Consumer recycling: An ethical decision‐making process

Although recycling is often experienced as a moral dilemma, studies that systematically approach this issue from an ethical perspective are scarce. Moreover, previous studies have explored recycling by mainly using single ethical constructs, such as moral norms, values or obligations, rarely approaching it as an ethical decision‐making process. Our study takes a more holistic approach and integrates the recycling literature with business ethics theory in order to develop a conceptual model of ethical decision making involved in recycling. The model is based on Jones' issue‐contingent model and its key concept, that is, moral intensity, which we extend by adding altruism as an important personality trait that influences pro‐social behaviour. The data were collected from a sample of 367 adult consumers, representative of the Slovenian population by gender and age. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling. The results of our study confirmed the relationships between three key facets of ethical decision making: moral recognition, moral judgment and moral intention. Higher levels of moral recognition were found to lead to more positive moral judgments, which in turn positively influenced the formation of intentions to recycle. Moreover, moral intensity was found to be a significant predictor of moral recognition and moral judgment, while altruism was found to be a significant predictor of moral recognition. These findings hold important implications for public policy makers and social marketers who have to consider not only the consumer characteristics but also the issue characteristics in seeking to understand and influence consumer recycling. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Creating a Self-Plagiarism Research Topic Typology through Bibliometric Visualisation

Self-plagiarism, textual recycling and redundancy seemed to be controversial and unethical; however some questions about its definition are still open. The objective in this paper presented study was to use bibliometric analysis to synthesise and visualize the research literature production and derive a typology of self-plagiarism research. Five topics emerged: Self-plagiarism, Institutional self-plagiarism, Self-plagiarism and ICT, Self-plagiarism in academic writing, Self-plagiarism in science. The state of the art topics seem to be “social medium”, “virtual world”, “face book”, “sociomateriality”, “knowledge sharing”, “open access”, “institutional repository”, “retraction” and “responsible conduct”.     

Back to consumption and production? Prosumers negotiating the WMG lockdown on YouTube

There is a growing body of literature that explores the increasingly blurred divide separating production and consumption. Within this stream of work, digital environments are commonly depicted as sites of consumer empowerment, participation, co‐creation and prosumption, the intertwined process of production and consumption. Yet, in response to the mounting commercial and legal pressures, Web 2.0 companies pro‐actively regulate prosumption, deploying advanced technological devices and innovative contractual arrangements. Exploring the case of Warner Music Group lockdown on YouTube, we investigate the role of a content‐sharing platform in (re)formatting prosumption. We draw from prosumption theory and Ritzer's “prosumption continuum” to highlight how shifting arrangements of rights and content regulation shape prosumption of corporate content (in our case music owned by record labels). In contrast to the studies emphasizing the blurring of the line between consumer and producer, we illustrate how prosumption can also be transformed (back) into more conventional forms of consumption and production. We highlight several mechanisms that make this process of “de‐prosumption” possible despite considerable consumer opposition, and consider the implications facing prosumers of corporate content. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.