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CONSUMPTION OF ETHICAL

PRODUCTS: A META-ANALYSIS OF

THE DETERMINANTS AND

BARRIERS

Abstract: The literature on ethical consumption, fair trade and eco-labels is

abundant, but researchers have taken a lot of different approaches on the topic. The

author conducts a meta-analysis on the determinants and barriers to ethical

consumption by examining 68 studies and empirical researches (involving 21

Journals and 3 databases).

The aim of this research is first of all to make concise summary of the empirical

studies, and to highlight the common factors. Depending on the preliminary results

found, a cross cultural analysis could be made, if different regions show significant

differences.

Keywords: meta-analysis – ethical consumption – fair trade – empirical studies

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1. INTRODUCTION:

Ethical consumption, corporate social responsibility, protection of the environment…

Consumers have a growing interest in the ethics of their products, services and the

companies producing them. As Newholm and Shaw observed (2007), the rise of the

trend can be explained by the “increased media coverage”, “increased levels of

information” and the “greater availability of ‘alternatives’” (p 254).

Consumers are under the pressure of consuming products and services that answer

to care, solidarity and collective concern (Lewis & Potter, 2011). But as Lewis and

Potter note in their book on ethical consumption, the trend of ethical consumers do

not share politics or values, it isn’t a set of practices but rather “a convenient catch-

all phrase for a range of tendencies within contemporary consumer culture today”

(2011). They also explain that ethics aren’t a stable external framework but rather “a

pluralized and privatized moral universe” (p 10).

Ethical consumption translate into the purchase of products which have a label

certifying that the product was made under fair working conditions and/or with higher

environmental standards (Loureiro & Lotabe, 2005). It was first very popular for

farmers harvesting coffee and bananas, under the label of Fair Trade, a federation

founded in 1994 (Loureiro & Lotabe, 2005).

Fair Trade has seen last year a downfall in its sales for the first time in the UK,

dropping by 4%. While the British newspaper explain this by the rise of discount

supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi, who now own 10% of the market, the academic

research shows a variety of determinants and barriers to ethical consumption. This

paper aims at making a comparison of these studies.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW:

Ethical consumption, a literature review:

Bray, Johns and Kilburn point out that although consumers take into account ethics

in their purchase decision nowadays, there is still an important difference between

their intention to consumer ethical products or services and their actual purchasing

behavior (2011). This gap between consumer’s expressed values and purchasing

intentions and the position of ethical product on the market is the start point of this

paper.

A clear “Ethical Purchasing Gap” exists (p597), as the study by Cowe and Williams

demonstrate (As quoted by Bray, Johns & Kilburn, 2011). Their study, for the co-

operative bank, showed that a third of British consumers consider themselves as

ethical consumers, yet Fair Trade products only had 1 to 3% of market shares at that

point. They named that the “the 30:3 phenomenon” (P597), where 30% of

consumers express their interest and care in ethical standards, but only 3% actually

translate it into a purchase.

Ethical behavior, ethical retailing and ethical consumption are difficult to define, Bray,

Johns and Kilburn point out (2011), but the common practices are Fair Trade,

organically grown and processed food and materials, working practices in developing

nations and the protection of natural resources.

From their qualitative research, the authors observed numerous reasons that stop

people from consuming ethically, such as purchasing habits that wouldn’t let the

consumer consider new products or services, personal constraints, perceived

negative image of the quality, a negation of social responsibility or finally the feeling

that one’s action won’t change anything (Bray, Johns & Kilburn, 2011). They have

also identified seven key factors that intervene between the consumers’ attitudes

and intentions and their actual behavior: price sensitivity, personal experience,

ethical obligation, quality, lack of information, quality, inertia and cynicism. These

factors imply a purchasing behavior that will lead an ethical purchase, a boycott or

self-interest leading to post consumption guilt.

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The theory of planned behavior by Ajzen (1991) is often used to model ethical

consumption. This model supposes that consumers behave according to their

attitudes and subjective norms while considering the barriers to successfully achieve

that behavior. Shaw and Clarke (1999, as quoted by Newholm and Shaw, 2007))

applied this model in an ethical context and found that the barriers were information,

choice and availability. Several authors took the same model to study ethical

consumption following this work, adding the dimensions of ethical obligation and self-

identity to the model (Shaw et al., 2000, as quoted by Newholm and Shaw, 2007).

Moreover, Shaw et al. found out in a study that desire and plan can also be

precursors as valid as intention (2006).

Consumers can also choose ethical products for the political gesture it represents;

Newholm and Shaw (2007), argue that in our “affluent societies” (p 254), consumers

are freed of their basic needs and therefore become responsible for their behavior,

and therefore responsible for their purchase behavior. The authors take as

justification a study from Brooker and the pyramid of Maslow that linked socially

conscious people with a high score on the self-actualization dimension (1976). They

also quote the study of Mintel (1994), in which the author reports the “willingness” of

consumers to modify their buying patterns under the influence of ethical issues such

as “oppressive regimes, human rights, labor relations, land rights, the environment,

irresponsible marketing, fair trade, nuclear power, armaments, animal testing, factory

farming and political donations” (p 255). Lewis and Potter (2011), point out that

political consumerism isn’t the same, as political consumption takes the forms of

activism, boycott or consumer organizations.

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3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

AND METHODOLOGY:

As the discussion of the literature review shows, researchers have presented their

results on the determinants and the barriers to ethical consumption in several ways.

The following analysis will follow the approach of Card and his book of Applied Meta-

analysis for Social Science Research (2012). Card defines a meta-analysis as a

statistical analysis of effect sizes of a research synthesis of literature’s research

results.

The software that will be used will be Microsoft Office Excel, as Card defines it as a

“good spreadsheet program” (p13), and the author doesn’t recommend using

specific software for the “beginning meta-analyst” (p14) as they may “encourage

erroneous use when [one isn’t] adequately familiar with the techniques” (p14).

The objectives of this review are multiple. First – as in any review – it seeks to give

an overview of existing literature on the topic (RO1) and we will attempt to highlight

the common determinants and barriers researched by the authors (RO2). The third

objective consists in the examination of whether the statistical results show regional

differences in the two variables (RO3) that will be therefore emphasized in a final

conclusion.

It is to be noted that no meta-analysis on this topic has been found on the databases

chosen for the literature search. The only similar analyses found talked about CSR

and financial performances, and the structure of this review is inspired by these

studies.

Searching the literature:

The methodology of Card was followed to choose the studies to be included in the

meta-analysis. The search strategy was initially organized two sets of key words,

“ethical consumption” and “Fairtrade”. Once the first research done, several

keywords were added to be sure to include all the literature existent: “Ethics Labels”

– “Fair Labels”, but these keywords did not result in new articles. The keyword “Eco-

label” was successful and added another 11 articles to the study.

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Three databases were chosen based on their notorious reliability; Web of Science –

Business Source Premier Ebsco Host – Google Scholar.

Only empirical contributions made to academic journals were taken into

considerations. Several studies were taken into consideration:

Studies on the consumer’s ethical or green purchasing attitude or intention of

purchase (including personality – motivation – values – emotion –

awareness);

Studies on which contextual factors influence consumer’s purchasing attitude

or intention of purchase;

Studies on the characteristics of green products that appeal to consumers;

Studies on the characteristics of ethical/organic/green/eco labels that

influence consumer’s purchasing attitude or intention of purchase;

Cross-cultural studies on the topic;

Studies of the influence of green marketing and advertisement on consumer’s

purchasing attitude or intention of purchase

The initial research gave 495 results, and the secondary another 93 results, which

gives a total of 588 articles that were reviewed. The research gave great attention to

pick studies made in different regions, and particularly in developing or emerging

markets. It must be noted that only English papers were considered, because other

meta-analysis explained that “in order to avoid any bias towards the countries whose

language the author of this paper is capable of understanding, it was decided to

include solely publications in the international lingua franca of science, namely

English.” (Fifka, 2015, p5).

To finish, it has to be said that this study doesn’t pretend to include all existing

studies on the studied topic, considering the great number of existing studies.

Final list of articles:

Out of the 588 results that the initial research proposed, 68 empirical studies relevant

to the topic were found. The source of the articles was checked on the base of the

SRJ SCImago ranking:

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SCImago Rank Name of journal Number of studies

Q1 Total: 29

Journal of Advertising 3

Business Strategy and the Environment 1

Ecological Economics 1

European Journal of Marketing 2

International Marketing Review 1

Journal of Business Ethics 17

Journal of Consumer Psychology 2

Journal of Economics and Management

Strategy

1

Journal of Marketing 1

World economy 1

Q2 Total: 28

International journal of consumer studies 24

Journal of Marketing Management 2

Journal of Strategic Marketing 1

Psychological Record 1

Q3 Total: 2

American Journal of Economics and

Sociology

1

Q4 Total: 2

Advances in Consumer Research 1

International Social Science Review 1

Unknown Total: 7

Journal Agriculture Environmental Ethics Impact factor 0,935

3

Journal of Consumer Affairs Impact factor 1,677

2

Journal of Global Academy of Marketing Science Impact factor: unknown

1

Journal of Management Research 1

Total: 68

The SRJ SCImago ranking provides a ranking of academic journals based on the

quality of published papers and the number of published papers. According to

Bornmann and Moya Anegón (2013) and Jacsó (2009), it is a reliable tool to use to

classify papers for university students.

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Conceptual framework:

Authors who have researched ethical consumption and purchasing of Fairtrade

products have approached the topic from different perspectives. This gives the

impression of confusion and bewilderment to the general consensus on the theme.

The meta-analysis aims at reconciling the issues and synthetizing the research.

Figure 1 below shows the conceptual framework of this research, summarizing the

different approaches of the studies to understand the topic and the characteristics of

the models in the researches:

1) the identity of consumer and the influence on their purchasing habits. How do

individual factors, such as the wage or education, or cultural values affect the

consumption of ethical products?

2) the personality of consumers. How do ethical values or other dimensions such as

a sense of obligation towards the world, the perception of the time horizon, or a

feeling of guilt affect consumer’s purchasing behavior of ethical products?

3) the environment of consumers and how contextual factors such as the social

circle, the circumstantial influences or the general ethical awareness of the location

of the consumer affect their purchasing behavior.

The other dimension of the meta-analysis is the translation of all studies’ statistics to

be able to compare them. This include 4) the different type of measures in the

chosen articles, including for example measure of consumer’s motivation,

purchasing habits and level of involvement in ethical issues on one side, but also

measure of which product feature is most attractive on the other hand.

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Figure 1 – Conceptual framework

1) Identity of consumers

Individual factors

Cultural values

2) Personality of consumers

Ethical values

Various other dimensions

3) Environment of

consumers

Contextual factors

Product features

ETHICAL CONSUMPTION

4) Types of measures in the studies

Values or motivation

Purchasing behavior

Product features

Consumer involvement

5) Model characteristics

Endogeneity

Heterogeneity

Different models of consumer

behaviors

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4. TIMELINE

October 20th Final choice of topic

October 27th Draft of choice of articles for meta-analysis

November 3rd Final choice of articles for meta-analysis

Handing the Exposé

November 10th Finish the literature review

November 17th Finish the methodology presentation

50% of data translation

November 24th Finish data translation

December 1st 50% analysis

December 8th Finish analysis

December 15th 50% writing results

January 4th Finish draft of final thesis

January 11th Final thesis

January 12th – 26th Preparation of oral defense

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5. OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS

Abstract

Table of contents

Table of figures

Table of abbreviations

I. Introduction

II. Literature review

III. Research objectives and methodology

IV. Presentation of results

V. Scientific and managerial implications

VI. Conclusion and limitations

Bibliography

Appendix

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