Unbundling Ethical Consumer Choice : A Configurational Analysis With a Framing Experiment

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Authors

Date

2025-11

Department

Department of Management Studies

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Language

en

Pages

39

Series

Business & Society, Volume 64, issue 8, pp. 1520-1558

Abstract

To understand ethical consumer choice, it should be studied from a holistic, configurational perspective. We use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) (N = 715) with a randomized experiment in the context of animal welfare to examine (a) the interdependencies of factors aiding or impeding ethical choice, and (b) whether ethical choices occur differently in a loss frame than in a gain frame. We identify several alternative pathways to ethical choice and non-choice, and within these pathways, we reveal substitution effects, complementarities, and contingencies, reflecting the complexities of consumer choice. Furthermore, we demonstrate how ethical choice results more easily in a loss frame, and non-choice more easily in a gain frame, but how framing can also be irrelevant in certain situations. We contribute theoretically to ethical consumer choice in general and to food choice in particular by showing how it is the interplay of several factors in complex configurations that determines whether the situation favors ethical choice or non-choice. We outline important management and policy implications of our findings.

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Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

Keywords

configurational study, consumers, ethical choice, framing, fsQCA

Other note

DOI

10.1177/00076503241291304

Citation

Lankoski, L & Ollila, S 2025, 'Unbundling Ethical Consumer Choice : A Configurational Analysis With a Framing Experiment', Business & Society, vol. 64, no. 8, pp. 1520-1558. https://doi.org/10.1177/00076503241291304

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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202511058647

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[article-cris] Kauppakorkeakoulu / BIZ