Consumer ethics: An empirical investigation of the ethical beliefs of Austrian consumers

Business and Marketing ethics have come to the forefront in recent years. While consumers have been surveyed regarding their perceptions of ethical business and marketing practices, research has been minimal with regard to their ethical beliefs and ideologies. In addition, no study has examined the ethical beliefs of Austrian consumers even though Austria maintains a unique status of political neutrality, nonalignment, stability, economic prosperity and geographical proximity to the East- and West-European countries. This research investigates the relationship between Machiavellianism, ethical ideology and ethical beliefs of Austrian consumers. The results indicate that Austrian consumers are mostly “situationists” who, while rejecting moral rules, judge the ethics of a behavior by the consequences and outcomes of the situation.

[1]  R. Bartels.  A Model for Ethics in Marketing , 1967 .

[2]  R. Christie,et al.  Studies in Machiavellianism , 1970 .

[3]  Fraudulent Behavior by Consumers , 1978 .

[4]  R. Wilkes.  Fraudulent Behavior by Consumers , 1978 .

[5]  H. P. Sims,et al.  Some Determinants of Unethical Decision Behavior: An Experiment , 1978 .

[6]  D. Forsyth.  A taxonomy of ethical ideologies. , 1980 .

[7]  D. Forsyth,et al.  Ethical Ideology and Judgments of Social Psychological Research: Multidimensional Analysis , 1984 .

[8]  Lawrence B. Chonko,et al.  Marketing and Machiavellianism , 1984 .

[9]  O. C. Ferrell,et al.  A Contingency Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision Making in Marketing , 1985 .

[10]  Lawrence B. Chonko,et al.  Ethics and marketing management: An empirical examination , 1985 .

[11]  S. Hunt,et al.  A General Theory of Marketing Ethics , 1986 .

[12]  D. J. Vanier,et al.  The value of user image in quelling aberrant consumer behavior , 1986 .

[13]  O. C. Ferrell,et al.  A Synthesis of Ethical Decision Models for Marketing , 1989 .

[14]  Anusorn Singhapakdi,et al.  Marketing Ethics: Factors Influencing Perceptions of Ethical Problems and Alternatives , 1990 .

[15]  J. Lumpkin,et al.  Consumer ethics: An investigation of the ethical beliefs of elderly consumers , 1991 .

[16]  James A. Muncy,et al.  Consumer ethics: An investigation of the ethical beliefs of the final consumer. , 1992 .

[17]  Mohammed Y. A. Rawwas,et al.  Consumer ethics: a cross‐cultural investigation , 1997 .