Deirdre Shaw

Belief formation in ethical consumer groups: an exploratory study

Belief formation is a neglected part of research in consumer behaviour and a potentially valuable area of study for helping to clarify the conditions under which they relate to actual patterns of behaviour. Outlines the results of qualitative research undertaken as part of a major study of readers of the UK Ethical Consumer magazine, which used focus groups to explore issues of major concern to ethical consumers – such as fair trade – and an elicitation questionnaire with a broader sample to ascertain the nature of factors influencing their beliefs on this subject.

Ethics in consumer choice: a multivariate modelling approach

Research has consistently revealed an increasing demand for “ethical” choices in the global marketplace. However, very little has been published about the decision‐making processes of these “ethical” consumers and the implications for marketing. Given the shortfall in research that addresses ethical consumer choice, this paper outlines results from a large scale national UK survey of known “ethical” consumers. To examine this important and neglected area, reliability analysis and structural equation modelling techniques were used to explore the relationships between important factors influencing ethical consumer choice. Using two data sets, a model of decision‐making was developed and cross‐validated. Results of the study reveal the improved ability of this new model of ethical consumer decision‐making in the explanation of intention to purchase fair trade grocery products. Implications of these findings for marketing practitioners are discussed.

Consumption as Voting: An Exploration of Consumer Empowerment

Purpose – Increasing numbers of consumers are expressing concerns about reports of questionable corporate practices and are responding through boycotts and buycotts. This paper compares competing theories of consumer empowerment and details findings that examine the applicability of the theory to “ethical consumer” narratives. The nature and impact of consumer empowerment in consumer decision making is then discussed.Design/methodology/approach – The study takes an exploratory approach by conducting semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of ten consumers. These were recruited from an “ethical product” fair in Scotland.Findings – Results indicate that the participating consumers embraced a voting metaphor, either explicitly or implicitly, to view consumption as an ethical/political domain. Setting their choices within perceived collective consumer behaviour, they characterised their consumption as empowering. This results in an ethical consumer project that can be seen as operating wit...

Identifying fair trade in consumption choice

Although increased consumer concern for ethical issues has been recognised in research, this has tended to explore such concerns in isolation, neglecting to consider the often complex interaction between ethical issues in consumer decision‐making. Such interrelationships are important to the study of fair trade in terms of providing a richer understanding of market potential and development in strategic decision‐making. The present paper, therefore, seeks to explore fair trade within the context of other discursive narratives such as green consuming, ethical consuming, and voluntary simplicity and the strategic marketing implications for fair trade organisations.

Consumer voters in imagined communities

Purpose – Increasingly, reports of consumers are witnessed expressing their concerns regarding corporate practices through behaviours of boycotting, buycotting and voice. The theory of consumer votes suggests that such consumers may view their purchases as “votes” in the marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer voting within competing theories of community.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts an exploratory approach through semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of ten ethical consumers.Findings – Findings reveal that consumers adopted a voting metaphor in their approaches to ethical consumption. While choices were mainly individual in nature they were characterised as part of a wider, largely imagined community of like‐minded consumers.Research limitations/implications – This research is limited to a single country and location and focused on a specific consumer group. Expansion of the research to a wider group would be valuable.Practical implications –...

Embracing ethical fields: constructing consumption in the margins

Purpose – Literature examining resistant consumer behaviour from an ethical consumption stance has increased over recent years. This paper aims to argue that the conflation between ethical consumer behaviour and “anti‐consumption” practices results in a nihilistic reading and fails to uncover the tensions of those who seek to position themselves as ethical while still participating in the general market.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts an exploratory approach through semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of seven ethical consumers.Findings – The analysis reveals the process through which ethical consumption is constructed and defined in relation to the subject position of the “ethical consumer” and their interactions with the dominant market of consumption.Research limitations/implications – This research is limited to a single country and location and focused on a specific consumer group. Expansion of the research to a wider group would be valuable.Practical implicatio...

Consuming spirituality: the pleasure of uncertainty

Purpose – Although consumption of spirituality and growth of the market in this area have been well documented, it has been largely neglected in marketing. Existing literature exploring spirituality has suggested consumers in this area can experience uncertainty, but lacks clarity as to whether this uncertainty results in negative or positive affective states. The aim of this paper is to explore the theoretical concept of consumer uncertainty.Design/methodology/approach – The research adopts a qualitative exploratory approach through the use of interviews. It explores the theoretical concept of consumer uncertainty and its impact on affect.Findings – The research reveals that consumers of spirituality did indeed embrace many of the products and services offered by the market in this area and they also experienced uncertainty, however, rather than negative as much of the literature surrounding uncertainty suggests, the uncertainty they experienced resulted in positive affective states.Research limitations/...

Purchase power: An examination of consumption as voting

Abstract There has been a reported increase in political activity through the marketplace in the form of ‘consumer votes’. The use of marketplace votes by consumers to address their concerns about societal issues is a phenomenon that has growing relevance for firms, since they are often affected by such consumer citizenship. Therefore, this paper aims to enhance our conceptual understanding of the consumer voting phenomenon. It explores marketplace power relations and the constraints and enabling mechanisms they may pose to consumers seeking change through consumer voting. Consumer voting practices, consumer sovereignty discourses, and power tensions in marketplace encounters are examined in relation to Foucaults notions of power, technologies of the self, and governmentality. Foucault provides a critical lens to illuminate the potential for consumer resistance, an approach that so far has been somewhat neglected by the extant marketing and consumer research literature.

The Work of Community Gardens: Reclaiming Place for Community in the City:

The growth of community gardens has become the source of much academic debate regarding their role in community empowerment in the contemporary city. In this article, we focus upon the work being done in community gardens, using gardening in Glasgow as a case study. We argue that while community gardening cannot be divorced from more regressive underlying economic and social processes accompanying neoliberal austerity policies, it does provide space for important forms of work that address social needs and advance community empowerment. In developing this argument we use recent geographical scholarship concerning the generative role of place in bringing together individuals and communities in new collective forms of working. Community gardens are places that facilitate the recovery of individual agency, construction of new forms of knowledge and participation, and renewal of reflexive and proactive communities that provide broader lessons for building more progressive forms of work in cities.

A history for consumption ethics

The histories we give to production and consumption affect our present and future business understandings. We question recent works that have ascribed a relatively short history to consumption ethics. Drawing on writers, across a number of academic disciplines, we conclude evidence exists to make the case against understanding consumption ethics as new to the twenty-first century. We argue that acknowledging a long history for consumption ethics challenges contemporary economic stereotypes of consumers as self-interested maximisers. It also modifies our understanding of the relationship between corporate and consumer social responsibility.