Korean Customer Attitudes towards Unethical Retailers

This research aims to explore how Korean customers respond to the unethical business activities of retailers. The authors have developed the 6 hypotheses based on the literature review, and adopted the 4 hypotheses after removing the 2 hypotheses through discriminant validity analysis. Amongst the 4 hypotheses selected, H 1 (community support), H 3 (environment protection) and H 6 (trading with unethical suppliers) related to a retailer’s CSR business practices are accepted, whilst H 4 (product issues) is rejected. Surprisingly, Korean customers are not interested in a product safety issue, when deciding a shopping store. Rather than emphasising cheaper prices to attract new customers or maintain existing ones, it is demonstrated through the research that retailers have to pay their attention into their CSR activities. With respect to a retailer’s CSR practices, the retailer’s social role has become more important than ever before, from a customer’s point of view.