FACTORS INFLUENCING ETHICAL PURCHASE INTENTION

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Frame of Reference

This chapter firstly presents relevant previous research within the field of ethical consumerism and purchase intention. Secondly, relevant facts concerning the cosmetic industry are presented and further elaboration on how the industry is evolving towards being more ethical. Lastly, factors driving consumers towards ethical purchase intentions are derived from recent studies and adapted into a conceptual framework consisting of motivational factors affecting consumer purchase intention.

Ethical Consumption

When a consumer actively purchases a product or service based on a corporation’s social responsibility and avoids companies that are behaving unethically, this portrays an ethical consumption (Zollo et al., 2018). Deng (2013), implies that if a consumer avoids purchasing products that have a negative impact on the environment or society, he or she is considered to be an ethical consumer. Ethical consumption is no longer a niche market, but rather a market that is dramatically growing (Sudbury-Riley & Kohlbacher, 2016; Bray et al., 2011; Yeow et al., 2014). For well-known brands, ethical and legal values are not only in the interest of profitability but often also carries a sense of obligation (Davies & Gutsche, 2016). Consumers consider different ethical consumption decisions when purchasing goods or services, for example, they can be concerned for fair trade goods, environmentally friendly products, animal welfare or labour conditions (Sebastiani, et al., 2013).
A study by Davies and Gutsche (2016) explains why consumers are motivated to include ethical purchasing in their daily consumption. Their findings showed that there are three value-based factors for ethical consumption: health and wellbeing, social guilt, and self-satisfaction, while there was one non-value based factor: habit. The value-based factors propose that the consumer put thought behind it and acted upon the important values they carry, while the non-value based factors propose something the consumer did not put much thought into (Davies & Gutsche, 2016). The author’s main findings behind the motivation of buying ethical products are for health reasons, even though “ethically” does not necessarily concern health and wellbeing (Davies & Gutsche, 2016). Moreover, previous research has applied the TPB and successfully anticipated consumers green purchasing behaviour (Kim & Chung, 2011; Liobikienė & Bernatonienė, 2017). However, Liobikienė and Bernatonienė (2017) present a slightly different model to the TPB with three different determinants affecting consumers buying decisions for green products. The authors make assumptions on which factors among internal, external, and social were most important when purchasing green cosmetics, therefore their findings were not considered strong enough. Due to their unclear assumptions, it was concluded that there is limited research within the cosmetic product category (Liobikienė & Bernatonienė, 2017).
Looking further into the topic, prior researchers have identified aspects such as brand image (Chun, 2016), price, and quality (Carrigan & Attalla, 2001) to be the underlying factors that govern the purchase behaviour of ethical products. These factors are related to cosmetics in such a way that they reflect an individual’s status, lifestyle, and self-image (Thomas & Peters, 2009). Chun (2016) argues that it is becoming more common for cosmetic brands to attract customers by promoting ethical values so that they create a sense of similarity between their consumers and the brand itself. However, Chun’s research results contradict this assumption by revealing that the similarity between consumers’ self-image and the brand’s core values does not significantly favour customers purchase decision. In addition, Lee, Motion and Conroy (2009) have conducted research on anti-consumption in the form of brand avoidance. They define brand avoidance as something that is altered by the incongruity between a brand’s symbolic meaning and the individual consumer’s sense of self-image. Their research provided clarification as to why consumers avoid certain brands despite having the financial ability to make the purchase (Lee et al., 2009).

Purchase Intention

“Intentions are assumed to capture the motivational factors that influence a behavior; they are indications of how hard people are willing to try, of how much of an effort they are planning to exert, in order to perform the behavior.” (Ajzen, 1991, p.181)
In 1991 Icek Ajzen made an extension of the “Theory of Reasoned Action” (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) called the “Theory of Planned Behaviour” (TPB), which has been widely used in many different fields among researchers to explain consumers ethical purchase intentions (Zollo et al., 2018; Beldad & Hegner, 2018; Yadav & Pathak, 2017; Hwang Griffiths, 2017; Moser, 2015; Deng, 2013). An individual’s intention to purchase is captured by several motivational factors which then affects behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). In other words, attitude leads to the intention which then leads to behaviour (Zollo et al., 2018). However, many researchers have drawn conceptual frameworks based on the TPB model to understand ethical consumer behaviour. In these frameworks, the factors used differ from the original TPB, for example, personal values, moral norms, and internal ethics, etc. (Carrington et al., 2010). Other authors such as Beldad and Hegner (2018) argue that the TPB model could be further broadened by adding factors such as self-identity and moral obligation, while Hsu, Chang, and Yansritakul (2017) incorporated variables such as “Country-of-origin” and “Price Sensitivity” when studying purchase intention. Moreover, factors including self-image and convenience may impact purchase intention, if purchasing would have a negative impact on the consumer’s self-image or if the effort to purchase is too complicated, the purchase intention will be low (Barber, Kuo, Bishop & Goodman, 2012).

Intention-Behaviour Gap

Even though purchase intention is one of the major predictors of buying-behaviour, it has been seen that intention does not always lead to behaviour (Paul, Modi & Patel, 2016; Barber et al., 2012). Many authors conclude that there is a gap between consumers’ attitude towards buying ethical and their actual purchase, more known as the “attitude-behaviour Gap” or “intention-behaviour gap” (e.g. Boulstridge & Carrigan, 2000; Carrigan & Attalla, 2001; Carrington et al., 2014; Johnstone & Tan, 2014; Shaw et al., 2016). Moreover, Carrington et al. (2014), revealed four factors causing the gap; Prioritization of ethical concerns, the formation of plans and habits, willingness to commit and sacrifice, and modes of shopping behaviour.
However, Hassan, Shiu, and Shaw (2016) suggested that the extent of the gap is not analysed enough and that it lacks empirical evidence. Their research findings confirmed that there is a large intention-behaviour gap in ethical consumption but that it needs further research. Further research by Singhal and Malik (2018) also noticed the difference between an individual’s attitude towards green products and their purchasing behaviour in the cosmetic industry. They studied the effect of different education, age and income group of females. The findings proved that age and education level does not alter the individual’s approach to green cosmetic merchandises, but income level does have an influence. Showing that there is an existing gap between the attitude and purchasing behaviour of females (Singhal & Malik, 2018).

The Cosmetics Industry

The global cosmetics market grew by 5 percent in 2017 (Statista, 2019a) and in the same year, the European market for cosmetics and personal care products was the largest in the world, valued at €77.6 billion (Cosmetics Europe, 2018). Among the world’s 50 leading cosmetic brands, 22 resides in Europe (Brand Finance, 2017), making this region the world’s largest exporter of cosmetic products in terms of Market retail sales prices (Statista, 2019b). This represents one-third of the global market and is valued at €69 billion (Fleaca, 2016). Furthermore, there has been a positive increase in the market for natural cosmetics. Between the years 2007 and 2017, the global market value for these products more than doubled, from seven to 15 billion dollars (Statista, 2019c). Dimitrova, Kaneva, and Gallucci (2009) and Dernis et al. (2015) explain this increase as a result of the modern consumers becoming more aware of environmental concerns as well as trends regarding health, quality and beauty appearance. On the other hand, Matic and Puh (2016) found in their study that health consciousness is not a significant variable for consumers who purchase natural cosmetics.

1. INTRODUCTION 
1.1 BACKGROUND
1.2 PROBLEM DISCUSSION
1.3 PURPOSE
2. FRAME OF REFERENCE 
2.1 ETHICAL CONSUMPTION
2.2 PURCHASE INTENTION
2.3 INTENTION-BEHAVIOUR GAP
2.4 THE COSMETICS INDUSTRY
2.5 FACTORS INFLUENCING ETHICAL PURCHASE INTENTION
2.6 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.7 METHOD FOR THE FRAME OF REFERENCE
3. METHODOLOGY 
3.1 RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY
3.2 RESEARCH APPROACH
3.3 RESEARCH PURPOSE
3.4 DATA COLLECTION
3.5 SAMPLE
3.6 QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN
3.7 DATA ANALYSIS METHOD
3.8 VALIDITY
3.9 RELIABILITY
3.10 ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
4. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS AND REGRESSION ANALYSIS 
4.1 RELIABILITY TESTING
4.2 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC
4.3 MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION
4.4 MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION ANALYSIS
4.5 HYPOTHESIS TESTING
5. INTENTION AND FURTHER ANALYSIS 
5.1 GENERAL ANALYSIS
6. CONCLUSION 
7. DISCUSSION 
7.1 IMPLICATION
7.2 REVISED CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
7.3 RESEARCH LIMITATION
7.4 FURTHER RESEARCH
REFERENCE LIST 
APPENDIX
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Factors Driving Purchase Intention for Cruelty-free Cosmetics A study of female millennials in Jönköping, Sweden