網路交易消費者道德決策研究－道德強度、道德哲學與匿名性之影響

In recent years, business transactions over the Internet have become increasingly popular worldwide. A wide variety of business activities with extended applications of e-commerce have been carried out online such as information searches, product cataloguing, order placing, online auctions, and personal financial transactions. This technological advance has reshaped the world and created a new form of social interaction as consumers can easily sell or purchase goods via online commercial websites. In the context of Internet-based or online transactions, the buyer and seller are separated by time and space as the exchange of product and money will not occur simultaneously. Lacking face-to-face interaction increases anonymity and makes the detection of individual identity difficult in the virtual environment. As a result, consumers may perceive their actions as being undetectable and engage in unethical behavior during online transactions. However, the factors affecting consumer ethical decision-making processes within the Internet-based environment have not been thoroughly understood by business communities and relatively under-explored in past research by academics. The purpose of this study is to develop a holistic model for consumers' ethical decision-making and to investigate the determinants influencing this decision-making process in the context of online auctions. The research framework in this study is developed based on the four-component model for individual ethical decision making and behavior by Rest (1986) and the issue-contingent model of marketing ethics by Jones (1991). The ethical decision-making process by online consumers in the proposed model includes three stages: (1) moral perception: consumers perceive the moral issues in ethical situations; (2) moral judgment: consumers make a moral judgment based on ethical principles; and (3) moral intention: consumers establish moral intent in their final action. The factors influencing individual ethical decisionmaking processes are examined from three aspects, i.e., the ethical issue itself-moral intensity, individual characteristics-moral philosophy, and technological features-anonymity. Jones (1991) indicates that the moral intensity is the extent of issue-related moral imperatives in a given situation, consisting of the magnitude of consequences, social consensus, probability of effect, temporal immediacy, proximity, and the concentration of effect. Moral philosophy is identified with two underlying dimensions, idealism and relativism (Forsyth, 1980). Anonymity is associated with deindividualization where the individual is lacking in self-awareness and self-evaluation and may perform socially unacceptable behavior (Singer, Brush and Lublin, 1965; Ziller, 1964; Zimbardo, 1970). The study develops hypotheses to be tested empirically based on the proposed consumer ethical-decision model in the context of online auction transactions. Three ethical scenarios of online auction were developed and a total of 450 valid responses with survey questionnaire was collected and analyzed with various statistical techniques including ANOVA, correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis. The research results show six dimensions of moral intensity can be grouped into two latent factors, potential harm and social pressure, consistent with previous studies. Potential harm has a major influence on moral judgment and moral intention, and social pressure plays a more critical role in influencing moral perception and moral judgment. Next, the idealism of moral philosophy has a positive effect upon all three stages of the ethical decision-making process but the relativism has no significant impact. Finally, anonymity has a negative effect on moral intention when the influence of moral intensity is low. The implications of this study are as follows: firstly, three online auction scenarios can be extended to online ethical cases by businesses to promote consumer ethics in Internet-based transactions. Secondly, businesses may reinforce consumers' ethical perception of potential harm to others in order to increase ethical sensitivity by emphasizing the terms and conditions of online purchases. Thirdly, the moral philosophy of idealism should be promoted through ethical education. Lastly, the degree of perceived anonymity can be reduced through establishing credit rating mechanisms to increase consumers' ethical intentions. Understanding consumers' ethical decisions within the context of Internet-based transactions is important for those firms running online businesses to form better policies and regulations.