Exploring Gen Z consumers' digital ethics in the context of digital commerce in Vietnam and inspecting factors influencing their digitally ethical consumption behavior.

Abstract

Digital commerce has transformed the way consumers in Vietnam, especially Gen Z consumers, shop for and consume products. This group of consumers is large and has complex shopping and consumption behavior. Digital shopping is preferred by Gen Z consumers and has become a shopping habit in the context of modern life. Like other interactive environments, digital commerce is also where Gen Z consumers shop and interact, not only with sellers but also with their behavior on the digital infrastructure. The term Digital ethics has emerged and controls the way digital users behave in digital space, however, digital ethics for consumers has not yet been conceptualized while digital commerce needs a set of norms to govern the behaviors of consumers, specifically Gen Z consumers. The aims of this research are to explore Gen Z's attitudes towards digitally ethical consumption, their understanding of consumer digital ethics, and the factors influencing intention and behavior of digitally ethical consumption. We use the Exploratory Sequential Research Design (mixed methods design) to find new ideas about this topic and then use the TPB model with modifications to conceptualize the ideas into a systematic way of shopping digitally ethically. The study shows that quantitative research results align with qualitative research findings, specifically all variables from the conceptual framework are used in the theoretical framework and all relationships are explained. Gen Z consumers’ digitally ethical consumption are influenced by Attitude towards Ethical Consumption, Attitude towards Digital Shopping, Subjective Norms, Awareness of Digital Ethics for consumers. Notably, Subjective Norms including digital technology, KOLs, advertisements have the strongest impact on Gen Z consumers’ Digitally ethical consumption Behavior.