New insights into ethical consumption, or the lack of it...

Mostly my research focuses on the role of ethics in consumer decision making.  This has formed my doctoral studies for the last 4 years or so which hopefully will be concluded this year, & will lead to a number of publications.  The first significant output is the following paper that has been available on-line for a couple of months, but only today has 'gone to print'.  It really does provide fresh insight into why consumers say that they care about ethics but actually rarely buy ethical products.  This is called the 30:3 phenomenon with 30% of consumers saying that they care, but ethical lines such as fair trade coffee rarely achieving market shares of greater than 3%.  The research presented here provides some insights into the reasons why these good intentions are not converted.

Bray, J., Johns, N. and Kilburn, D. (2011) An exploratory study into the factors impeding ethical consumption. Journal of Business Ethics. 98 (4): 597-618