Moral Decoupling: Analysis of Possible Factors Causing Consumers to Ignore Brand’s Greenwashing Practices and the Effect on Purchase Intention

Abstract: Background: Due to the growth of green markets, the phenomenon of greenwashing arises. This leads to consumers experiencing feelings of betrayal and having trust problems with the brand using this misleading tactic. Nevertheless, there is also literature indicating that some customers ignore this and do not alter their purchasing behavior by continuing to buy from these misbehaving brands. This can be explained by moral decoupling, which allows customers to separate their judgements of morality from their judgements of the company's performance. In addition to this, three further variables were analyzed, to comprehend this concept better. Purpose: This study's goal was to retest relationships established in previous research, concretely moral decoupling linked with brand identity fusion, purchase intention and the regulatory focus theory in the context of a greenwashing infraction. By retesting and further proving these, this study’s contribution would have been to propose the expansion of the moral decoupling model with the mentioned variables. Also, this study would expand the existing literature on causes of customer behavioral responses and bring light and study further the detrimental practice of greenwashing.  Method: The foundation of this study was previous literature, which helped construct three hypotheses that were tested via an online questionnaire that has 122 usable responses. In summary, this study follows a deductive approach using quantitative methods to fulfill the purpose of this explanatory, positivist research.  Conclusion: There was not enough evidence to support hypotheses 1 and 2. These stated that regulatory focus influences moral decoupling in a greenwashing context, promotion focus negatively and prevention positively, and that brand identity fusion influences moral decoupling positively in a greenwashing context. The third hypothesis stating that moral decoupling positively influences purchase intention was only proven in the English survey. The overall results contradict the findings of the literature this study is based on, meaning that future research is needed to reconcile these differences.