Study On The Influence Of Psychological Contract Violation On Consumer Non-ethical Behavior

As a new type of consumption patterns, catering group-buying develops rapidly in the Internet age and attracts a lot of consumers for the advantages of heavy discount, abundant varieties, ease of payment and others. In the market environment of catering group-buying,customers buy goods and constitute a buyer-seller relationship with merchants. It is a kind of contractual relationship whether it is a economic or spiritual exchange. And the relationship is perceived by customers, so we can call it customer psychological contract. However, as the competition of group-buying market becomes fierce increasingly, the drawbacks of catering group-buying appear gradually. For example, group-buying merchants provide false information and break faith. Moreover, service quality has declined a lot and so on. Once merchants fail to carry out the commitment of responsibility and duty, psychological contract will be violated which will give rise to customer dissatisfaction or even non-ethical behaviors. This kind of consumer non-ethical behaviors may damage merchants’ images severely and influence other consumers’ purchasing behaviors.Based on the catering group-buying situation, this study deeply analyzes the influence mechanism of psychological contract violation on consumer non-ethical behaviors. As well, this study discusses about mediating effect customer satisfaction has on the relationship between them and moderating effect of consumer demographic characteristics and ethics ideology. The object of this paper is to provide helpful guidance for group-buying merchants to take full use of psychological contract so as to reduce consumer non-ethical behavior and attract more customers and maintain group-buying market order ultimately.Firstly, this study summarizes domestic and foreign related articles, proposes a conceptual model and brings up research hypotheses. Secondly, on the basis of maturity scales,this study designs and distributes the questionnaire according to the catering group-buying situation. Thirdly, the study uses the statistical analysis software of SPSS18.0 and AMOS17.0to analysis and test data. The research conclusions include as follows:(1) In the catering group-buying situation, customer psychological contract includes two dimensions which are transactional psychological contract and relational psychological contract.(2) In the catering group-buying situation, customer psychological contract violation includes two dimensions which are transactional psychological contract violation and relational psychological contract violation.(3) In the catering group-buying situation, consumer non-ethical behavior includes four dimensions which are actively lucrative illegal activities, passively lucrative activities,actively lucrative deceptive activities and no harm activities.(4) In the catering group-buying situation, psychological contract violation(two dimensions) has a significantly positive effect on consumer non-ethical behavior(four dimensions) on partial dimensions.(5) In the catering group-buying situation, customer satisfaction plays a mediating role between relationalpsychological contract violation and consumer non-ethical behavior(four dimensions).(6) In the catering group-buying situation, consumer demographic characteristics play a moderating role between psychological contract violation(two dimensions) and consumer non-ethical behavior(four dimensions).(7) In the catering group-buying situation, relativism ethics ideology plays a moderating role between relational psychological contract and no harm activities.Lastly, this study puts forward some corresponding marketing suggestions for catering group-buying merchants on the basis of study results:(1) Fulfilling their commitments and maintaining customer psychological contract.(2) Selecting trustworthy websites and enhancing the attraction of catering group-buying.(3) Providing personalized services and improving customer satisfaction. Meanwhile, some corresponding suggestions for our government and customers are put forward.