The roles of personality and general ethical judgments in intention to not repay credit card expenses

Abstract

There are no ‘card slaves’ but only cardholders who cannot meet their obligations. Recently, the issue that people are plagued by huge credit card debt has become more serious in Taiwan. This study proposed a model linking personality traits (locus of control (LOC) and risk-taking propensity), general ethical judgments regarding credit card use, and behavioral intention to not repay credit card expenses. External LOC and risk-taking propensity can predict intention to not repay through ethical judgments. Furthermore, external LOC can directly affect the intention. The model has been empirically justified by using the data collected from 448 credit cardholders in Taiwan (at least 20 years old). Those with ethical judgments of actively benefiting from illegal activities or passively benefiting at the expense of others tend to have an intention to not repay. By understanding the causes of not repaying credit card expenses, financial service providers should be able to effectively reduce card bad debts. In particular, relationship marketing strategies are helpful to mitigate cardholders’ intention to passively not repay.

Keywords:

• personality
• locus of control
• risk-taking propensity
• general ethical judgments
• not repaying credit card expenses

Acknowledgement

This research was partially supported by grant NSC 93-2416-H-009-003 from the National Science Council of Taiwan, ROC.

Notes