Ethical Consumption and Happiness: Evidence from Pakistan

Aisha Khurshid, Danish Ahmed Siddiqui

Abstract


Today’s customers are ethically conscious and prefer those products that are ethically produced without using child labor and harm to animals and nature.This study shows various factors that affect ethical consumption and happiness. We proposed a model explaining effect of ethical purchase on happiness and onwards to repurchase intention. For this purpose this research adopted (Hwang & Kim, 2016) model of factors affecting happiness and repurchase intention and added variables such as ethical consumption, altruism and ethical obligation from (Oh & Yoon, 2014). Using a questionnaire-based survey, the data were collected from 212 respondents to analyze their attitude towards ethical consumption and happiness. To analyze data and test the hypothesis, Structured Equation modeling, PLS algorithm and bootstapping were used. The results showed that guilt positively affects empathy. However, empathy does not affect ethical consumption. Narcissism positively affects self-actualization. While, Self-actualization negatively affect ethical consumption. Ethical obligation also inversely affect ethical consumption however the relationship seems to be insignificant. Surprisingly, Altruism and ethical consumption also seems to have a negative connection. Moreover, ethical consumers didn’t draw happiness out of their purchase, however, happiness positively affected repurchase intention. The results of this study demonstrate the strong associations of the paths from happiness to repurchase intention, happiness to self-actualization, repurchase intention to happiness and self-actualization to happiness.


Full Text:

PDF

References


Abadi, T. W., Choiriyah, I. U., Sukmana, H., & Karuniawan, M. H. (2018). Factors Affecting of Lifes Happiness. Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities, 41-45.

Ackerman, C. (2019, Febuary 16). What is Happiness and Why is It Important? (+ Definition in Psychology). Retrieved May 4, 2019, from https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/what-is-happiness/

Antido et al. (2019). A Correlational Quantitative Study of Level of Happiness and Extra-Curricular Activities.

Ariffin, S., Yusof, J. M., Putit, L., & Shah, M. I. (2016). Factors Influencing Perceived Quality and Repurchase Intention Towards Green Products. Procedia Economics and Finance, 391-396.

Bahadur, W., Aziz, S., & Zulfiqar, S. (2018). Effect of employee empathy on customer satisfaction and loyalty during employee–customer interactions: The mediating role of customer affective commitment and perceived service quality. Cogent Business & Management.

Bray, J., Johns, N., & Kilburn, D. (2011). An Exploratory Study into the Factors Impeding Ethical Consumption. Journal of Business Ethics, 597.

Brockmann, H., & Delhey, J. (2010). Introduction: The Dynamics of Happiness and the Dynamics of Happiness Research. Social Indicators Research, 1-5.

Burnett, M. S., & Lunsford, D. A. (1994). Conceptualizing Guilt in the Consumer Decision-making Process. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 33-43.

C., M. A. (2012). A scientific exploration of happiness: A review of the science in Exploring happiness: From Aristotle to brain science. International Journal of Wellbeing, 288-291.

Carlson, E. N., Vazire, S., & Oltmanns, T. F. (2011). You Probably Think this Paper’s About You: Narcissists’ Perceptions of their Personality and Reputation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 185-201.

Carrington, M. J., Zwick, D., & Neville, B. (2015). The ideology of the ethical consumption gap. Marketing Theory, 1-18.

Chowdhury, R. M., & Fernando, M. (2014). The Relationships of Empathy, Moral Identity and Cynicism with Consumers’ Ethical Beliefs: The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement. Journal of Business Ethics, 677-694.

Christopher Kirchhoff. (n. d.). Ethical Consumerism Political Activism. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethical-consumerism

Contributors, W. (2018, November 15). Motivation and emotion/Book/2018/Guilt and empathy. Retrieved August 24, 2019, from https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Motivation _and_emotion/Book/2018/Guilt_and_empathy

Day, M. V., & Bobocel, D. R. (2013). The Weight of a Guilty Conscience: Subjective Body Weight as an Embodiment of Guilt. PLOS ONE.

Delistavrou, A., Katrandjiev, H., & Tilikidou, I. (2017). Understanding Ethical Consumption: Types and Antecedents. Economic Alternatives, 612-633.

Elbeltagi, I., & Agag, G. (2016). E-retailing ethics and its impact on customer satisfaction and repurchase intention: A cultural and commitment-trust theory perspective. Internet Research, 288-310.

Ethical Consumerism November 2015. (2015, November). UK.

Ethical Consumption Or Consumption of Ethical Products? An Exploratory Analysis of Motivations Behind the Purchase of Ethical Products. (n. d.). Retrieved August 25, 2019, from http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1014861/volumes/v41/NA-41

Fetzer, S. J. (2003). Professionalism of Associate Degree Nurses: THE ROLE OF SELF-ACTUALIZATION. Nursing Education Perspectives, 139-143.

Gupta, V. (2012). Importance of Being Happy at Work. International Journal of Research and Development - A Management Review (IJRDMR), 9-14.

Gutsche, I. A. (2016). Consumer motivations for mainstream “ethical” consumption. European Journal of Marketing.

Hamzah, M. I., Othman, A. K., Hassan, F., Ahmad, J., & Aziz, M. A. (2018). Conceptualizing Muslim Consumer Ethical Behaviour and its Antecedents. International Journal of Supply Chain Management, 211-222.

Hiller, A., Whysall, P., Woodall, T., & Painter-Morland, M. (n. d.). The Pursuit of Happiness in Ethical Consumption; Trade-offs, Values and Endless Ends.

Holt, D. B. (2012). Constructing Sustainable Consumption: From Ethical Values to the Cultural Transformation of Unsustainable Markets. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 236-255.

Hwang, K., & Kim, H. (2016). Are Ethical Consumers Happy? Effects of Ethical Consumers’ Motivations Based on Empathy Versus Self-orientation on Their Happiness. Journal of Business Ethics.

Jabeen, F., & Khan, F. A. (2016). An Empirical Analysis of Individual’s Happiness in Pakistan. PUTAJ – Humanities and Social Sciences, 181-199.

Karlsson, S. G., & Lennart. (2009). The Experiences of Guilt and Shame: A Phenomenological–Psychological Study. Human Studies, 335-355.

Kim, Y. J., & Kwon, Y. J. (2016). Is Ethical Consumption Altruistic or Egoistic?- Consumer Culture of Wearing Faux Fur. Journal of the Korean Society of Costume, 17-33.

Kubiszewski, I., Jarvis, D., & Zakariyya, N. (2019). Spatial variations in contributors to life satisfaction: An Australian case study. Ecological Economics, 1-10.

Lee, C. H., Eze, U. C., & Ndubisi, N. O. (2011). Analyzing key determinants of online repurchase intentions. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 200-221.

Lohrey, J. (n. d.). Ethical Obligations in Business. Retrieved June 4, 2019, from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/ethical-obligations-business-70715.html

Long, M. A. (2010). An analysis of ethical consumption participation and motivation.

Long, M. C., & Krause, E. (2017). Altruism by age and social proximity. PLOS ONE.

Mehrdadi, A., Sadeghian, S., Direkvand-Moghadam, A., & Hashemian, A. (2016). Factors Affecting Happiness: A Cross-Sectional Study in the Iranian Youth. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research.

Mills, R. (2013). A Study of Happiness. Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Morgan, C. J., Croney, C. C., & Widmar, N. J. (2016). Exploring Relationships between Ethical Consumption, Lifestyle Choices, and Social Responsibility. Advances in Applied Sociology, 199-216.

Newholm, T. (2015). Self-interest, Altruism and the Consumer framing the consumer in consumption ethics. Manchester: The University of Manchester.

Ng, Y.-K. (2015). Happiness, Life Satisfaction, or Subjective Well-being? A Measurement and Moral Philosophical Perspective.

Oh, J.-C., & Yoon, S.-J. (2014). Theory-based approach to factors affecting ethical consumption. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 278-288.

Oh, J.-C., & Yoon, S.-J. (2014). Theory-based approach to factors affecting ethical consumption. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 278-288.

Papaoikonomou, E., Ryan, G., & Valverde, M. (2011). Mapping Ethical Consumer Behavior: Integrating the Empirical Research and Identifying Future Directions. Ethics & Behavior, 197-221.

Perchla-Włosik, A., & Raciniewska, A. (2017). Is ethical fashion the only socially approved fashion? A vision of anti-consumerist future in the behaviour of fashion consumers. Research papers of wrocław university of economics, 64-76.

Piliavin, J. A., & Charng, H.-W. (1990). ALTRUISM: A Review of Recent Theory and Research. Annual Review of Sociology, 27-65.

Psychology Today. (n. d.). Empathy. Retrieved May 25, 2019, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/empathy

Saeed, M. A. (2018, Febuary 22). Is the value of AVE less than but close to 0.5 acceptable? Retrieved June 22, 2019, from https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_the_value_of_AVE _less_than_but_close_to_05_acceptable

Selva, J. (2017, May 5). What is Self-Actualization? A Psychologist’s Definition [+Examples]. Retrieved June 1, 2019, from https://positivepsychologyprogram. com/self-actualization/

Shah, S. A., Tahir, M., Soomro, A. A., & Amjad, S. (2018). Consumers Ethics in Pakistan: Empirically Examining the Muncy & Vitell Scale. Journal of Managerial Sciences, 248-265.

Shaw, D., & Shiu, E. (2002). The role of ethical obligation and self-identity in ethical consumer choice. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 109-116.

Shen, L. (2018). The evolution of shame and guilt. PLOS ONE.

Soliman, M. A. (2018, October 6). Ethical consumerism. Retrieved June 26, 2019, from https://www.bworldonline.com/highlife-ethical-consumerism/

Spiteri-Cornish, L. (2013). Ethical Consumption Or Consumption of Ethical Products? An Exploratory Analysis of Motivations Behind the Purchase of Ethical Products. Advances in Consumer Research, 337-341.

Stephanie. (2014, December 8). Cronbach’s Alpha: Simple Definition, Use and Interpretation. Retrieved June 22, 2019, from https://www.statisticshowto.datasciencecentral. com/cronbachs-alpha-spss/

Stephanie. (2019, May 16). Composite Reliability: Definition. Retrieved June 23, 2019, from https://www.statisticshowto.datasciencecentral.com/composite-reliability-definition/

Sudbury-Riley, L., & Kohlbacher, F. (2016). Ethically minded consumer behavior: Scale review, development, and validation. Journal of Business Research, 2697-2710.

Taylor, S. (2019, July 25). Pure altruism – the connection that explains why we help strangers. Retrieved August 25, 2019, from https://theconversation.com/pure-altruism -the-connection-that-explains-why-we-help-strangers-120693

The World Counts. (n. d.). Life potentials: Four levels of happiness. Retrieved May 5, 2019, from http://www.theworldcounts.com/life/potentials/four-levels-of-happiness

Toronto Empathy Questionnaire. (n. d.). Retrieved June 09, 2019, from https://psychology-tools.com/test/toronto-empathy-questionnaire

Torstveit, L., Sütterlin, S., & Lugo, R. G. (2016). Empathy, Guilt Proneness, and Gender: Relative Contributions to Prosocial Behaviour. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 260-270.

Toti, J.-F., & Moulins, J.-L. (2016). How to measure ethical consumption behaviors? RIMHE - Management & Human Enterprise, 45-66.

Vasudha, S., & Prasad, D. R. (2017). Narcissism, Happiness and Self Actualization. International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), 2349-2352.

Veenhoven, R. (1995). World Database of Happiness. Social indicators Research, 299-313.

Veenhoven, R. (2004). Sustainable Consumption and Happiness (pp. 39-68). University Library of Munich, Germany, MPRA Paper.

Wheeler, J. (n. d.). In psychology, what is "guilt," and what are the stages of guilt development? Retrieved May 24, 2019, from https://www.enotes.com/homework -help/psychology-what-guilt-what-stages-guilt-466309

Wikipedia contributors. (n. d.). Guilt (emotion). Retrieved May 24, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_(emotion)

Wikipedia contributors. (n. d.). Happiness. Retrieved May 4, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness#Research_results

Wikipedia contributors. (n. d.). Narcissism. Retrieved May 31, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism

Yang, Z., Ngo, Q. V., Chen, Y., Nguyen, C. X.-T., & Hoang, H. T. (2019). Does Ethics Perception Foster Consumer Repurchase Intention? Role of Trust, Perceived Uncertainty, and Shopping Habit. Sage Open.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.5296/rbm.v7i1.15643

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2019 Aisha Khurshid, Danish Ahmed Siddiqui

Research in Business and Management    ISSN 2330-8362

Copyright © Macrothink Institute  

To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the 'macrothink.org' domain to your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.

If you have any questions, please contact rbm@macrothink.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------