A Spanish perspective on the impact on religiosity and spirituality on consumer ethics

Abstract Studies of consumer ethics have generally used the Muncy–Vitell consumer ethics scale, but much of the published research has encountered problems with this scale. The present study proposes a new perspective for assessing consumer ethics, which constructs a model to analyze the impact of religiosity and spirituality on consumer attitudes and whether it leads to either ethical or unethical behaviour. Our model indicates that consumers’ behaviour in situations that involve ethical issues partly depends on both their religiosity and spirituality. Our findings present interesting theoretical implications for the consumer ethics literature, as well as practical implications for managers, principally marketers. The identification of a number of consumer types may provide the basis for an effective strategy for dealing with ethical and unethical behaviours.