Abstract:

The ethics of the consumption behavior was in the past a neglected and marginalized domain, rather than an important subject meant for studying. Consumers were questioned especially with regard to their opinions as to business ethics and less as to the ethics of their consumption behavior. This study focuses upon the ethics of students’ consumption behavior from a comparative perspective: the students from the Faculties of Business and Faculties of Medicine from Romania and Bulgaria. The results of the analysis indicate the fact that there are no significant differences as to the ethical buying behavior between the two groups of students from the two countries. Moreover there are no significant differences between the students of the two approached majors in Romania and Bulgaria. Despite all these, our research proves that when faced with real shopping situations, most students have the tendency of acting unethically, using different types of pretexts („super-stories”) in order to justify their “sideslip” from the declared behavior. This mismatch between the declared behavior and the real behavior can be explained by means of social factors. In other words, in our case, theoretical education, information and the students’ efforts to behave ethically as consumers seem to be highly undermined by the realities of the standard of living, expressed through their families’ level of income.