The following section starts by defining and discussing ethical consumerism, vision, mission and corporate social responsibility terms. We then review relevant studies to investigate the role of ethics in the process of a bank selection.
Ethical Consumerism
Ethical consumerism (or ethical consumption) is defined as “the moral principles and standards, which guide individual or group behavior as they obtain, use, and dispose of goods and services” (Muncy & Vitell, 1992). A more recent definition was developed by Ferrell & Fraedrich (2014, p. 341) as “the conscious and deliberate choice to make certain consumption choices due to personal moral beliefs and values”. While, consumerism is a choice made based on an ethical decision-making process (Al A’ali and Al-Sarraf, 2016).
Several papers suggest that ethical consumerism is a choosing process reflecting various concerns of the consumer, for instance, moral, ethical, and social concerns (Szmigin and Carrigan, 2006), social values (Carey, Shaw and Shiu, 2008), moral beliefs (Gill, 2012) and interaction with market place and reference groups (Fullerton, Kerch & Dodge, 1996).