In ethical consumerism, the issue of ethical attitudes not translating to ethical behaviors has been highly debated. While previous studies attribute this attitude-behavioral mismatch to the lack of education, hypocrisy, or low commitment, we propose a novel approach of applying Moral Foundation Theory (MFT) to account for the phenomenon. MFT identifies two dimensions of morality: individualizing moral foundations (INDI) which focuses on justice and harm, and binding moral foundations (BIND) which emphasizes authority and loyalty. Using responses from more than 4,000 consumers from four culturally and regionally diverse markets, we investigate the differing roles of moral foundations in response to a scenario on a sweatshop issue of a supplier whose factory is in a developing country. We use the mediator-moderator model of MFT-anticorporate attitude-boycott behavioral intention sequence to examine the differing role of INDI and BIND. Our results show that INDI and BIND are both positively related to anticorporate attitude; However, BIND is negatively related to boycott behavioral intention while INDI is positively related. That is, consumers with a strong BIND may show an attitude-behavioral mismatch although they are highly ethical.

This paper tests firms’ strategic response to negative consumer sentiment. We use sentiment analysis on social media posts to detect and proxy for negative consumer sentiments toward the firms and operationalize the number of ESG positive news about the firms as the strategic response to the sentiment. We document a surprising phenomenon that negative sentiment toward a firm is positively associated with future ESG news announcements by the firm. The effect is stronger for B2B firms than for B2C ones. We argue this is the firm’s strategic reaction rather than being a true change in the firm’s ESG policy, because (1) The ESG effect only lasts for a short period, and (2) the negative sentiment toward the firm decreases after the ESG news. Using former US president Trump’s tweets as external shocks, we show the causal relationship in a DID framework.