IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v62y2009i2p239-247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer boycotts due to factory relocation

Author

Listed:
  • Hoffmann, Stefan
  • Müller, Stefan

Abstract

Multinational companies that decide to relocate subsidiaries often appear socially irresponsible. Consumer boycotts are a common response to this type of action, especially in the subsidiary's homeland; however, the factors that motivate individual boycott decisions remain largely unexplored. Consumers' degree of concern and level of trust in the management might influence this reaction. Furthermore, consumers may distinguish between the role of the multinational holding company and that of the subsidiary when making the decision to boycott. Seven hundred and twenty-four subjects were surveyed during an ongoing consumer boycott in Germany providing data that support the assumptions of the study. Multiple-group SEM shows that the intervening variables have a stronger impact on the boycott decision for those subjects who are customers of the company. Lastly, the article provides implications of these findings for managerial strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Hoffmann, Stefan & Müller, Stefan, 2009. "Consumer boycotts due to factory relocation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 239-247, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:62:y:2009:i:2:p:239-247
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148-2963(08)00046-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Teoh, Siew Hong & Welch, Ivo & Wazzan, C Paul, 1999. "The Effect of Socially Activist Investment Policies on the Financial Markets: Evidence from the South African Boycott," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(1), pages 35-89, January.
    2. Robert Innes, 2006. "A Theory of Consumer Boycotts under Symmetric Information and Imperfect Competition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(511), pages 355-381, April.
    3. repec:bla:econom:v:72:y:2005:i:285:p:1-16 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Michael W. Browne & Robert Cudeck, 1992. "Alternative Ways of Assessing Model Fit," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 21(2), pages 230-258, November.
    5. Sen, Sankar & Gurhan-Canli, Zeynep & Morwitz, Vicki, 2001. "Withholding Consumption: A Social Dilemma Perspective on Consumer Boycotts," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(3), pages 399-417, December.
    6. Lafferty, Barbara A. & Goldsmith, Ronald E., 1999. "Corporate Credibility's Role in Consumers' Attitudes and Purchase Intentions When a High versus a Low Credibility Endorser Is Used in the Ad," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 109-116, February.
    7. Koku, Paul Sergius & Akhigbe, Aigbe & Springer, Thomas M., 1997. "The Financial Impact of Boycotts and Threats of Boycott," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 15-20, September.
    8. Andrew John & Jill Klein, 2003. "The Boycott Puzzle: Consumer Motivations for Purchase Sacrifice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(9), pages 1196-1209, September.
    9. Bagozzi, Richard P & Baumgartner, Hans & Yi, Youjae, 1992. "State versus Action Orientation and the Theory of Reasoned Action: An Application to Coupon Usage," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 18(4), pages 505-518, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vasiliki Fouka & Joachim Voth, 2012. "Reprisals remembered: German-Greek conflict and car sales during the Euro crisis," Economics Working Papers 1394, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2013.
    2. Sonia Capelli & Legrand Pascal & William Sabadie, 2011. "Communication de crise : Le cas d'un appel au boycott," Post-Print halshs-00620097, HAL.
    3. Zhongmin Wang & Alvin Lee & Michael Polonsky, 2018. "Egregiousness and Boycott Intensity: Evidence from the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 149-163, January.
    4. Lavorata, Laure, 2014. "Influence of retailers’ commitment to sustainable development on store image, consumer loyalty and consumer boycotts: Proposal for a model using the theory of planned behavior," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 1021-1027.
    5. Yu, Qionglei & McManus, Richard & Yen, Dorothy A. & Li, Xiang (Robert), 2020. "Tourism boycotts and animosity: A study of seven events," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    6. Maxwell Chipulu & Alasdair Marshall & Udechukwu Ojiako & Caroline Mota, 2018. "Reasoned Ethical Engagement: Ethical Values of Consumers as Primary Antecedents of Instrumental Actions Towards Multinationals," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 221-238, January.
    7. Roberto A. Weber & Sili Zhang, 2023. "What Money Can Buy: How Market Exchange Promotes Values," CESifo Working Paper Series 10809, CESifo.
    8. Henrike Andersch & Jörg Lindenmeier & Florian Liberatore & Dieter K. Tscheulin, 2018. "Resistance against corporate misconduct: an analysis of ethical ideologies’ direct and moderating effects on different forms of active rebellion," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 88(6), pages 695-730, August.
    9. Suzanne C. Makarem & Haeran Jae, 2016. "Consumer Boycott Behavior: An Exploratory Analysis of Twitter Feeds," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 193-223, March.
    10. Larry Chavis & Phillip Leslie, 2009. "Consumer boycotts: The impact of the Iraq war on French wine sales in the U.S," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 37-67, March.
    11. Rong Liu & Jiawei Yang & Jifei Wu, 2022. "When Big Data Backfires: The Impact of a Perceived Privacy Breach by Pharmaceutical E-Retailers on Customer Boycott Intention in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-13, April.
    12. Kasaundra M. Tomlin, 2019. "Assessing the Efficacy of Consumer Boycotts of U.S. Target Firms: A Shareholder Wealth Analysis," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 503-529, October.
    13. Silvia Grappi, 2015. "Consumer boycott of companies implementing offshoring strategies," MERCATI & COMPETITIVIT?, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(3), pages 123-138.
    14. Gupta, Sonam & Innes, Robert, 2008. "Determinants and Impact of Private Politics: An Empirical Analysis," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6238, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    15. Cuadras-Morató Xavier & Raya Josep Maria, 2016. "Boycott or Buycott?: Internal Politics and Consumer Choices," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 185-218, January.
    16. Scheidler, Sabrina & Edinger-Schons, Laura Marie, 2020. "Partners in crime? The impact of consumers' culpability for corporate social irresponsibility on their boycott attitude," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 607-620.
    17. Zyglidopoulos, Stelios C. & Georgiadis, Andreas P. & Carroll, Craig E. & Siegel, Donald S., 2012. "Does media attention drive corporate social responsibility?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(11), pages 1622-1627.
    18. Qi Sun & Fang Wu & Shanjun Li & Rajdeep Grewal, 2021. "Consumer Boycotts, Country of Origin, and Product Competition: Evidence from China’s Automobile Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5857-5877, September.
    19. Francisco-José Cossío-Silva & María-Ángeles Revilla-Camacho & Beatriz Palacios-Florencio & Dolores Garzón Benítez, 2019. "How to face a political boycott: the relevance of entrepreneurs’ awareness," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 321-339, June.
    20. Eugene Song, 2020. "South Korean Consumers’ Attitudes toward Small Business Owners Participating in the 2019 Anti-Japan Boycott," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-14, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:62:y:2009:i:2:p:239-247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.