3/28/2023 0 Comments Diamond rush africa distrustDiamond-funded conflicts have resulted in the deaths of millions of people. The significance of ethical consumerism for the diamond industry is substantial, given the global campaigns and efforts to combat conflict blood diamonds. Consumers are more aware that their consumption fosters organizational production, and therefore, are taking a more aggressive stance against unethical organizational practices through protests, boycotts, and non-consumption. For example, consumers’ preference for locally grown, fairly traded, organically produced, and carbon-neutral food and beverages have increased. This includes purchase decisions based on aspects such as a firm’s ethical trade activities, labor standards (wage rates and working conditions), and environmental friendliness of the product. Ethical consumerism has increased considerably in the last few decades as consumption preferences and practices are increasingly shaped by the consumers’ awareness of ethical issues concerning particular products or firms. Ethical consumerism is the consumption of goods based on moral and personal values and social elements rather than exclusively on economic aspects. The findings provide useful insights for practitioners and policy-makers regarding ethical consumerism in the diamond industry and help to highlight the issues facing the industry, such as its poor supply chain transparency, human rights abuses, child labor, money laundering, bribery and corruption, and environmental degradation from mining activities.Ĭonsumers are increasingly concerned with the environmental and social impacts of their purchases. For instance, for the middle income group, generic ethically-minded consumer behavior did not translate into the ethical buying behavior of diamonds. The multi-group moderation test results revealed that the income levels of buyers do affect the relationships between constructs. Additionally, ethical concerns regarding country of origin positively influenced the ethical buying of diamonds, while the willingness to pay more had no significant impact on ethical diamond purchases. Overall, ethically minded consumer behavior had a significant positive impact on willingness to pay more, ethical concerns regarding the country of origin of diamonds, and ethical buying of diamonds. The framework comprising of four constructs, namely ethically-minded consumer behavior, willingness to pay more, ethical concerns regarding country of origin of diamonds, and ethical buying behavior of diamonds was first validated, and then the hypothesized relationships between the constructs were assessed using structural equation modeling. Four hundred eightteen responses toa structured questionnaire were collected. This formed the motivation of this study, which examined the ethical buying behavior of consumers and the moderating effects of their income levels in the diamond industry. Despite its significance, the research on ethical consumerism in luxury product segments such as diamonds is relatively scant. Although ethical consumerism has witnessed significant interest in recent years, most studies have focused on low-value, commoditized product categories such as food and beverage and apparel.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |