Clerk Agent Promotes Consumers' Ethical Purchasing Behavior in Unmanned Purchase Environment

摘要

This study explored whether cues from others in a purchase environment have an effect on purchase behavior for products with fair-trade labels, an ethical attribute of products, among Japanese consumers. By manipulating cues from others, we assessed consumers' intentions to purchase fair-trade products under three different experimental situations: 1) the observed condition, in which participants' purchasing behaviors were observed by others (N = 84), 2) the agent condition, in which participants' purchasing behaviors were observed by a clerk-like agent (N =118), and 3) the non-observed condition, in which participants' purchasing behaviors could not be observed by others (N = 106). The results of this conjoint experiment demonstrate that participants under both the agent and observed conditions valuated fair-trade products higher than those under the non-observed condition, although participants both in the agent and the non-observed conditions were instructed that their responses would remain anonymous. These findings imply that implications of the presence of others, such as a clerk-like agent in an unmanned purchase environment, enhance ethical purchasing behaviors as with manned purchase environments.