Profiling european consumers that engage in boycotting

Abstract

Boycott 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 aboycott 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 ofpolitical consumers are based on research that combines boycotters and buycotters under a single construct of politicalconsumers, and yet these consumers are driven by different motivations. The objective of this exploratory study is toprovide a general characterization of European political consumers that engage in boycotting. The data used was collectedbetween the 25th of May, 2022 and the18th of September, 2022, and was retrieved from the 10th edition (2022) of theEuropean Social Survey. The study employs binary logistic regression to assess the association between boycotting andvarious potential factors listed in extant literature. Results indicate that boycotting behaviour is affected by age and otherlife-cycle variables, gender, education, institutional trust, the degree of satisfaction with the political system and thegovernment, the level of trust in information and communication technology, reported self-happiness and self-generalhealth perceptions. In general, the parameters of the models suggest that European consumers that engage in boycottingbehaviour tend to be female, young, well-educated, trust on national political institutions and make intensive use of digitalmedia. The conclusions of the empirical study are discussed and interpreted in light of current theories of consumerbehaviour that highlight the post-modern, fragmented and globalized characteristics of current western societies. Theresults 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 withconsideration of the study limitations.