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Lust auf Verzicht
(2024)
Der globale Klimawandel nimmt weiter bedrohlich zu. Hitzewellen, Flutkatastrophen und Waldbrände gehören fast schon zum Alltag. Trotzdem ist die Bereitschaft in der deutschen Bevölkerung gering, selbst einen Beitrag zum Klimaschutz zu leisten. Das überrascht, denn in Umfragen bekennt sich immer eine große Mehrheit zum Klimaschutz. Allerdings haben wohl viele einen Klimaschutz im Kopf, der persönlich nichts kosten und nichts verändern darf.
Ingo Balderjahn setzt sich mit diesem Widerspruch aus verhaltenswissenschaftlicher Sicht auseinander und legt offen, warum viele weiterhin ungebremst verschwenderisch und klimaschädlich konsumieren. Andererseits gibt es durchaus Menschen, die deutlich weniger konsumieren, als sie sich finanziell leisten könnten. Diese Minderheit in Deutschland verzichtet freiwillig auf eher unnötige und kurzlebige Güter - ohne irgendetwas dabei zu entbehren. Im Gegenteil: Genügsame Konsumgewohnheiten stärken die persönliche Selbstbestimmung, Unabhängigkeit und Zufriedenheit.
Die ökologischen und sozialen Probleme der Gegenwart zwingen zu gravierenden Änderungen industrieller Produktions- und Wertschöpfungsprozesse und privater Konsumstile. Dieses Buch geht auf beide Seiten der Medaille ein: Es beleuchtet die Beiträge, die Unternehmen durch nachhaltiges Management für eine sozial gerechte und ökologische verträgliche Zukunftsentwicklung leisten können, als auch die Möglichkeiten der Konsumenten, durch ihre Konsumentscheidungen einen Beitrag zu einer lebenswerten Zukunft zu leisten. Jedes Kapitel wird durch eine Lernzielformulierung eingeleitet und durch eine Lernstandskontrolle abgeschlossen. Die zahlreichen Einblicke in die Praxis unterstützen das Verständnis. Aktuelle Links zu Websites von Unternehmen und Institutionen runden das Buch ab. Das Buch richtet sich insbesondere an Studierende der Wirtschaftswissenschaften, aber auch an Personen, die ein Interesse an dieser Themenstellung haben. Fazit: Die kompakte und verständliche Einführung schafft ein tieferes Verständnis für die Verknüpfung von nachhaltigem Management mit Konsumentenverhalten.
Higher eco-efficiency will not be enough to slow global warming caused by climate change. To keep global warming to 2 degrees, people also need to reduce their consumption. At present, however, many who would be able to do so seem unwilling to comply. Given the threats of a runaway climate change, urgent measures are needed to promote less personal consumption. This study, therefore, examines whether social marketing consume-less appeals can be used to encourage consumers to voluntarily abstain from consumption. As part of an online experiment with nearly 2000 randomly sampled users of an online platform for sustainable consumption, we tested the effectiveness of five different “consume-less” appeals based on traditional advertising formats (including emotional, informational, and social claims). The study shows that consume-less appeals are capable of limiting personal desire to buy. However, significant differences in the effectiveness of the appeal formats used in this study were observed. In addition, we found evidence of rebound effects, which leads us to critically evaluate the overall potential of social marketing to promote more resource-conserving lifestyles. While commercial consumer-free appeals have previously been studied (e.g., Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacked”), this study on the effectiveness of non-commercial consume-free appeals is novel and provides new insights.
Choice-Based Conjointanalyse
(2021)
Die auswahlbasierte oder auch Choice-Based Conjointanalyse (CBC) ist die derzeit wohl beliebteste Variante der Conjointanalyse. Gründe dafür bestehen einerseits in der leichten Verfügbarkeit benutzerfreundlicher Software (z.B. R, Sawtooth Software), andererseits weist das Verfahren aufgrund seiner Sonderstellung auch aus methodischer sowie praktischer Sicht Stärken auf. So werden bei einer CBC im Gegensatz zur bewertungsbasierten Conjointanalyse keine Präferenzurteile, sondern diskrete Entscheidungen der Auskunftspersonen erhoben und ausgewertet. Bei der CBC handelt es sich also genau genommen um eine Discrete Choice Analyse (DCA), die auf ein conjointanalytisches Erhebungsdesign angewandt wird. Beide Bezeichnungen werden nach wie vor verwendet, die Methodik wird in diesem Kapitel grundlegend und anhand eines Anwendungsbeispiels diskutiert.
Consume-less appeals in social marketing can help reduce the lavish consumption in wealthy countries, which poses a major threat to the climate. This study experimentally examines the effectiveness of three different types of consume-less appeals (informative, social normative, and emotional appeals) on participants’ actual spending levels during a real shopping trip compared to a control group (no appeal). In addition, the study tests whether these appeals evoke negative rebounds (in terms of post-purchase climate donation) or positive rebounds (in terms of accepting post-purchase material giveaways). A field experiment in a grocery store in Germany with 170 participants shows that social normative and the emotional appeals reduce actual shopping spending. Informative and social normative appeals increase donations, and emotional appeals reduce the items of taken giveaways. The findings further support certain indirect impacts of the consume-less appeals on rebounds in terms of spending levels.
Purpose
Because steadily growing consumption is not beneficial for nature and climate and is not the same as increasing well-being, an anti-consumerism movement has formed worldwide. The renouncement of dispensable consumption will, however, only establish itself as a significant lifestyle if consumers do not perceive reduced consumption as a personal sacrifice. Since prior research has not yielded a consistent understanding of the relationship between anti-consumption and personal well-being, this paper aims to examine three factors about which theory implies that they may moderate this relationship: decision-control empowerment, market-control empowerment and the value of materialism.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on data from a large-scale, representative online survey (N = 1,398). Structural equation modelling with latent interaction effects is used to test how three moderators (decision-control empowerment, market-control empowerment and materialism) affect the relationship amongst four types of anti-consumption (e.g. voluntary simplicity) and three different well-being states (e.g. subjective well-being).
Findings
While both dimensions of empowerment almost always directly promote consumer well-being, significant moderation effects are present in only a few but meaningful cases. Although the materialism value tends to reduce consumers’ well-being, it improves the well-being effect of two anti-consumption styles.
Research limitations/implications
Using only one sample from a wealthy country is a limitation of the study. Researchers should replicate the findings in different nations and cultures.
Practical implications
Consumer affairs practitioners and commercial marketing for sustainably produced, high-quality and long-lasting goods can benefit greatly from these findings.
Social implications
This paper shows that sustainable marketing campaigns can more easily motivate consumers to voluntarily reduce their consumption for the benefit of society and the environment if a high level of market-control empowerment can be communicated to them.
Originality/value
This study provides differentiated new insights into the roles of consumer empowerment, i.e. both decision-control empowerment and market-control empowerment, and the value of materialism to frame specific relationships between different anti-consumption types and various well-being states.
This study investigates the effect of different anticonsumption constructs on consumer wellbeing. The study assumes that people will only lower their level of consumption if doing so does not also lower personal wellbeing. More precisely, this research investigates how specific subtypes of sustainable anticonsumption (e.g., voluntary simplicity, collaborative consumption, and debt-free living) relate to different states of consumer's wellbeing (e.g., financial, psychosocial, and subjective wellbeing). This work also examines whether consumer empowerment can improve personal wellbeing and strengthen the anticonsumption wellbeing relationship. The results show that voluntarily foregoing consumption does not reduce wellbeing and consumer empowerment plays a significant role in supporting sustainable pathways to consumer wellbeing. This study reasons that empowerment improves consumer sovereignty, but may be detrimental for consumers heavily concerned about debt-free living. The present investigation concludes by proposing implications for public and consumer policymakers wishing to promote appropriate sustainable (anticonsumption) pathways to consumer wellbeing.
Less is more!
(2021)
Enhancing consumer satisfaction and well-being is an important objective of companies, retailers and public policy makers. In the current debate on climate change, a consistent theme is that consumers in developed countries must learn to consume less. The present study (based on representative data sets from the US, N = 1,017, and Germany, N = 1030) addresses these issues by using a scenario-based experiment to analyze how satisfied voluntary simplifiers (people who voluntarily abstain from consumption) are with their purchase decisions in the case of a muesli brand. The research question is whether people who follow a sustainable, simple lifestyle are more satisfied with their daily consumption choices than people who have a more consumerist lifestyle. If so, it would be easier for many people to change their lifestyles and consume less. In addition, this scenario experiment manipulates consumer empowerment and decision complexity since both factors are supposed to influence purchase satisfaction. The results are consistent across both countries and indicate that voluntary simplifiers experience a higher level of purchasing satisfaction than non-simplifiers, whereby empowerment and decision complexity play different roles.
There are two fundamental ways in which consumers can express their concerns and obligations for society through their consumption decisions: They can boycott companies that they deem to be irresponsible or they may deliberately buy from companies that they perceive to act responsibly (‘buycott’). It has been largely ignored that individuals are driven by different motivational mechanisms to join boycotts and buycotts (punishment vs. reward of corporate behaviors), and thus, these mechanisms have disparate implications for the participating individual (e.g., high vs. low subjective costs because of a restriction in consumption habits). This paper fills this void and develops a framework suggesting that the extent to which consumers translate their concerns and obligations for society into a willingness to boycott and/or buycott is bounded by self-interest. Using a unique, representative sample of 1833 German consumers, this study reveals that the effects of environmental concerns and universalism on buycotting are amplified by hedonism, while the effects of social concern on buycotting and boycotting are attenuated by hedonism and simplicity, respectively. These results have far-reaching implications for organizations and policy planners who aim to change corporate behavior.