Ethical Consumer Decision Making: The Case of Fair Trade in Italy

Fair Trade is an alternative market-based approach aimed to promote better trading conditions for disadvantaged producers in developing countries, fostering a sustainable development and a full respect of workers' rights (Bowen, 2001; De Pelsmacker & Janssens, 2006; Guido, 2009). It has experienced a constant and signicant increase in popularity, attracting a growing number of socially and ecologically concerned consumers (DAWS, 2008). Nonetheless the market share of fair trade brands is still extremely limited (MacGillivray, 2000), emphasizing a relevant gap between consumers' attitudes and behavior (De Pelsmacker & Janssens, 2006) and claiming for a deeper investigation of ethical concern in purchasing behaviors (Freestone and McGoldrick, 2008). Hence it is critical to understand the decision-making process of actual and potential consumers of fair trade products, particularly where marketing must consider alternative means of product promotion that do not rely on the large cash resources of large mainstream companies. This will be critical to understanding the drivers to growth and how these may be further developed. The main goal of our study is investigating fair trade consumers' decision making process and its implications for market sustainability and growth. In particular we adopted as theoretical framework a modied Theory of Planned Behavior model (Shaw & Shiu, 2000, 2002, 2003) that, besides the original model measures of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control additionally includes dimensions of personal moral' or ethical' obligation and self identity. As further factors of potential in uence we investigated also scepticism, personal values and civic moral disengagement (Shaw & Shiu, 2000, 2002, 2003; De Pelsmacker & Janssens, 2006; Guido, 2009). The participants for this study were about 300 adults with a mean age of 39 years (SD = 13). An anonymous self report questionnaire was administered. Results of our analysis revealed that the addition of such measures has been found to improve the explanation of intention to buy fair trade products. In summary the tendency to hold strong feelings of obligation for others has an impact on the purchase choices. Furthermore ethical consumers make ethical consumption choices because ethical issues have become an important part of their self-identity.