earticle

영어

In light of increased ethical awareness of today’s consumers, it seems highly important to understand whether such civic awareness causes consumers to engage in consumption behavior that reflects underlying ethical and moral beliefs. In this regard, the study draws on the theories of social capital, civic engagement, and value co-creation to test the relationship between social capital elements and ethical consumption behavior. For this purpose, this study adopts core elements of social capital (reciprocal norm, social network, and corporate trust) as predictors of ethical consumption behavior. In particular, the study attempts to newly conceptualize and validate ethical consumption behavior as one encompassing the civic engagement behavior whose premise is well encapsulated by three components of value co-creation concept (engagement, helping, and advocacy). The results demonstrate that the reciprocal norm significantly influences all three measures of ethical consumption behavior, whereas bonding network only influences advocacy behavior.