Measuring the persuasive power of consumerist activism: An experimental study on the Polity model applied to food imitating products (original) (raw)
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Consumer boycotts have become a frequent form of social protest in the digital age. The corporate malpractices motivating them are varied, including environmental pollution, lack of minimum labour standards, severe mistreatment of animals, lobbying and misinformation campaigns, collaboration or complicity with illegitimate political regimes, and systematic tax evasion and tax fraud. In this article, I argue that organised consumer boycotts should be regarded as a legitimate and purposeful instrument for structural change, provided they conform to a number of normative criteria. In order to show this, the practice and empirical context of consumer boycotts are first outlined. I then lay out and refute three general objections to this practice. Although each of these objections fails, their discussion generates insights concerning the normative standards with which boycotters must comply if they want their campaigns to be both legitimate and successful. These normative criteria are detailed along the lines of two guiding principles, proportionality and transparency. In the final step, I elaborate on structural change as the deeper purpose of consumer boycotts.
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We present a theory that explains the prevalence of consumer boycotts. In our model, a firm does not know how concerned consumers are about the firm's misconduct. Because it is only optimal for the firm to alter its behavior if consumers are very concerned, consumers have an incentive to overstate their concern by boycotting the firm. We show that free-riding problems do not preclude such boycotting. In fact, in each equilibrium boycotting occurs with positive probability and the firm always caters to the demands of those who boycott should boycotting ensue. (P. Heijnen), a.van.der.made@rug.nl (A. van der Made). 1 There are various reasons for a consumer to boycott. Consumers can object to the conditions under which a product is made (Nike using child labor), to the materials used in the product (Armani using fur), or the impact of the production process on the environment (McDonald's using Brazilian beef from cattle whose grazing grounds are cleared Amazonian rain forests), to name a few.
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Media reports that a company behaves in a socially nonresponsible manner frequently result in consumer participation in a boycott. As time goes by, however, the number of consumers participating in the boycott starts dwindling. Yet, little is known on why individual participation in a boycott declines and what type of consumer is more likely to stop boycotting earlier rather than later. Integrating research on drivers of individual boycott participation with multi-stage models and the hot/cool cognition system, suggests a “heat-up” phase in which boycott participation is fueled by expressive drivers, and a “cool-down” phase in which instrumental drivers become more influential. Using a diverse set of real contexts, four empirical studies provide evidence supporting a set of hypotheses on promotors and inhibitors of boycott participation over time. Study 1 provides initial evidence for the influence of expressive and instrumental drivers in a food services context. Extending the cont...
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It has become commonplace for consumers to judge companies against social responsibility criteria. Along with such judgments, many consumers are also taking up action, often using the Internet to virally spread their views. Such consumer-led campaigns can put at risk years of investments in branding. For firms understanding what drives consumers to engage in boycotts is key to minimizing exposure to such viral risk. To date, the academic literature has offered disparate and disconnected findings with respect to boycott participation. In this research paper, we review relevant literature, confirm its appropriateness using a series of in-depth interviews, and use our findings to identify key antecedents to consumer participation in boycotts. We then test our proposed model through an empirical study, thus revealing key drivers of consumers' intention to participate in such boycotts. Our results offer insight into factors that companies can manage so as to prevent consumers from participating in boycotts.
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