Attitudes of Small Business Owners towards Counterfeit Merchandise: Ethics or Survival?

  • Leanne L. Manley
  • Michael C. Cant .
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22610/jebs.v7i4(J).593

Abstract

Counterfeiting of products is an industry that affects many countries worldwide and it is an industry that has grown exponentially in the 21st century, due to the value associated with branded products. It is the demand from individuals that fuels this trade and what will keep the trade growing for years to come. It therefore becomes essential that research be conducted to investigate the attitudes held towards the trade in order to gain a better understanding of the current counterfeit environment. This article aimed to investigate the attitudes that South African small business owners have with regard to counterfeit merchandise. Quantitative research was undertaken by means of a self-administered web-based questionnaire that was e-mailed to individuals that either have an active SME (Small, Medium Enterprise) or individuals that are seeking to start their SME, who reside in the provinces of the Mpumalanga and the Western Cape. The data obtained was then analysed by means of SAS JMP version 11 whereby attitudes held towards counterfeit merchandise were established. The main conclusions emanating from the research, was that South African SMEs generally have a negative attitude towards purchasing counterfeit fashion branded merchandise.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
Published
2015-08-30
How to Cite
Manley, L. L., & ., M. C. C. (2015). Attitudes of Small Business Owners towards Counterfeit Merchandise: Ethics or Survival?. Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, 7(4(J), pp. 48-59. https://doi.org/10.22610/jebs.v7i4(J).593
Issue
Vol 7 No 4(J) (2015)
Section
Research Paper

Copyright (c) 2015 Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author (s) should affirm that the material has not been published previously. It has not been submitted and it is not under consideration by any other journal. At the same time author (s) need to execute a publication permission agreement to assume the responsibility of the submitted content and any omissions and errors therein. After submission of a revised paper in the light of suggestions of the reviewers, editorial team edits and formats manuscripts to bring uniformity and standardization in published material.

This work will be licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) and under condition of the license, users are free to read, copy, remix, transform, redistribute, download, print, search or link to the full texts of articles and even build upon their work as long as they credit the author for the original work. Moreover, as per journal policy author (s) hold and retain copyrights without any restrictions.