Ethical Consumption, Consumer Behavior and Motivation: Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Retail shopping practices have always been under the highlight for marketing researchers. Therefore, the focus of this study was not only to identify the impact of consumer behaviors in conventional shopping but also to find their role in influencing ethical consumption. We propose a theoretical framework based on the concept of S-O-R (Stimulus-Organism-Response) model whereby consumer buying motivations namely Hedonic and Utilitarian, affect Ethical consumption through different buying behaviors. These included Cognitive, Affective, and Impulsive behaviors. Through an adapted 5-point Likert scale questionnaire, in total, 207 responses from Pakistan were analyzed using PLS-SEM technique. Indirect mediation was applied between hedonic and utilitarian motivation with cognitive, affective, and impulsive buying behavior as well as direct mediation with ethical consumption. The findings of the study revealed that consumer buying motivations such as hedonic and utilitarian play an important role in explaining consumer buying behaviors used in the study, namely: cognitive, affective and impulsive. A significant impact was found between hedonic motivation and affective buying behavior as well as impulsive buying behavior. Utilitarian motivation showed the most significant relationships with affective and cognitive buying behavior and also ethical consumption. The findings of the research could not validate the impact of cognitive and affective buying behavior on ethical consumption. However, impulsive buying behavior showed a significant contributor in explaining ethical consumption. The findings are valuable as many previous studies have not considered a collective impact of buying motivations and behaviors together on ethical consumption. This will help producers to bring innovation in developing green products in a more efficient manner while knowing the underlying causes of poor ethical consumption in Pakistan and thus, using the right techniques to position their products and provide benefits sought by customers.