Analytical business report on what ethical consumerism means for Essay

Analytical business report on what ethical consumerism means for businesses - Essay Example primary research has shown that while most respondents supported ethical brands and were willing to work in ethical companies, they still were not ready to pay higher price for ‘ethical chocolate’ of the same taste and quality. During the past three decades the combination of words â€Å"ethical consumerism† has become increasingly popular. This paper aims to provide an overview of the concept of ethical consumerism, supported with both primary and secondary research. For a more specific analysis of ethical business, there was chosen an international chocolate manufacturer, the Hershey Company. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: Section 1 provides an overview of the concept of ethical consumerism, major issues and the benefits organisations gain from it; Section 2 provides a brief overview of the Hershey Company followed with the analysis of the company’s ethical business activity and its Corporate Social Responsibility; Section 3 reports the results of a primary research and discuses major findings; Section 4 is a concluding part of the report followed by recommendations presented in Section 5. Even though the concept of ethical consumerism is known in society for centuries, it is only within the last thirty years that is has been transformed from a minority concern to a mainstream phenomenon (Yeow, Dean, and Tucker, 2013). In the past decades, the level of awareness of consumers about the ethical, environmental and social problems in the world has increased dramatically. People became more responsible in selecting suppliers of the products and providers of the services. This behaviour led to an increased popularity of the concept of ethical consumerism. In academic world, the term of ethical consumerism is defined as â€Å"decision-making, purchases and other consumption experiences that are affected by the consumer’s ethical concerns† (Yeow, Dean, and Tucker, 2013: 88). In other words, while purchasing a product and service, consumers