments of, and reactions to, moral foundation violation information.