A Comparative Study of Consumer Ethicality in Korea and India

The present study compared the consumer ethics of respondents from South Korea and India. Specifically, this research examined the differences in ethical ideologies and ethical judgments with regard to consumer unethical practices among the consumers of these two Eastern nations. Data were analyzed based on self-administered questionnaires comprising a Consumer Ethics Scale and an Ethics Position Questionnaire. The findings indicate that Koreans are stricter in evaluating situations wherein customers are “actively benefiting from illegal activities” and “actively benefiting from questionable but legal actions.” Nevertheless, the respondents of both nations appeared to believe in “no harm or no foul activities” and “passively benefiting at the expense of others” in the marketplace as relatively tolerable behavior. Idealism is the basic ideology followed in both nations, but the level of relativism was found to be higher among Koreans. Both groups of respondents were categorized into four ethical types for further analysis. This study provides evidence to support previous theories, which postulate that consumer ethics and ethical ideology are influenced by culture, and rejects the assumption that Eastern nations are similar in terms of ethical and cultural values.