A CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATION OF THE ETHICAL VALUES OF CONSUMERS - THE POTENTIAL EFFECT OF WAR AND CIVIL DISRUPTION

Past research has examined the ethical judgments of consumers in the U .S., but few studies have investigated such attitudes in foreign-marke t settings. The current study compares ethical attitudes of consumers in two countries (Ireland and Lebanon) which share a cultural similari ty of ongoing war and terrorism. The findings reveal that both culture s exhibit low sensitivity to ethical issues. Furthermore, the findings show that the Irish consumers are less sensitive to consumer ethical practices, less idealistic, more relativistic, and more Machiavellian than Lebanese consumers. The authors recommend that other researchers need to further investigate this perplexing issue because ethics is a research topic which often discourages survey respondents to be candid .