How Consumers Navigate Ethical Tensions in a Marketplace: Swedish Dairy Marketplace as Context

Abstract

This research examines how consumers navigate ethical tensions in a marketplace, which applies to the Swedish dairy marketplace. This qualitative research takes a phenomenological approach and consists of 12 interviews with consumers. Our findings show that consumers use social values, ideologies and brands when they navigate ethical tensions in a marketplace. We find that consumers use three strategies based on social values, ideologies and brands in order to navigate ethical tensions. These consumer strategies are; 1) Use symbolic meanings to find and manage their ethical standpoint, 2) Polarize and dramatize the ethical tensions, 3) Identify political meanings. Consumers use these three strategies when they navigate since the strategies enable the consumers to manage ethical tensions in the marketplace. The way consumers navigate ethical tensions allow them to express and reflect over their ethical standpoint. We can see an interdependence between social values, ideologies and brands, where brands work as guidance for the consumers when they navigate ethical tensions. This study contributes to existing literature by combining brands as resources with ethical consumption, and applies it to the context concerning the contemporary dairy discussion in Sweden consisting of ethical tensions.