Ethical Biographies: Product Provenance and the Pursuit of Ethical Consumption

Research on ethical consumption suggests consumers are motivated to consume products consistent with their moral identity. We use interpretive methods and identity theory as our lens to explore how consumers evaluate the ethicality of products during the purchase process. Our findings suggest the possibility that when informants shop, they try to determine the ethical biographies of products in order to purchase products that are consistent with their own moral identities. Ethical biographies of products consist of associations about the processes, resources, people, and places involved with a product’s provenance. However, our informants report that ethical biographies can create tensions among competing consumer values and identities, thereby necessitating the use of coping strategies and heuristics. This exploratory research contributes to research on ethical consumption by introducing the concept of ethical product biographies, by indicating a possible role of ethical product biographies in consumers’ ethical consumption decisions, and by suggesting a partial explanation for the oft-noted “attitude-behavior gap” in ethical consumption. Our findings can help guide future research that seeks to better understand how consumers attempt to make ethical consumption choices, thereby aiding marketers and policy makers interested in promoting ethical consumption.