Exploring consumer ethics in Ghana, West Africa

Consumer ethics is a growing area of research that focused almost exclusively on consumers in the United States and, to a lesser degree, Europe and Asia. In this paper, we introduce an African element to the consumer ethics discourse by drawing on survey responses from over 300 Ghanaian consumers to explore their ethical beliefs and judgements. We analysed these data using regression techniques. Our findings show that Ghanaian consumers exhibit lower levels of ethics compared with their America counterparts, especially when the unethical actions facilitate the achievement of their goals. While Ghanaian consumers recognize the value of moral rules, they are prone to suspending their ethical positions as they deem necessary in a particular context. Implications for marketing strategy and future research are discussed.