Responsible Consumer Behavior in the Digital Age

Empirical Evidence on the Impact of (Micro-)Environmental Factors on Consumers’ Socially Responsible Behavior

by Nils Engelbrecht
Doctoral thesis
Date of Examination:2022-08-25
Date of issue:2022-09-22
Advisor:Prof. Dr. Kilian; Bizer
Referee:Prof. Dr. Kilian; Bizer
Referee:Prof. Dr. Achim; Spiller
Referee:Prof. Dr. Holger; Rau
Persistent Address: http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-9428

 

 

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Abstract

English

In recent years, consumers have become more sensitive to the social, economic, and environmental consequences of their market choices. More and more consumers vocally oppose socially irresponsible production patterns and many studies have identified purchasing intentions amongst others for fair, ethical, or "green" goods. However, as market shares for many of these goods remain small, an inconsistency between individuals’ concerns about and attitudes towards ethical or environmental issues and their actual consumption behavior can be observed. The literature offers manifold explanations for why this so-called attitude-behavior gap exists, including a broad spectrum of cognitive, social, and environmental influences. Some of these reasons are directly related to (i) some essential properties of market environments in a broad economic sense (e.g., not sufficiently transparent supply chains in the agricultural market) and (ii) micro-environmental factors in physical marketplaces such as supermarkets. This dissertation contributes to both above-mentioned research strands. A selection of five research papers is presented that examine how different aspects of modern and digital market- and micro-environments affect responsible consumer behavior (RCB). The first two papers focus on the interplay between RCB and certain key characteristics of markets in general, like uncertainty about external effects of one’s market decisions or pricing strategies. Both studies use abstract experimental set-ups where a subject’s choice has an impact on the distribution of outcomes between himself/herself and other players. At the same time, the processes that lead up to this distribution and other non-monetary factors are also examined. Hence, both studies rather focus rather on the macro and meso perspective of RCB. In contrast, the remaining papers turn their attention to more subliminal and seemingly irrelevant influencing factors that are to be located at the micro level of consumer behavior, like nudges. Here, we are primarily concerned with pointing out new tools and approaches that can promote research and evaluation of (digital) nudges and similar intervention techniques. These are envisioned to enable an evidence-based discussion and further research on how they can be applied for political incentives or regulations.
Keywords: Diffusion of responsibility; Moral wiggle room; Price discrimination; Pricing; Decision-Making; Experimental consumer research; Behavioral design; Online Supermarkets
 
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