Managing for Responsibility

CHAPTER 10

Morality and Self-Relevance

In Search of Objective Moral Judgment in Brand Transgression

Segun Shogbanmu and Olutayo Otubanjo

Introduction

Academics who study consumer psychology and consumer behavior have found the need to discuss business ethics through the pinhole of moral reasoning as this relates heavily with consumer psychology. Over the decades, moral reasoning was predominantly explained through moral disengagement (moral rationalization), and recently moral decoupling, though these relate directly to instances of brand transgression. When a brand engages in a wrong-doing (brand transgression), consumers, in turn, get engaged in a psychological evaluation of such brands. The purpose of this chapter is not only to appraise this ...