IN SEARCH OF THE ETHICAL CONSUMER
Date
2011-06-15
Authors
Sohn, Michele Esther Delis
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Abstract
In developed markets a growing number of consumers expect business
organisations to take responsibility for their impact on society as a whole. This
research investigated the applicability of these first world concerns to South
African consumers.
A statically significant sample of 171 respondents was asked to define the term
ethical consumerism and to identify the ethical issues that they considered
when evaluating which organisations to buy from and which to boycott.
The qualitative data was subjected to content and cluster analysis, to determine
if certain types of respondents share clearly identifiable concerns and if it is
possible to segment the market into definite market segments. Chi-squared
goodness of fit tests were used to determine if any demographic variables have
strong correlations to these market segments.
The research found clear evidence of an ethical market and that marketers are
able to segment this ethical market into segments of sets of ethical concerns.
Income, gender, province can be used as demographic segmentation tools to
reach these segments.
The relevance to marketers is that companies who adopt ethical initiatives may
have market advantage over those who do not
Description
MBA - WBS
Keywords
Ethics, Consumer behaviour