The Boycott Puzzle: Consumer Motivations for Purchase Sacrifice

Andrew John and Jill Klein ()
Additional contact information
Jill Klein: AJK Executive Consulting INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305, Fontainebleau, France

Management Science, 2003, vol. 49, issue 9, 1196-1209

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.

Keywords: Free Riding; Boycott; Consumer Protests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (87)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.49.9.1196.16569 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:49:y:2003:i:9:p:1196-1209

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().