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- Profiling European consumers that engage in boycottingPublication . Mata, F.; Baptista, Nuno; Dos Santos, Maria José Palma Lampreia; Jesus Silva, NatachaBoycott involves abstention from buying specific products or brands for political, ethical, or ecological reasons. Boycott is usually framed as an expression of political consumerism and has been on the rise. Companies that suffer a boycott may endure severe consequences including long-term damaged brand image and harmed reputation. However, there is still an incomplete picture of the socio-political and demographic profile of boycotters. Most characterizations of political consumers are based on research that combines boycotters and buycotters under a single construct of political consumers, and yet these consumers are driven by different motivations. The objective of this exploratory study is to provide a general characterization of European political consumers that engage in boycotting. The data used was collected between the 25th of May, 2022 and the18th of September, 2022, and was retrieved from the 10th edition (2022) of the European Social Survey. The study employs binary logistic regression to assess the association between boycotting and various potential factors listed in extant literature. Results indicate that boycotting behaviour is affected by age and other life-cycle variables, gender, education, institutional trust, the degree of satisfaction with the political system and the government, the level of trust in information and communication technology, reported self-happiness and self-general health perceptions. In general, the parameters of the models suggest that European consumers that engage in boycotting behaviour tend to be female, young, well-educated, trust on national political institutions and make intensive use of digital media. The conclusions of the empirical study are discussed and interpreted in light of current theories of consumer behaviour that highlight the post-modern, fragmented and globalized characteristics of current western societies. The results of this study enrich the literature on consumer boycotts and confirm the predicting power of various socio-demographic, psychological and attitudinal variables. Avenues for future research are identified together with consideration of the study limitations.
- Attitudes towards consumption: the development of an operational scalePublication . Baptista, Nuno; Dos Santos, Maria José Palma Lampreia; Mata, F.; Jesus Silva, Natacha; Matos, NelsonThe western economic development, which allowed the consumer to have access to goods and services in an easy and accessible way, brought the attention of the academia and practitioners for the current mass consumption society and consumption’s role in generating happiness among consumers. However, contradictory to the contemporary way of life, some consumers have established a different current, in which anti-consumption is seen as a way to also achieve well-being, while contributing to the sustainability of the planet. The discontented consumer and the consequent upraising of the activist consumer means that the negative consumers’ attitudes towards consumption and the corporate world need to be addressed. The concept of consumerism comprises the activities of governments, business, and independent organizations to protect and promote consumers’ rights. This rather different approaches from the consumers to the market offer requires better understanding, due to the impacts on marketing practitioner’s policies and actions. (…)
- Smart cities through urban short supply chains of foodPublication . Mata, F.; Dos Santos, Maria José Palma Lampreia; Baptista, Nuno; Jesus Silva, NatachaThe cities around the world in general and in the Mediterranean area in particular are facing tremendous challenges at the environmental, social, economic and institutional levels (Fernandez-Anez et al., 2020). Currently, cities need to be sustainable and smart (Silva et al., 2018). An economically important and innovative sector in urban areas is food security. To the best of our knowledge, the majority of the literature explores the concept of smart cities from the point of view of information and communications technology, and the connection with sustainability aspects remains unsolved. This study tries to overcome this gap in the literature. The main aim is to analyse the contribution of urban short-supply chains of foods in terms of sustainability of smart cities. The study reports the conclusions of a revision of the literature and the preliminary results of four research projects in this area, including the SGDsCONSUM project. The results confirm positive impacts of short supply chains of food in urban areas in the four dimensions of sustainable development and smart and sustainable cities. The conclusions of this study will be helpful for producers, consumers, traders, importers, exporters, tourists, financial institutions, and particularly for government sectors related to agricultural economic activities, projects, and programs in policy development.
- Sustainable consumption in urban short supply chainsPublication . Mata, F.; Dos Santos, Maria José Palma Lampreia; Baptista, Nuno; Jesus Silva, NatachaThe United Nations, national and regional public decision-makers, and the academy are increasingly paying attention to sustainable development. They are debating the main institutional ways and the respective restrictions to achieve a compromise solution among the economic, social, environmental, and institutional dimensions of sustainable development (Kumar, 2022). Sustainable food production and sustainable consumption in urban short-supply chains are dependent on the links between various stakeholders, including companies, consumers and public decision-makers (Govindan, 2018). Previous literature lacks a systematic and holistic view of these actors and corresponding dependencies, limiting our understanding of how to leverage sustainable innovation and design sustainable strategies and policies for food production and consumption. Based on a systematic literature review of a large sample of representative publications included in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, this study tries to overcome this gap in the literature by exploring the relationship between ethical and sustainable consumption and production in short supply chains and offers an agenda for future research. This study, which was developed under the SDGsConsum project, proposes a holistic model of integrative development. The main results confirm that, despite the huge development in SDGs literature, and sustainable development of consumption, the focus on urban shortly supply chains of production in the literature is modest in general, and in particular in food sectorial activities. Moreover, the motivations and constraints that drive and restrain consumers and companies toward sustaina- ble consumption and how these two dimensions complement each other or overlap remain a topic that needs to be further investigated. The results of this study can help shape policies that are adequate to promote a better adjustment of sustainable food supply and demand. Moreover, it might also bring new approaches to integrate and promote short supply chains of foods in urban areas for a more sustainable development of the world.
- Sustainable consumption and the drivers of product boycott in EuropePublication . Jesus Silva, Natacha; Baptista, Nuno; Mata, F.; Dos Santos, Maria José Palma LampreiaInstitutional sustainability is a dynamic and multifaceted concept that relies on the contributions of various institutions, including the legal and the scientific system. On the other side, consumers boycotts are an expression of political consumerism by which consumers can use their market power to attain sustainability objectives. This article explores institutional trust on the legal system and trust on scientists as potential drivers for consumers’ boycotts. Using data retrieved from the European Social Survey covering twenty-five countries, the study employs binary logistic regression to assess the importance of institutional trust and other potential drivers of product boycotts in Europe. Results confirm that boycotting behaviour is affected by institutional trust, as well as other individual variables including gender, age and life-cycle effects, education, interest in politics and level of satisfaction with the political system, generalized trust, personal well-being, and consumers’ use and perceptions of information and communication technologies. The results of this study enrich the literature on consumer boycotts and have implications for policymakers involved in sustainability initiatives.
- Exploring the relationship between anti-consumption and consumerismPublication . Baptista, Nuno; Dos Santos, Maria José Palma Lampreia; Mata, F.; Jesus Silva, Natacha; Matos, NelsonThe present article theoretically discusses the relationship between anti-consumption and consumerism. The article starts with a general review of the most critical aspects of both concepts and concludes with a conceptual discussion of the link and interrelationships between the two. This includes a review on anti-consumption manifestations and the related concepts of brand avoidance, politically motivated brand rejection, resistance to consumption, the link between anti-consumption and self-identity and a discussion of involuntary anti-consumption. The article then moves to analyze consumerism, including its relationships with the marketing concept, political consumerism, ethical consumerism and how the concept of consumerism has been framed within the mainstream theories of consumers’ role in free market systems. [...]
- Institutional trust as a driver of product boycotts in EuropePublication . Baptista, Nuno; Dos Santos, Maria José Palma Lampreia; Mata, F.; Jesus Silva, NatachaDespite the significant growth in consumer boycotts, research has devoted insufficient attention to the institutional factors that may motivate consumers to engage in such behaviour. This article aims to address this research gap. The main objective is to analyse the factors that affect consumer boycotts from an institutional sustainability perspective, by focusing on a specific dimension of institutional sustainability: institutional trust. Information and data came from the 2023 round of the European Social Survey, a cross-national survey covering 25 Countries. The article applies a binomial univariable logit model to test the influence of institutional trust and other potential drivers on boycott decisions and a multivariable binomial logistic regression to explore possible interrelationship between independent variables. The results confirm that boycotts are affected by institutional trust and other factors including demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the consumers, consumers’ perception of ICT, satisfaction with public institutions, and consumers’ evaluation of personal well-being. This article contributes to political consumerism literature by focusing on the impact of institutional trust in boycotting behaviour. This relationship is underexplored in existing literature, since most literature researches consumer boycotts from a triple-bottom perspective and neglects the effects of the institutional dimension of sustainability in consumer behaviour. The article brings new insights into the motivations of consumers at the political and institutional levels and opens new directions for future research to explore institutional sustainability related to the good practices of governance.
- Profiling European consumers that engage in boycottingPublication . Mata, F.; Baptista, Nuno; Dos Santos, Maria José Palma Lampreia; Jesus Silva, NatachaBoycott involves abstention from buying specific products or brands for political, ethical, or ecological reasons. Boycott is usually framed as an expression of political consumerism and has been on the rise. Companies that suffer a boycott may endure severe consequences including long-term damaged brand image and harmed reputation. However, there is still an incomplete picture of the socio-political and demographic profile of boycotters. Most characterizations of political consumers are based on research that combines boycotters and buycotters under a single construct of political consumers, and yet these consumers are driven by different motivations. The objective of this exploratory study is to provide a general characterization of European political consumers that engage in boycotting. The data used was collected between the 25th of May, 2022 and the18th of September, 2022, and was retrieved from the 10th edition (2022) of the European Social Survey. The study employs binary logistic regression to assess the association between boycotting and various potential factors listed in extant literature. Results indicate that boycotting behaviour is affected by age and other life-cycle variables, gender, education, institutional trust, the degree of satisfaction with the political system and the government, the level of trust in information and communication technology, reported self-happiness and self-general health perceptions. In general, the parameters of the models suggest that European consumers that engage in boycotting behaviour tend to be female, young, well-educated, trust on national political institutions and make intensive use of digital media. The conclusions of the empirical study are discussed and interpreted in light of current theories of consumer behaviour that highlight the post-modern, fragmented and globalized characteristics of current western societies. The results of this study enrich the literature on consumer boycotts and confirm the predicting power of various socio demographic, psychological and attitudinal variables. Avenues for future research are identified together with consideration of the study limitations.