IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v49y2003i9p1196-1209.html

The Boycott Puzzle: Consumer Motivations for Purchase Sacrifice

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew John

    (AJK Executive Consulting INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305, Fontainebleau, France)

  • Jill Klein

    (AJK Executive Consulting INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305, Fontainebleau, France)

Abstract

A boycott is never far from a firm's exchanges with its customers. Researchers in marketing need to understand consumer protest behavior, both to aid nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who wish to organize boycotts, and to assist managers who wish to develop appropriate strategic responses. Boycotts, like many other instances of collective action, are subject to free-rider and small-agent problems: there appears to be little or no motivation for an individual to participate. Yet they assuredly occur. We take an economic and psychological approach to the study of boycotts. Our approach is to develop a typology of motivations for consumer boycotts, to embed these motivations explicitly in a dynamic economic model, and thus to offer explanations for the extent of boycott participation.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew John & Jill Klein, 2003. "The Boycott Puzzle: Consumer Motivations for Purchase Sacrifice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(9), pages 1196-1209, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:49:y:2003:i:9:p:1196-1209
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.49.9.1196.16569
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.49.9.1196.16569
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.49.9.1196.16569?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James R. Hines, Jr., 1997. "Taxed Avoidance: American Participation in Unsanctioned International Boycotts," NBER Working Papers 6116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Miller, Kenneth E & Sturdivant, Frederick D, 1977. "Consumer Responses to Socially Questionable Corporate Behavior: An Empirical Test," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 4(1), pages 1-7, June.
    3. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    4. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, "undated". "Theories of Fairness and Reciprocity - Evidence and Economic Applications," IEW - Working Papers 075, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Elinor Ostrom, 2000. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 137-158, Summer.
    6. repec:cup:apsrev:v:62:y:1968:i:01:p:25-42_11 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Stephen Knack, 1992. "Civic Norms, Social Sanctions, and Voter Turnout," Rationality and Society, , vol. 4(2), pages 133-156, April.
    8. Gelb, Betsy D., 1995. "More boycotts ahead? Some implications," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 70-76.
    9. Sen, Sankar & Gurhan-Canli, Zeynep & Morwitz, Vicki, 2001. "Withholding Consumption: A Social Dilemma Perspective on Consumer Boycotts," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(3), pages 399-417, December.
    10. Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2001. "Theories of Fairness and Reciprocity," Discussion Papers in Economics 14, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    11. repec:cup:apsrev:v:62:y:1968:i:1:p:25-42_1 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jean-Robert Tyran & Dirk Engelmann, 2002. "To Buy or Not to Buy? An Experimental Study of Consumer Boycotts in Retail Markets," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2002 2002-13, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    2. Tobias Hahn & Noël Albert, 2017. "Strong Reciprocity in Consumer Boycotts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 509-524, October.
    3. Karl Widerquist, 2003. "Public Choice and Altruism," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 317-337, Summer.
    4. Carlo Borzaga & Ermanno Tortia, 2004. "Worker involvement in entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations. Toward a new assessment of workers' perceived satisfaction and fairness," Department of Economics Working Papers 0409, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    5. Chris Hydock & Neeru Paharia & T. J. Weber, 2019. "The Consumer Response to Corporate Political Advocacy: a Review and Future Directions," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 6(3), pages 76-83, December.
    6. Corneo, Giacomo & Fong, Christina M., 2008. "What's the monetary value of distributive justice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 289-308, February.
    7. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2016. "Field Experiments in Markets," Artefactual Field Experiments j0002, The Field Experiments Website.
    8. Rockenbach, Bettina & Wolff, Irenaeus, 2009. "Institution design in social dilemmas: How to design if you must?," MPRA Paper 16922, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Why Social Preferences Matter - The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition," IEW - Working Papers 084, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    10. Zyglidopoulos, Stelios C. & Georgiadis, Andreas P. & Carroll, Craig E. & Siegel, Donald S., 2012. "Does media attention drive corporate social responsibility?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(11), pages 1622-1627.
    11. Schmitz, Patrick W. & Hoppe-Fischer, Eva, 2009. "Gathering Information before Signing a Contract: Experimental Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 7252, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    12. Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer, 2008. "Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 39-59, February.
    13. Fehr, Ernst & Falk, Armin, 2002. "Psychological foundations of incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 687-724, May.
    14. Marianna Baggio & Luigi Mittone, 2016. "Experience and History: An Experimental Approach to Generational Heterogeneity," International Journal of Applied Behavioral Economics (IJABE), IGI Global Scientific Publishing, vol. 5(4), pages 1-23, October.
    15. Cabrales, Antonio & Miniaci, Raffaele & Piovesan, Marco & Ponti, Giovanni, 2007. "An experiment on markets and contracts : do social preferences determine corporate culture?," UC3M Working papers. Economics we072010, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    16. Alesina, Alberto & Angeletos, George-Marios, 2005. "Corruption, inequality, and fairness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1227-1244, October.
    17. Silvia Sacchetti, 2015. "Inclusive and Exclusive Social Preferences: A Deweyan Framework to Explain Governance Heterogeneity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 473-485, February.
    18. Dominique Demougin & Claude Fluet & Carsten Helm, 2006. "Output and wages with inequality averse agents," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(2), pages 399-413, May.
    19. Velez, Rodrigo A., 2017. "Inequity-averse preferences in general equilibrium," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 166-175.
    20. Jing Zhao & Zhijie Zou & Jianfei Chen & Yujia Chen & Wanfa Lin & Xianbo Pei & Enjing Li & Yajing Dong & Xiaoli Chen, 2024. "Offline social capital, online social capital, and fertility intentions: evidence from China," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:49:y:2003:i:9:p:1196-1209. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.