IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v35y2021i3p432-450.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consuming Worker Exploitation? Accounts and Justifications for Consumer (In)action to Modern Slavery

Author

Listed:
  • Michal Carrington

    (The University of Melbourne, Australia)

  • Andreas Chatzidakis

    (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)

  • Deirdre Shaw

    (University of Glasgow, UK)

Abstract

While research has examined the plight of vulnerable workers, the role of consumers who drive demand for slave-based services and products has been largely neglected. This is an important gap given both historical evidence of the effectiveness of 18th and 19th century anti-slavery consumer activism and recent attempts to regulate slavery through harnessing consumer power, such as the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015. This article draws on data from in-depth interviews with 40 consumers, to identify their understanding of modern slavery, before revealing the neutralising and legitimising techniques they use to justify their (in)action. Our findings contribute to, and extend, neutralisation theory by exploring its applicability in this unique context. We also position techniques of legitimisation as central to understanding how modern slavery is tolerated through a variety of discursive and institutional factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Michal Carrington & Andreas Chatzidakis & Deirdre Shaw, 2021. "Consuming Worker Exploitation? Accounts and Justifications for Consumer (In)action to Modern Slavery," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(3), pages 432-450, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:35:y:2021:i:3:p:432-450
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017020926372
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017020926372
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017020926372?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pat Auger & Timothy Devinney, 2007. "Do What Consumers Say Matter? The Misalignment of Preferences with Unconstrained Ethical Intentions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 361-383, December.
    2. Veronika Andorfer & Ulf Liebe, 2012. "Research on Fair Trade Consumption—A Review," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(4), pages 415-435, April.
    3. Michal Carrington & Benjamin Neville & Gregory Whitwell, 2010. "Why Ethical Consumers Don’t Walk Their Talk: Towards a Framework for Understanding the Gap Between the Ethical Purchase Intentions and Actual Buying Behaviour of Ethically Minded Consumers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 139-158, November.
    4. Chris Smith, 2006. "The double indeterminacy of labour power," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(2), pages 389-402, June.
    5. Vermeir, Iris & Verbeke, Wim, 2008. "Sustainable food consumption among young adults in Belgium: Theory of planned behaviour and the role of confidence and values," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 542-553, January.
    6. Andreas Chatzidakis & Sally Hibbert & Andrew Smith, 2007. "Why People Don’t Take their Concerns about Fair Trade to the Supermarket: The Role of Neutralisation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 89-100, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paolo Antonetti & Stan Maklan, 2014. "Feelings that Make a Difference: How Guilt and Pride Convince Consumers of the Effectiveness of Sustainable Consumption Choices," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 117-134, September.
    2. William Sun, 2020. "Toward a theory of ethical consumer intention formation: re-extending the theory of planned behavior," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 10(3), pages 260-278, December.
    3. Carrington, Michal J. & Neville, Benjamin A. & Whitwell, Gregory J., 2014. "Lost in translation: Exploring the ethical consumer intention–behavior gap," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 2759-2767.
    4. Volker Lingnau & Florian Fuchs & Florian Beham, 2019. "The impact of sustainability in coffee production on consumers’ willingness to pay–new evidence from the field of ethical consumption," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 65-93, April.
    5. Elena Kossmann & Mónica Gómez-Suárez, 2018. "Decision-making processes for purchases of ethical products: gaps between academic research and needs of marketing practitioners," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 15(3), pages 353-370, September.
    6. Etilé, Fabrice & Teyssier, Sabrina, 2013. "Corporate social responsibility and the economics of consumer social responsibility," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement (RAEStud), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 94(2).
    7. Pamela Yeow & Alison Dean & Danielle Tucker, 2014. "Bags for Life: The Embedding of Ethical Consumerism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 87-99, November.
    8. Catherine Janssen & Joëlle Vanhamme, 2015. "Theoretical Lenses for Understanding the CSR–Consumer Paradox," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(4), pages 775-787, September.
    9. Michal Carrington & Andreas Chatzidakis & Helen Goworek & Deirdre Shaw, 2021. "Consumption Ethics: A Review and Analysis of Future Directions for Interdisciplinary Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(2), pages 215-238, January.
    10. Andrés Nova-Reyes & Francisco Muñoz-Leiva & Teodoro Luque-Martínez, 2020. "The Tipping Point in the Status of Socially Responsible Consumer Behavior Research? A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-23, April.
    11. Sue Hornibrook & Claire May & Andrew Fearne, 2015. "Sustainable Development and the Consumer: Exploring the Role of Carbon Labelling in Retail Supply Chains," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 266-276, May.
    12. Sudbury-Riley, Lynn & Kohlbacher, Florian, 2016. "Ethically minded consumer behavior: Scale review, development, and validation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 2697-2710.
    13. Larissa Schütte & Diana Gregory-Smith, 2015. "Neutralisation and Mental Accounting in Ethical Consumption: The Case of Sustainable Holidays," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-14, June.
    14. Veronika Andorfer & Ulf Liebe, 2012. "Research on Fair Trade Consumption—A Review," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(4), pages 415-435, April.
    15. Schill, Marie & Shaw, Deirdre, 2016. "Recycling today, sustainability tomorrow: Effects of psychological distance on behavioural practice," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 349-362.
    16. Roberta Sebastiani & Francesca Montagnini & Daniele Dalli, 2013. "Ethical Consumption and New Business Models in the Food Industry. Evidence from the Eataly Case," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 114(3), pages 473-488, May.
    17. Francesco Testa & Silvia Sarti & Marco Frey, 2019. "Are green consumers really green? Exploring the factors behind the actual consumption of organic food products," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 327-338, February.
    18. Deirdre Shaw & Robert McMaster & Terry Newholm, 2016. "Care and Commitment in Ethical Consumption: An Exploration of the ‘Attitude–Behaviour Gap’," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 251-265, June.
    19. Fred Amofa Yamoah & Rachel Duffy & Dan Petrovici & Andrew Fearne, 2016. "Towards a Framework for Understanding Fairtrade Purchase Intention in the Mainstream Environment of Supermarkets," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 181-197, June.
    20. Zhengxia He & Yanqing Zhou & Jianming Wang & Cunfang Li & Meiling Wang & Wenbo Li, 2021. "The impact of motivation, intention, and contextual factors on green purchasing behavior: New energy vehicles as an example," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 1249-1269, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:35:y:2021:i:3:p:432-450. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.