Titis Shinta Dhewi, Bagus Shandy Narmaditya, Ita Prihatining Wilujeng, Abdul Rahim Ridzuan
This study examines the effect of unethical marketing behavior and brand switching among Indonesian customers, as well as assesses customer dissatisfaction and negative customer engagement as mediators. A cross-sectional study was conducted to gather data through online questionnaires. This study obtained 286 valid data points from users in Indonesia using a convenience sampling approach. The PLS-SEM was employed to estimate the proposed model and hypotheses. The empirical findings indicate that unethical marketing behavior has a robust linkage with brand switching. This study confirms the role of customer dissatisfaction and negative customer engagement as mediators for this relationship. This paper enriches the literature on management and provides a comprehensive understanding of how unethical marketing behavior affects brand-switching through a model that has been confirmed and validated. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.
Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia; Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
