Polonsky M. J., Brito P. Q., Pinto J. and Higgs-Kleyn N. (2001). Consumer Ethics in the European Union: A comparison of northern and southern views

Résumé du document

Our article for seminar three is called Consumer Ethics in the European Union: a Comparison of Northern and Southern Views. It discusses the issue of a single European market and the cultural problems that occur in this growing "integrated" market. The authors have divided the European consumers into those in Northern EU countries and those in Southern EU countries. The article presents research that examines whether there are differences between Northern and Southern EU consumers, using a CES-construct. CES stands for Consumer Ethics Scale and was originally developed by Muncy and Vitell in the early 1970's. It identified four distinct constructs or categories of ethically questionable consumer behavior, which was later found reliable across countries.

Extraits

[...] (2001). Consumer Ethics in the European Union: A Comparison of Northern and Southern Views. Journal of Business Ethics. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Netherlands. pp. 117-130. Al-Khatib J., Vitell S. J. and Rawwas M. Y. A. [...]

[...] (1997).Consumer Ethics: A Cross-Cultural Investigation. European Journal of Marketing. pp. 750-767. Langlois and Schlegelmilch (1990) cited in Polonsky et al. (2001) Loxley (1998) cited in Polonsky et al. (2001) Thirlw污ㄨ㠹⤹挠瑩摥椠潐潬獮祫攠⁴污‮㈨〰⤱※敳⁥污潳吠扡敬ㄠ‬⁰㈱ⰱ椠潐潬獮祫攠⁴污‮㈨ 〰⤱ȍ嘠湡䰠極歪⠠㤱㜹 楣整⁤湩倠汯湯歳⁹瑥愠⹬⠠〲㄰ഩ 潗摯⠠㤱㔹 楣整⁤湩倠汯湯歳⁹瑥 all (1989) cited in Polonsky et al. (2001); see also Table p 121, in Polonsky et al. (2001) Van Luijk (1997) cited in Polonsky et al. (2001) Wood (1995) cited in Polonsky et al. (2001) Al-Khatib et al. [...]

[...] Nevertheless, the countries which were chosen for the study might not represent the consumer attitude of all other north- and south- European countries. Another problem is that other impacts, like the relationships between the consumers and the firms which can include ethical concerning, were not observed. We think that, whether the differences between south and north are just small and the authors see the EU as one union of customers markets, consumer habits are not similar, even if countries are in the same trading block. [...]

[...] People had also to find examples and evaluate their behavior within each construct. The results of the study show that the reliability of the four constructs, which is shown by the alpha value, was higher in previous CES studies. There are even differences between the north and the south which explains variations among consumers in regions. This fact could put the whole study into question. If we disregard this, another fact is that active questionable behavior is most inappropriate by both groups. [...]

[...] The methodology of this analysis is also mentioned: how to study consumer's ethics in the EU? The analyzers' starting hypothesis was that consumers have the same consummation mode. They structured their works to find if this hypothesis is true or not. Also, they chose to make a survey on European people. But the first step was to define the population to study, so they chose to split it in two parts: in the first part people came from 4 northern countries (see above) and in the second they came from 4 southern countries of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece). [...]