How Buying Less is Being More: Integrating Ethical Consumption into Business Education.

Ethical consumption involves people making decisions that strive to reduce environmental or social harms. This stands in stark contrast to typical frameworks advanced in business school settings, in fields like economics. "More is better" is a standard outcome goal that has analytical appeal. Temptation, a natural force tending to circumvent ethical consumption, is typically excluded by assumptions of economic rationality. The drive to succeed is often structured around creating demand. We argue that if ethical consumption is to be more widely habituated throughout the global economy, it must be woven into the fabric of business education via a multiple disciplinary approach. To initiate this idea, we use a critical incident inquiry approach among business students to prompt their awareness of ethical consumption and to illustrate how their current thinking and behavior may not reflect their assumed moral identity. Insights are presented for how to better integrate ethical consumption in business education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]