How do university students perceive their ethical purchase behaviour? comparative study between Finland and the United Kingdom

Prior to this study knowledge on university students' perceptions about their ethical purchase behaviour has been scarce. To reveal possible cultural differences and to examine the impacts of suggested different stages of ethical products industry lifecycle, the study was simultaneously conducted in Finland and the United Kingdom. The perceptions were studied by examining the following questions; do the students perceive they are willing to pay more for ethical products, do the students perceive ethicalness of brands important, what are the reasons that lead to or prevent purchase decisions and are there differences in importance of ethicalness between different product categories? The data collection was conducted using an online survey tool Kwiksurveys and Facebook acted as the virtual snowball sampling framework. The respondents forwarded the links to their colleagues and friends with a message indicating that the study was intended only to university students. The data was then processed using IBM SPSS Statistics and the automated data processing service provided by the online survey tool. The study found that 73% of the university students in Finland and 76% in the United Kingdom perceive that they are willing to pay more for ethical products. A majority of the respondents in both countries regarded ethicalness of brands important to them while they were making purchase decisions. Humanitarian and environmental reasons in both countries were considered to a considerably high extent to influence on university students purchase decisions. In addition, charity was considered important in the United Kingdom. In both countries high price and weak availability of ethical products were considered as the most important reasons preventing ethical purchases. The respondents in both countries were to the highest extent concerned about ethicalness of food. Finnish respondents regarde