خشم مصرف کنندگان : عکس العمل عاطفی به رفتار غیر اخلاقی شرکت

Unethical corporate conduct frequently leads to public outrage, which in turn triggers detrimental consumer behavior, such as consumer boycotts. However, few studies examine the effects of unethical corporate behavior on consumer emotions. To address this gap, the present work develops and validates a model of consumer outrage. The analysis suggests that consumer outrage is a compound emotion that comprises affective and cognitive experiences. Moreover, the results indicate that consumer outrage is a major trigger of boycotting behavior and that gender affects the predictions of the outrage model. The paper provides implications for management and suggestions for further research.

Instances of unethical corporate behavior frequently result in strong reactions from consumers. The BP oil spill is a recent example of unethical corporate behavior. Reactions from consumers are so strong that they result in the resignation of company CEO Tony Hayward. Other instances of corporate misconduct include international job relocation or discrimination against specific population groups (e.g., misogynic advertising). Unethical corporate behavior may elicit negative consumer emotions. This study refers to such negative emotional reactions as consumer outrage. Consumer outrage is a subcategory of moral outrage associated with detrimental consumer behavior and particularly boycotting behavior. The effects of consumer boycotts can be so dramatic that they affect a company's bottom line as the boycotts against Nestlé (Post, 1985) and Shell (Jordan, 1998) exemplify. Prior research rarely investigates emotional reactions to unethical corporate conduct. Marketing research mainly addresses consumers' perceptions of unethical company behavior (e.g., Nasr Bechwati & Morrin, 2003). Additionally, empirical research on consumer boycotts neglects negative emotions as a catalyst of group action (e.g., Farah & Newman, 2010). This finding is surprising because consumer outrage appears to be a major cause of boycotting behavior. Nevertheless, until now, the literature remains silent on precisely describe how negative emotional reactions to unethical corporate conduct evolve and further how these negative emotions and their antecedents affect consumer motivation to boycott a firm. This study fills the gap by addressing three questions. First, how does consumer outrage evolve? Second, how do consumer outrage and its antecedents influence consumers' inclination to support boycotts? Third, does gender affect the predictions of the outrage model? The results of a survey study address these questions and offer managerial insights regarding the design of communicative responses to accusations of unethical corporate behavior.

Whereas prior studies focus their attention on exploring consumers' perceptions of unethical corporate conduct, the present study investigates how unethical corporate conduct affects consumer emotions and subsequent boycotting behavior. The findings of the current study enrich the existing literature about the effects of unethical corporate behavior, boycotting behavior, and moral outrage. The results of this study suggest that unethical corporate behavior results in consumer outrage and that consumer outrage represents a compound emotion from a process understanding perspective. More precisely, unethical corporate behavior affects consumer outrage through a dual mechanism. Whereas the affective-response construct provides the emotional basis for outrage, the disconfirmation of moral norms represents its cognitive foundation. A test of alternative models reveals that disconfirmation and its antecedents have a stronger impact on consumer outrage than affective response. The extent of cognitive and affective constructs' impact may vary when different elicitors of outrage are considered. In particular, affective aspects should be more relevant when unethical corporate conduct more directly affects consumers. This study's findings indicate that consumer outrage represents a major elicitor of consumer boycotting behavior from a predictive understanding perspective. This result may be because consumers regard boycotting as an opportunity to vent their anger and to restore fairness and justice. Additional analysis reveals gender differences. First, the analysis indicates that cognitive processes have a more pronounced effect on men's outrage formation and inclination to boycott a firm. Moreover, in the sample, women are more outraged than men. These findings may be due to differences in moral orientation according to Brunel and Nelson (2000). Namely, female respondents in the sample assumingly experienced stronger feelings of outrage because they care more about people harmed by unethical corporate conduct than men. Second, in opposition to the disconfirmation paradigm, the moral-equity norm has no effect on women's disconfirmation perceptions in the sample. This finding indicates that female respondents' disconfirmation perception is not based on the perceived deviation of corporate conduct's immorality from the moral-equity norm. The moral-equity norm in the sample has a significant direct effect on women's consumer outrage in line with Kaplan's (1997) research. Apparently, women's outrage is greater than men's because they attach more importance to the moral dimension of corporate conduct and are thus more critical to businesses' moral transgressions. Fourth, consistent with research on the behavioral effects of ethical norms (e.g., Rallapalli, Vitell, & Barnes, 1998), the moral-equity norm has a significant effect on men's behavioral intentions in the sample. Apparently, contrary to women, men consider the moral-equity norm as a guideline for their behavior. This gender-specific difference may occur because men are more susceptible to normative influences perhaps because ethical norms influence men more than women due to men's greater “need to identify with or enhance one's image in the opinion of significant others” (Bearden, Netemeyer, & Teel, 1989, p. 473). Finally, the finding that women are more motivated to join consumer boycotts supports the assumption that boycotting is a pro-social behavior.