Journal
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH
Volume 169, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114242
Keywords
Price-ethicality association; Price-quality association; Ethical mindset; Pricing; Product ethicality
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The authors demonstrate that consumers have a strong association between price and ethicality, separate from the traditional price-quality association, which significantly influences their ethical purchase decisions. When consumers encounter ethical products at discount prices, they perceive that the products are not genuinely ethical and tend to avoid purchasing them.
The authors demonstrate that consumers form a robust association between price and ethicality, separate from the traditional price-quality association, which significantly influences their ethical purchase decisions. Grounded in compensatory inference theory and signaling theory, six studies reveal that when consumers encounter ethical products offered at discount prices, they perceive that the products cannot be genuinely ethical and avoid purchasing them. The adverse effect of discount prices on ethical consumption is explained by lower product ethicality perceptions and is prevalent among those who are more ethically minded. The final study shows that marketers can overcome the negative effects by including communications assuring consumers that the products are legitimately ethical, despite price discounts.
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