Why Consumers Don't Behave Ethically (DVD)

What is interesting about the rise of Corporate Social Responsibility, and the discussions around the nature of civil society, is the extent to which it ignores almost completely the role played by the everyday individual as a worker, consumer, or simply interested or uninterested bystander. Like many political debates it is very easy to lose sight of the common man and woman, except as they appear periodically as statistics in a poll or as stereotypical self-interested consumers or downtrodden third world sneaker factory workers. It is the common man and woman that we bring to the fore in this documentary. We are not interested in the “CEO” or “animal rights advocate”, but the average Joe and Jane on the streets of America, Australia, Germany, Spain, Sweden, China, Turkey and India, revealing to us why they believe what they believe and why they do what they do.

It requires far more for a society to become “civil” or a corporation to become “socially responsible” than for its political or economic leaders to espouse a viewpoint, however noble and high minded. Corporations and societies become responsible in large part because the average individual understands and acquiesces to the position reflected by social and corporate leaders and will engage in behavior consistent with that belief. Are we as individuals as noble as we say in the polls? Are we truly willing to sacrifice for the higher cause? Or is it simply someone else’s responsibility? Is there any truth in the saying that consumers may profess to be social radicals in surveys but are most definitely economic conservatives at the check out counter?

This documentary reveals how consumers in different countries react to alternative situations relating to their behavior and that of their country and cultural peers. Watch and listen as individuals map out their own logic and beliefs about ethical conflicts as wide ranging as the seemingly innocuous day-to-day purchasing of bath soaps, and the environmental and animal rights issues hidden therein, to their reactions to the labor practices of major brand manufacturers such as Nike, to the supposedly victimless crime of purchasing counterfeit goods.

26 Minutes. The DVD is available in PAL or NTSC formats through Insight Media Inc.

To order your copy of "Why Consumers Don't Behave Ethically", go to Insight Media and follow the links to Business, Management and New Titles.

Written by: Giana Eckhardt, Timothy Devinney and Russell Belk
Produced and Edited by: Steve Cook and Joelle Baudet

To view the trailer click here.

Please send any comments to T.Devinney@agsm.edu.au