MỤC LỤC
In the area of marketing ethics, there are studies involving consumers, however most of them investigate consumers’ ethical perceptions regarding business and marketing. (1991) emphasize that ‘‘there is a ‘gap’ in the marketing ethics literature concerning the ethical beliefs and attitudes of the final consumers regarding potentially unethical consumer practices.’’. Recently, Rao and Al-Wugayan (2005) point out that there is growing interest in researching consumer ethics.
Rao and Al-Wugayan (2005) state that cross-cultural studies have started to appear in consumer ethics; however, considering the diversity of world cultures, their number is insufficient. However, even cross-cultural studies comparing different cultures (Al-Khatib et al., 1997; Rawwas, 2001; Rawwas et al., 1995) are also not involve Vietnam.
Research objectives
Despite the large body of marketing ethics literature produced to date, limited numbers of studies have examined ethical issues in the developing regions of the world. This situation urges to a need to study the ethical judgments of consumers in such areas so as to find which factors that influence those judgments. This study framework is conducted in Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong City, Vietnam with respondents’ age from fifteen years or above.
In summary, such an understanding can not only provide further insight into firm- level approaches designed to minimize the adverse impact of counterfeiting on company operations in Vietnam, but also for the government-level policies released to raise awareness and to combat against illegal actions in general and unethical consuming practices in. Therefore, the expected contribution of this study is to close this gap in the literature. In this framework, the present study will give special emphasis to examine the main and interaction effects of those selected personality factors on consumers’ ethical attitudes.
Research structure
Although a few studies examined the relationship between machiavellianism and consumer ethics (e.g., Chen. 33) point out that, although there is large bodies of empirical research concerning ethics in the market place, most of them have focused on the seller side. Consumer ethics has been defined as the moral rules, principles and standards that guide the behavior of an individual (or group) in the selection, purchase, use, or selling of a good or service (Muncy and Vitell, 1992). Self-monitoring theory divides individuals into two different groups: high self- monitoring and low self-monitoring groups based on how individuals guide their self- presentation (Snyder, 1974).
High self- monitors are willing and able to project their images to impress others in different social situations and believe the appearances they create can become social realities (Gangestad and Snyder, 2000). The two important research studies that investigate the relationship between ethical decision-making and self-monitoring are conducted by Uddin and Gillett (2002) and Ross and Robertson (2003). The conclusions of these studies suggest that the higher the individual's machiavellianistic tendencies, the less likely that individual will negatively perceive unethical or questionable actions.
This research exploited the quantitative method (questionnaire survey) to empirically examine the relationship between self-monitoring, Machiavellianism, opportunism, and the consumers’ ethical beliefs in Vietnam.
As shown in Table 4.2, the results indicated significantly high or very high internal reliability for most tested item scales including four dimension of Consumer ethics scale : actively benefiting from an illegal activity (ABIA), passively benefiting at the expense of others (PBEO), actively benefiting from a questionable action (ABQA), and no harm, no foul (NHNF). There are four dimensions of Consumer ethics scale: actively benefiting from an illegal activity (ABIA), passively benefiting at the expense of others (PBEO), actively benefiting from a questionable action (ABQA), and no harm, no foul (NHNF). Multiple regressions was employed to test hypotheses in which Self-monitoring, Machiavellianism and Opportunism were considered as the independent variables while consumer’s ethical belief including four dimensions (actively benefiting from an illegal, passively benefiting at the expense of others, actively benefiting from a questionable action and no harm, no foul) was assumed as dependent variable.
The three variables (Self-Monitoring Machiavellianism and Opportunism) explained 5.8% of the variance in the dependent variable (R2 = 0.058). They showed that a Machiavellianism philosophy was significantly related to all four consumer ethics dimensions such that those who were more Machiavellian tended to believe that the various consumer practices were less wrong. H1c: Self-Monitoring is negatively related to beliefs regarding actively benefiting from questionable but legal actions (deceptive practices).
H2c: Machiavellianism is positively related to beliefs regarding actively benefiting from questionable but legal actions (deceptive practices). Self-Monitoring was found to have positive relation to beliefs regarding ‘no harm, no foul’ actions with the Beta value of 0.231 and sig value of 0.000. According to the table, opportunism was found to have strong relation to belief regarding ‘no harm, no foul’ actions with the Beta value of 0.290 and sig value of 0.001.
This study attempted to explore the ethical belief of Vietnamese consumers (i.e., ABIA, PBEO, ABQA and NHNF) and orientation based on personal values: Self-. Interestingly, three predictors, i.e., Self-Monitoring, Machiavellianism and Opportunism, explained only a negligible amount of the variance in the four dimensions (5.8% for ABIA, 18% for PBEO, 10.8% for ABQA and 23.6% for NHNF). Generally, since ethics was not perceived as an issue in these instances, then an individual’s ethical perspective (Self-Monitoring, Machiavellianism and. Opportunism) was only of minor importance.
To our surprise, it is found that Vietnamese consumers who are Self-Monitoring have the moderate likelihood of engaging in unethical actions – only 01 exception with actively benefiting from an illegal activity (ABIA). Furthermore, Machiavellianism was not significantly related to passively benefiting at the expense of others (PBEO) and actively benefiting from a questionable action (ABQA) but significant evidence to no harm, no foul (NHNF) and no relation to actively benefiting from an illegal activity (ABIA).
Conclusion
An important implication of this study is that, given the fact that low self-monitoring does not have a considerating effect over consumers and their ethics, it is an important for social educating consumer ethics so as to shift to high self-monitors. As they are willing and able to project their images to impress others in different social situations and believe the appearances they create can become social realities (Gangestad and Snyder, 2000). When Machiavellian is concerned, it is also found that, as expected, Machiavellian has positive relationship with consumers’ unethical attitudes.
However, this relationship is only statistically significant with respect to the “passively benefiting at the expense of the seller”, ‘‘actively benefiting from questionable actions’’ and significant evident for “no harm, no foul actions”. Thus, from the managerial viewpoint, honest advertising that is informative, functional and moral, coupled with environmentally safe and high quality products can go a long way toward creating and enhancing an atmosphere of trust and virtue for marketplace exchanges between marketers and consumers. From consumer’s perspective, perceived opportunism is the most important indicator in comparison to other factors in relating to consumers ‘ethics.
As opportunism may lower ethical standards, opportunism individuals may be less likely to sacrify the possessions that they desire (Muncy and Eastman, 1998). The high level of opportunism and greater acceptance of unethical actions shows those consumers of Vietnamese generically less conscious about ethics and consumer behave unethically and not considering them unethical. May be this is the reason that market also do not treat the customers ethically so the customers emulate the ethics when they do shopping so there is a need of provide the right information to the customers about the products.
Advertise honestly and tell the right features the right quality for the sake of gaining the customers trust and their virtue so they behave ethically. While the strategies we propose should help reduce the unethical behavior resulting from the intersection of the “want/should” conflict and the temporal trichotomy of prediction, action and recollection, more research is needed so that we can understand how to achieve even better results. Individuals deceive themselves that they are ethical people and the continuation of this belief allows for the perpetuity of unethical behavior.
• Funding for information sources that consumers find useful, reliable and convincing so as to raise consumer ethical awareness;. At the theoretical level, this research contributed to the previous studies in the literature of consumer ethics study. It shed light on the attitudes of ethical consumers in Vietnam, particularly in Ho Chi Minh City, a very new research site.
At the practical level, this study provided additional understanding into the ethical perceptions of Vietnamese consumers. Such an understanding can provide further insight into corporate approaches designed to minimize the adverse impact of unethical behavior (i.e. pirating or counterfeiting) on company operations in Vietnam. The results of this study can help Vietnamese government and local associations raise awareness and educate the public as well as consumers about consumers’ unethical behavior.
Consumers’ ethical behavior will positively add more value to the business environment, which can encourage more foreign and domestic investments in Vietnam in the future. The Ethical Challenges of Global Business-to-Business Negotiations: An Empirical Investigation of Developing Countries’ Marketing Managers. Examining the Effects of Moral Development Level, Self- Concept, and Self-Monitoring on Consumers' Ethical Attitudes.
Searching for the origins of consumer ethics: Bridging the gap between intuitive values and consumer ethical judgments. An empirical investigation of the relationships among a consumer’s personal values, ethical ideology and ethical beliefs. An empirical investigation of the relationships between ethical beliefs, ethical ideology, political preference and need for closure.