Theory of planned behaviour and boycotting: the moderating role of socio-political control and demographics
ISSN: 1450-2194
Article publication date: 2 June 2021
Issue publication date: 17 May 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the predictive ability of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to explain consumers' intentions to boycott “unethical”super market (S/M) products. It aims to expand the TPB by investigating the moderating role of politics and selected demographics in the formation process of behavioural intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey with personal interviews was conducted in the urban area of Thessaloniki, Greece. The two-stage area, in combination with the stratified sampling, resulted in a representative sample of 420 useable questionnaires.
Findings
Consumers were found to be mostly influenced by subjective norms to participate in a boycott campaign against “unethical” products, the next time they visited an S/M. Moderation analyses revealed that the effect of subjective norms gets higher in the group of consumers with lower policy control (PC) scores; the effect of attitudes gets higher in those with higher leadership competence (LC) in the society. Furthermore, the effect of attitudes on intentions gets stronger in men, younger than 44 years old, better educated and earning relatively higher incomes.
Originality/value
The contribution of this study to the boycotting research agenda concerns the expanded TPB model; it introduces scantly so far exogenous variables, namely politics and demographics.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: No funds, grants, or other support was received.Conflicts of interest/Competing interests: The author have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.Ethics approval: All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.Consent to participate: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.Consent for publication: Not applicableAvailability of data and material: This manuscript contains analyses of data which will be made available on reasonable request.Code availability: Not applicableAuthors’ contributions: Not applicable
Citation
Delistavrou, A. (2022), "Theory of planned behaviour and boycotting: the moderating role of socio-political control and demographics", EuroMed Journal of Business, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 270-287. https://doi.org/10.1108/EMJB-02-2021-0020
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited