That's wrong... but it's good! How moral decoupling allows consumers to feel less guilty about supporting companies involved in unethical conduct

Consumers often continue to support companies involved in unethical conduct. Yet, a theoretical understanding of such behavior is lacking. This study aims to demonstrate that moral decoupling enables consumers to offer continuous support for companies involved in unethical conduct by reducing feelin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of marketing management 2022-09, Vol.38 (13-14), p.1494-1528
Main Authors: Friederich, Felix, Matute, Jorge, Palau-Saumell, Ramon, Meyer, Jan-Hinrich
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Consumers
emotions
Empathy
Ethics
Guilt
individual differences
Misconduct
Moral decoupling
Morality
Personality traits
unethical conduct
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Summary:Consumers often continue to support companies involved in unethical conduct. Yet, a theoretical understanding of such behavior is lacking. This study aims to demonstrate that moral decoupling enables consumers to offer continuous support for companies involved in unethical conduct by reducing feelings of guilt in the purchase decision. It further intends to explore how personality traits moderate the influence of decoupling mechanisms on purchase intentions and to show how the moral intensity of misconduct affects consumersʻ activation of moral decoupling. Four empirical studies were conducted, revealing that decoupling explains purchase intentions both directly and indirectly through guilt. The study also shows that consumersʻ empathic concern and moral identity moderate decoupling processes. High moral intensity of unethical conduct diminished engagement in moral decoupling.
ISSN:0267-257X
1472-1376
DOI:10.1080/0267257X.2022.2042361