• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.907-916
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• 2008

The purposes of this study were to examine the consumer beliefs on the wrongness and occurrence of unethical behaviors in retail settings, to examine the differences in unethical beliefs by consumer characteristics, and to examine the effects of anomie on unethical beliefs. A total of 609 questionnaires collected from a consumer survey were analyzed. Results revealed that respondents tended to perceive illegal activities as the most unethical and the least prevalent behaviors and downloading intellectual properties as the least unethical and the most prevalent behaviors. There were differences by age, marital status, occupation, and education in the four dimensions of unethical beliefs including actively benefiting from illegal/deceiving activities, passively benefiting at the expense of the seller, no harm/no foul, and common but questionable actions. Partial differences were observed by shopping frequency and return experience. Valuelessness of anomie affected actively benefiting from illegal/deceiving activities and no harm/no foul.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.17-37
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• 2012

The evolution of the IT facilitated the social actions of the consumers by supporting social communication of the online users. At the same time it help for the consumer to post malicious comments on the Internet or to spread the unproven news for distorting the public opinion in the SNSs. Although the number of the consumer unethical behaviors and the estimated damage of the innocent companies have been increased, a few studies had investigate on this issue. Based on the Literature on the consumer unethical behaviors and the institution based trust, we had developed the defense strategies against the consumer unethical behaviors. This study would introduce the new perspective that the consumer could always not be innocent. Also, the defense strategy developed in this study could contribute to make the guideline for consumer service manual.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to examine the ethical attitudes of consumers in consumption situations by using the consumer ethics scale(CES). Self-administrated questionnaires were completed by 492 consumers, and the resulting data were analysed by frequency, chi-square, one-way ANOVA, factor analysis, reliability analysis, and cluster analysis. We found four different groups of consumers were identified according to their ethical attitudes in consumption situations: 1) the unethical onlooker consumer group, 2) the socialized unethical consumer group, 3) the ethical consumer group, and 4) the severely unethical consumer group. The unethical onlooker consumer group was most widespread prevalent among university students who were in their 20s and down or under, and who received spending money from their parents, and the socialized unethical consumer group was most prevailing prevalent among the higher educated consumers. The women who consumers slightly outnumbered men in an the ethical consumer group, slightly outnumbered the men who did, and many of the university-educated large income earners fell into this group consumed in that way as well. The severely unethical consumer group was quite uncommon among those who were at the age of 41 and up over, and not many of the higher educated people and larger income earners consumed in an the severely unethical consumer group, either. Thus, it's proven this study proves that in terms of the propensity to consume, the consumers' were different from one another in ethical attitudes and behaviors differ according to their demographic characteristics.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.39-50
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• 2010

This paper compares a cross-cultural and gender differences and similarities about consumer ethical perceptions and behaviors, and ethical ideologies between Korean and the US college students. It also examines the relationships between consumers' ethical perceptions and behaviors, and the relationships between consumer ethics and ethical ideologies. This research provides some evidence that supports the premise that consumer ethics is influenced to an extent by consumers' nationality and gender. The differences are not universal, however, and could perhaps be described as situational. The American college consumers were found to be more idealistic and relativistic than the Korean college consumers. But the differences were minor The American male college consumers were found to be more idealistic than the American female college consumers. The ethical consumer groups were found to be more idealistic and less relativistic than were the unethical consumer groups. Perceptions were positively related to behaviors in the consumer ethics. But the magnitude of impacts is different between the nations and in the dimensions of consumer ethics.