Methoud of enquiery - Essay Example

It will evaluate the impact of bad publicity on consumer’s perception at Primark. How do consumers react? Does it affect the purchasing behaviour towards Primark’s products? Does it affect sales? Or does it have no effect? Literature review There has been very little relative research conducted on ethical decision making and purchase behaviour. This area of research has received little attention from researchers. There have been some studies on “environmental ethical concerns and purchase behaviour” but there is little food to fodder for in other areas.

These studies were conducted after the consumerism movement of the 1970s in which they tried to find out about the consumer who is conscious of the impact of his consumption on the public and wants to use his purchasing power to bring about change. As opposed to work done earlier on environmentally concerned consumption, through our work, we are trying to establish how ethical concerns in Primark will affect purchase behaviour. The paper will revolve around how purchase behaviour is dependent on moral judgement owing to their use of illegal immigrants.

Illegal human behaviour been practiced before in other countries. In South Africa, consumers tend to be concerned about abuse of human rights in a foreign country. Similarly consumers and their concern for animal rights becomes a major factor when consumers consider purchasing products that have been tested on animal. The research is intended to improve an understanding of how consumer behaviour i is affected by bad publicity and unethical practices conducted in an organization. It has important implications in business ethics and marketing.

(Barling, 2005) In his book, Morality and the Market, McMurrian explains how market can play an influential role between the arbiter of good and bad business practice. According to McMurrian, ethical purchase behaviour is described as “ an expression of the individual’s moral judgmenet in his or her purchase behaviour”. (McMurrian, 1990) Smith did a research on consumer boycotts due to ethical purchase behaviour. For instance, the consumer boycott of Barclays Bank turned out to be the most influential reason behind the with drawl of Barclays bank from South Africa.

The major impact of the ethical behavior within an organization is on it stakeholders. The main stakeholders of a business can be categorized as either internal or external.In internal stakeholders, the most important are employees at all levels. It is important that employees are clearly aware of the implicit and explicit ethical behavior observed within an organization. It should be re-enforced by the top level management tactfully. This will create a positive working environment within an environment, encouraging healthy competition, friendly relationship among employees, higher productivity and greater satisfaction of the employees.

Workforce will feel more confident about their work if they are treated equally and appreciated and appraised liked other employees. The external stakeholders of an organization play an important role for an organization to become morally responsible organization. The most important stakeholders are customers, suppliers and public. Most organizations have become customer-oriented and to achieve maximum customer satisfaction, they must become ethical to develop loyal customers. Ethical dealing with suppliers will