Investigation of Consumer's Response to Corporate Irresponsible Behavior: The Mediating Role of Moral Emotions and Virtues

Today, ethics and social responsibility is one of the important factors and influencing attitudes and behaviors in the image and reputation of the company. The current research is aimed to investigate the relationship between consumer response (negative word of mouth and protest behaviors) on corporate irresponsible behavior considering the mediating role of moral emotions and virtues.
The current research method is descriptive survey. The statistical population of this study includes the consumers of car companies in Gorgan. Among all, 384 subjects were selected by stratified random sampling. Standardized questionnaire was used for data collecting since its validity and reliability is confirmed. For data analysis, structural equation modeling (SmartPLS) was used.
The results indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between corporate irresponsible behavior and consumer response and there is also a significant positive relationship between corporate irresponsible behavior and consumer's negative moral emotional. There is a significant positive relationship between consumer's negative moral emotional and consumer response. There is no significant relationship between corporate irresponsible behavior and consumer's negative moral emotional with moral virtues. But there is significant relationship between consumer's negative moral emotional and consumer response with moral virtues.
According to feelings and moral virtues that identify, remove and improve the corporate irresponsible behavior will follow, effective step in creating, maintaining and improving consumer response will be.