The Developmental Process of Unethical Consumer Behavior: An Investigation Grounded in China

This study seeks to understand how consumers make unethical decisions and how unethical consumer behavior (UCB) is formed in a relational society. By taking a relational interactive perspective and adopting a grounded theory approach, we have developed a theoretical framework for examining UCB's developmental process in a relational society. The framework reveals 4 levels (i.e., the socio-cultural, individual psychological, situational, and individual behavioral levels) and 12 paths of UCB formation. Importantly, this study finds that UCB in a relational society is influenced by guanxi-oriented social culture so deeply that it cannot be considered the result of a purely individual behavior choice.