The Ethical Edge: Unveiling the Power of Virtuousness in Retailing from Employees' Perspectives

Virtue ethics is a central pillar for business success, yet remains unexplored in retailing as research targets primarily unethical or negative deviant customer behaviour. By revealing forms of virtuous, positively deviating customer behaviours and their consequences, we aim to uncover new possibilities for motivating employees to remain in their jobs, which holds special relevance in times of labour scarcity. Our findings highlight the importance of virtuous customer behaviour in strengthening intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, wellbeing and retention among employees. By integrating virtue ethics into a commercial context, we contribute to theoretical and practical research as we offer managerial recommendations for cultivating virtuous customer behaviour and for promoting employees' commitment to their firm.