Business Ethics Index: Measuring Consumer Sentiments Toward Business Ethical Practices

The present study describes the development of an ongoing and systematic index to measure consumers’ sentiments towards business ethical practices. The Business Ethics Index (BEI) is based on the well established measurements of consumer sentiments, namely the ICS (Index of Consumer Sentiment) and CBCCI (Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index). The BEI is comprised of 4 measurements representing the dimensions of “personal-vicarious” and “past-future.” Data from 503 telephone interviews were used to calculate a BEI of 107. This indicates an overall positive consumer sentiment towards the ethical behavior of business. Future calculations of the BEI are planned which will allow for the estimation of the latent dynamics of trends in consumer sentiments toward American business ethics.