Consumer Boycotts
Consumer boycotts: effecting change through the marketplace and the media.
Friedman, M. 1999. New York: Routledge.
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Despite the increasing occurrence of consumer boycotts, little has been written about this form of social and economic protest. This timely volume fills the knowledge gap by examining boycotts both historically and currently.
Drawing on both published and unpublished material as well as personal interviews with boycott groups and their targets, Monroe Friedman discusses different types of boycotts-from their historical focus on labor and economic concerns to the more recent inclusion of issues such as minority rights, animal welfare, and environmental protection.
He also documents the shift in strategic emphasis from the marketplace (cutting consumer sales) to the media (securing news coverage to air criticism of a targeted firm).
In turn, these changes in boycott substance and style offer insights into larger upheavals in the social and economic fabric of 20th century America. (Google Books, 2010)
A positive approach to organized consumer action: The "buycott" as an alternative to the boycott.
Friedman, M. 1996. Journal of Consumer Policy Volume 19 Issue no.4, pages 439-451.
A survey of the consumer research literature revealed few instances of “consumer buycotts,” i.e., efforts by consumer activists to induce shoppers to buy the products or services of selected companies in order to reward these firms for behaviour consistent with the goals of the activists.
The few cases did however prompt some thoughts on the development of a conceptual framework for understanding the place of buycotts on a consumer activist agenda. The framework is briefly described and examples presented of prospective uses to be made of buycotts by consumer groups.
Also presented is a set of basic research questions concerning buycotts which should be of interest to scholars as well as practitioners. (Friedman, 1996 p.439)
The boycott puzzle: Consumer motivations for purchase sacrifice.
John, A., and J. Klein. 2003.Management Science Volume 49 Issue no.9, pages1196-1209.
A boycott is never far from a firm's exchanges with its customers. Researchers in marketing need to understand consumer protest behaviour, both to aid nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) who wish to organise 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. (John and Klein, 2003 p.1196)
Why We Boycott: Consumer Motivations for Boycott Participation.
Klein, J.G., N.C. Smith, A. John. 2004. The Journal of Marketing Volume 68 Issue no.3, pages 92-109.
Although boycotts are increasingly relevant for management decision making, there has been little research of an individual consumer's motivation to boycott. Drawing on the helping behavior and boycott literature, the authors take a cost-benefit approach to the decision to boycott and present a conceptualization of motivations for boycott participation.
The authors tested their framework during an actual boycott of a multinational firm that was prompted by factory closings. Consumers who viewed the closures as egregious were more likely to boycott the firm, though only a minority did so.
Four factors are found to predict boycott participation: the desire to make a difference, the scope for self-enhancement, counterarguments that inhibit boycotting, and the cost to the boycotter of constrained consumption.
Furthermore, self-enhancement and constrained consumption are significant moderators of the rela-tionship between the perceived egregiousness of the firm's actions and boycott participation.
The authors also explore the role of perceptions of others' participation and discuss implications for marketers, nongovernmental organizations, policymakers, and researchers. (Klein et al., 2004 p.92)
Ensouling Consumption: A Netnographic Exploration of The Meaning of Boycotting Behavior.
Kozinets, R.V., and J. Handelman. 1998. Advances in Consumer Research Volume 25 Issue no.1, pages 475-480.
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Boycotting behavior has been theorized as a collective effort to coerce corporate change. In this exploratory netnographic research, we analyze 14 cyber-interviews and 68 Usenet postings with the aim of understanding the subjective meaning of boycott participation.
Two themes emerge to challenge traditional views of boycotts. First, boycotters see their involvement not merely as part of a collective effort but as a complex emotional expression of their individuality. Second, boycotting serves as a vehicle for moral selfrealization. (Kozinets and Handelman, 1998 p.475)