Political consumerism is currently one of the most prevalent forms of non-institutionalized political engagement in Western democracies. This article aims to understand its psychological roots. We ...expect interindividual differences in psychological dispositions to be particularly relevant for political consumerism due to the individualized and cause-oriented nature of this form of political action. Our empirical evidence supports this claim: Open people favour, and conscientious people avoid, boycotting and buycotting. Agreeable persons tend to avoid boycotting in particular. These relationships persist even when political and social attitudes are controlled for. Thus, we show that psychological factors play an important role in shaping politically conscious consumption behaviour. At the same time, our study points out that personality profiles vary across different forms of political consumerism and modes of political action more generally. The characteristics of the diverse modes may help to understand this variation.
This study investigates the effects of customers’ perceptions of multidimensional corporate social responsibility (philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic) on brand equity in the restaurant ...industry, specifically by examining the case of Starbucks in Korea. Furthermore, this study examines whether consumers with a high degree of ethical consumerism form more positive brand equity perceptions of restaurants than other consumers do. The results showed that ethical, legal, and economic aspects of corporate social responsibility had a significant influence on consumers’ perceptions of brand equity, while philanthropic corporate social responsibility did not. The analysis of moderating effects showed that consumers with high levels of ethical consumerism exhibit stronger relationships between economic corporate social responsibility and restaurants’ positive brand equity. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
Purpose
The primary purpose of this exploratory paper is to propose a novel analytical framework for examining corruption from a behavioral perspective by highlighting multiple issues associated with ...consumerism.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper examines the relationship between excessive consumption activities and corrupt acts, drawing upon existing literature on corruption, consumerism and consumption, as well as multiple reports and cases of corruption and money laundering in Indonesia. With regard to corruption networks, this paper analyses the associated behavioral patterns and social dynamics by using the Fraud Triangle and the Fraud Elements Triangle frameworks to examine the phenomenon of living beyond one’s means. This paper also addresses the notion of sacredness in the context of consumer activities and how such sacredness plays a role in causing otherwise honest individuals to engage in corrupt acts.
Findings
The author established that corruption represents a complex societal issue that extends across several dimensions of society, encompassing both horizontal and vertical aspects. Consequently, addressing this problem poses significant challenges. Excessive consumption has been identified as one of the various behavioral concerns that are implicated in the widespread occurrence of corruption in many nations. Individuals who partake in excessive consumption play a role in shaping ethical norms that serve to legitimize and rationalize immoral behavior, therefore fostering a society marked by corruption. The act of engaging in excessive consumption is also associated with cases of money laundering offenses that are connected to corruption and several other illicit activities. The lifestyle of corrupt individuals is one of the primary behavioral concerns associated with corruption, as “living beyond means” is the most common behavioral red flag among occupational fraud offenders worldwide. The phenomenon of consumerism may also shape the minds of individuals as if it were an “implicit religion” due to the fact that it may generate human experiences that elicit highly positive emotions and satisfy certain sacredness-associated characteristics. The pursuit of transcendental experiences through the acquisition and consumption of sacred consumption objects may heighten the incentive to commit fraudulent acts such as corruption.
Research limitations/implications
This self-funded exploratory study uses document analysis to examine the corruption phenomenon in Indonesia. Future studies will benefit from in-depth interviews with former offenders and investigators of corruption.
Practical implications
This exploratory study contributes to advancing corruption prevention strategies. It does this by introducing a novel analytical framework that allows for the examination of several behavioral issues associated with consumerism, which have the potential to foster the proliferation of corruption.
Originality/value
This exploratory study highlights the importance of comprehending the intricacies of consumerism, namely, its adverse effects on the proliferation of corruption.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify important factors that affect Hong Kong adolescent consumers' green purchasing behaviour.Design methodology approach - A total of 6,010 (2,975 males ...and 3,035 females) adolescents in Hong Kong were recruited through multi-staged random sampling. They were surveyed on their green purchasing behaviour, environmental attitude, environmental concern, perceived seriousness of environmental problems, perceived environmental responsibility, perceived effectiveness of environmental behaviour, social influence and concern for self-image in environmental protection.Findings - Multiple regression analysis showed that social influence was the top predictor of Hong Kong adolescents' green purchasing behaviour, followed by environmental concern as the second, concern for self-image in environmental protection as the third, and perceived environmental responsibility as the fourth top predictor.Research limitations implications - A major limitation of this study lies in the self-reported nature of the survey used. Future study should include some objective assessments (such as observations or other-reported survey) of the subjects' green purchasing behaviour.Practical implications - This paper is a useful source of information for international green marketers about what works and what does not in appealing to the young consumers in Hong Kong.Originality value - This paper serves as a pioneer study to identify important factors in affecting young consumers' green purchasing behaviour in the Hong Kong context. It offers practical guidelines to international green marketers planning to target the Asian markets.
We study quality design and the environmental consequences of green consumerism in a remanufacturing context. Specifically, a firm has the option to design a non-remanufacturable or a ...remanufacturable product and to specify a corresponding quality, and the design choices affect both the production costs and consumer valuations associated with the product. On the cost side, remanufacturable products cost more to produce originally, but less to remanufacture, than non-remanufacturable products cost to produce. Analogously, on the consumer side, remanufacturable products are valued more, but remanufactured products are valued less, than non-remanufacturable products are valued. Given this, we investigate the environmental consequences of designing for remanufacturability by first defining a measure of environmental impact that ultimately is a function of what is produced and how much is produced, and then applying that measure to assess the environmental impact associated with the firm׳s optimal strategy relative to the environmental impact associated with the firm׳s otherwise optimal strategy if a non-remanufacturable product were designed and produced.
Purpose
It has been established that values, beliefs and norms are good predictors of pro-environmental behaviour; however, it is less explored how these constructs can be influenced. The purpose of ...this paper is to assess whether the COVID-19 pandemic, as a shock event, was a “game changer” or it had limited impacts on deep-rooted travel patterns.
Design/methodology/approach
To understand whether the pandemic has influenced people’s value orientations with regards to sustainable travel, the authors have made use of the value–belief–norm (VBN)theory of environmentalism and conducted a large-scale survey in Germany, Italy, France, The Netherlands and UK (N = 1545).
Findings
The findings showed that the pandemic caused only temporary change in deep-rooted travel patterns as (self-reported) pre-pandemic behaviour of respondents align with their value orientations and proved to be a good predictor of projected travel behaviour. Based on projected travel behaviour and value orientations, four market segments were identified – Frontrunners, Laggards, Comfortable Crowd and Entitled Stewards. While all segments showed willingness to adapt, the authors found variations in the extent of adaption and in the phases of the customer journey where travellers are likely to make changes.
Originality/value
According to our knowledge, using the VBN theory of environmentalism to understand the impact of shock events on deep-rooted travel patterns represents a new perspective. Moreover, to the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first, written in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which looks at the impact of the health crisis on deep-rooted travel patterns, instead of the commonly studied risk perception.
Apart from deconstructing the concept of luxury in it’s basic lines, this work dominantly deals with this concept in the context of cosumerism. The paper gives some ethical norms that in search of ...happiness confirm luxury as a philosophy whose primary task is social distance. Therefore, luxury should not be discussed from a purely economic-consumer perspective. It is primarily a sociological issue through which we read aspects of identity, cult of beauty and social status. Comparing consumerism and the search for happiness, the paper presents examples of ethically disgusting business moves aimed to preserve brand’s reputation and defending it in front of a narrow circle of consumers, while at the same time increasing lust, dreaming and desire among those who are not. The author also deals with the topic of sustainability which supports the image that luxury brands want to create about themselves as a leaders in this field. At the same time, it is debated whether the new ecological perspective is more a context of public relations than what should be its primary purpose.
Most of the literature treats boycotting and buycotting — which collectively comprise political consumerism — as homogeneous acts, reflecting a single mode of behavior. However, several key ...differences between boycotts and buycotts suggest that the predictors of boycotting should be somewhat different from those of buycotting. In this article, I theorize that boycotting is more strongly associated with dutiful citizenship norms because it is punishment oriented and has several key features in common with electoral, interest-based politics. Buycotting, conversely, is more strongly associated with engaged citizenship norms because it is reward oriented and has more features in common with civic engagement. To test these theoretical expectations, I use original, nationally representative US survey data. The findings confirm my theoretical expectations, and they point to the role of changing citizenship norms rather than more traditional factors such as resources and psychological engagement as important in understanding contemporary political participation.
Social media use enables information consumption and exchange as well as group ties that can facilitate participation in boycott and buycott campaigns. Social media also provide low-threshold ...activities that serve as a stepping stone towards more intense forms of cause-oriented participation. This paper uses original survey data (n = 1,539) collected in 2019. Reading political information, posting political information on social media, and following social and leisure groups increase the likelihood of boycotting and buycotting. Changing profile pictures doubles the odds of participating in political consumerism. Overall, citizens use symbolic low-effort activities on social media to mobilize their peers to participate in political consumerism but, in the end, they also mobilize themselves toward more intense forms of participation.
China's rapid economic growth and population momentum have precipitated an environmental crisis on an unprecedented scale. Consequently, green consumerism is a hot topic leaving marketing managers ...looking for ways to influence green buying behaviors. One way to examine this problem is to compare the effect of social influence on green behaviors against countries that have experienced a similar spike in pollution owing to rapid development (e.g., the United States). Unfortunately, a gap exists in the literature with respect to how social influence impacts green purchasing behaviors. This research
examines the issue across country and gender between China and the United States. The findings show that Chinese consumers are indeed more susceptible to social influence with respect to purchasing behaviors. The Chinese view social influence as a multidimensional construct with both cognitive and behavioral components. Chinese females were significantly different from other respondents with respect to cognitive and behavioral social influence.
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