Charles Sturt University (CSU) research shows consumers are prepared to punish corporations for unethical and harmful behaviour, even when they are not directly affected.

Dr Elizabeth Dunlop, an academic with the School of Management and Marketing at CSU in in Wagga Wagga, investigated consumers' attitudes to corporations and their potential punishing reactions when they 'do the wrong thing' and cause harm to another party. 

Dr Dunlop's research asked when a consumer is not directly impacted by the actions of a company, will they still seek to punish them?

The study showed consumers punished corporations differently across varying ethical situations. "Consumers used a variety of punishing strategies, ranging from word-of-mouth to actively seeking out the offending firm's competitors," Dr Dunlop said.

The study used 'real life' ethical scenarios and generated more than one thousand responses on the nature and extent of consumer punishing behaviour.

"I identified how consumers view corporations and their responsibilities, identify with companies, and perceive injustices. I also studied how consumers can be interested in social issues involving firms, and whether or not that propels them to punish the firm if they transgress," she said.

The 'real life' ethical scenarios used in the study were publicly reported and involved international brands such as L'Oréal, Pacific Brands, Apple, Nestlé, British Petroleum (BP) and Qantas that produced physical, financial or emotional harm to people around the world.

One example of physical harm was animal product testing by L'Oreal. While illegal in Australia, the practice is not illegal internationally. This caused the greatest punishing reaction among the consumers surveyed.

While the study found that when consumers felt connected to a company they were less likely to judge them harshly, there were some brands, L'Oréal, BP, Nestlé and Apple for which this did not apply.

Regardless of how much respondents identified with L'Oréal and Nestlé, they still judged the firms harshly for their involvement in animal testing (in the case of L'Oréal) and using child labour in developing countries (Nestlé).

"One interpretation of this may be that for certain ethical issues, it is clear consumers will attribute responsibility against the company," Dr Dunlop said.

"As a result of this attribution against the ethics of animal testing, the study showed consumers used word of mouth to stop others buying L'Oréal products, which reduced patronage and produced negative word of mouth publicity for the company."

Dr Dunlop said, "Examples like L'Oréal and BP showed consumers are more likely to actually engage in punishing behaviours when the type of harm caused is physical, resulting in injury or death".

Over all the scenarios in the study, 30 per cent of respondents said they would punish global corporations for their behaviour towards other victims such as people, animals or the natural environment.

Dr Dunlop said this 'punish rate' was related to situations where the consumer "was also indirectly affected by a company's actions on other third parties". Even as a third-party observer, the study indicated that a consumer can seek or desire to restore justice through punishing the offender.

"Consumers punished these businesses by reducing their patronage and spending less money, reducing the frequency of interaction and taking their business to a competitor."

Interestingly, contacting the media and reporting to agencies to register complaints were behaviours least used by consumers to punish firms.