Towards a Framework for Understanding Fairtrade Purchase Intention in the Mainstream Environment of Supermarkets

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Despite growing interest in ethical consumer behaviour research, ambiguity remains regarding what motivates consumers to purchase ethical products. While researchers largely attribute the growth of ethical consumerism to an increase in ethical consumer concerns and motivations, widened distribution (mainstreaming) of ethical products, such as fairtrade, questions these assumptions. A model that integrates both individual and societal values into the theory of planned behaviour is presented and empirically tested to challenge the assumption that ethical consumption is driven by ethical considerations alone. Using data sourced from fairtrade shoppers across the UK, structural equation modelling suggests that fairtrade purchase intention is driven by both societal and self-interest values. This dual value pathway helps address conceptual limitations inherent in the underlying assumptions of existing ethical purchasing behaviour m odels and helps advance understanding of consumers’ motivation to purchase ethical products

Socio-cognitive determinants of consumers’ support for the fair trade movement

Despite the reasonable explanatory power of existing models of consumers’ ethical decision making, a large part of the process remains unexplained. This article draws on previous research and proposes an integrated model that includes measures of the theory of planned behavior, personal norms, self-identity, neutralization, past experience, and attitudinal ambivalence. We postulate and test a variety of direct and moderating effects in the context of a large survey with a representative sample of the U.K. population. Overall, the resulting model represents an empirically robust and holistic attempt to identify the most important determinants of consumers’ support for the fair-trade movement. Implications and avenues for further research are discussed

Barriers to downward carbon emission: Exploring sustainable consumption in the face of the glass floor

The present study explores the constraining forces to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions (GHG) via alternative and/or reduced consumption. The analysis of introspection, netnography, ethnographic work, and 18 interviews demonstrates that needs are not innate human requirements and that consumers are not free and autonomous agents able to incorporate reduce or alternative consumption within their lifestyles. Specifically, our analysis shows the existence of barriers to downward carbon emission. These barriers, which we combined under the concept of the glass floor, represent sociocultural standards preventing our informants from achieving their goal of reducing their carbon footprint. Our findings are presented around two main themes: the social construction of needs and the social imaginary

Understanding ethical consumer decision-making: comparing and contrasting france and the UK

Paper discussing ethical consumer decision-making. Ethical issues between France and the UK are compared and contrasted

Toward Adolescents’ Digital Identity Profiles: A Comparison Between Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis

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