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Remanufacturing is the only end-of-life (EOL) treatment process that results in as-new functional and aesthetic quality and warranty. However, applying mental model theory, the purpose of this paper is to argue that the conception of remanufacturing as an EOL process activates an operational mental model (OMM) that connects to resource reuse, environmental concern and cost savings and is thus opposed to a strategic mental model (SMM) that associates remanufacturing with quality improvements and potential price increases.

The authors support the argument by empirically assessing consumers’ multi-attribute decision process for cars with remanufactured or new engines among 202 car buyers in China. The authors conduct a conjoint analysis and use the results as input to simulate market shares for various markets on which these cars compete.

The results suggest that consumers on average attribute reduced utility to remanufactured engines, thus in line with the OMM. However, the authors identify a segment accounting for about 30 per cent of the market with preference for remanufactured engines. The fact that this segment has reduced environmental concern supports the SMM idea that remanufactured products can be bought for their quality.

A single-country (China) single-brand (Volkswagen) study is used to support the conceptualised mental models. While this strengthens the internal validity of the results, future research could improve the external validity by using more representative sampling in a wider array of empirical contexts. Moreover, future work could test the theory more explicitly.

By selling cars with remanufactured engines to customers with a SMM that values the at least equal performance of remanufactured products, firms can enhance their profit from remanufactured products. In addition, promoting SMM enables sustainable business models for the sharing economy.

As a community, the authors need to more effectively reflect on shaping mental models that disconnect remanufacturing from analogies that convey inferior quality and performance associations. Firms can overcome reduced utility perceptions not only by providing discounts, i.e. sharing the economic benefits of remanufacturing, but even more by increasing the warranty, thus sharing remanufacturing’s performance benefit and reducing consumers’ risk, a mechanism widely acknowledged in product diffusion but neglected in remanufacturing so far.

This paper aims to explore when and why consumers hold inconsistent and consistent choices between self- and gift-purchases.

Across three paper-based questionnaire experiments, the authors examine how consumers’ preferences for desirability and feasibility vary with purchase types (self- vs gift-purchases) based on the functional theories of attitudes. The authors examine consumers’ attitude functions and their self-monitoring closely associated with chronic attitude functions.

The findings show that the social adjustive function moderates whether consumers hold consistent or inconsistent preferences across the two purchases. Specifically, consumers generally rely more on desirability in gift-purchases than self-purchases, whereas this inconsistent preference only exists when the social adjustive function is comparable or advantaged to the utilitarian function. When the social adjustive function is significantly disadvantaged relative to the utilitarian function, consumers consistently prefer feasibility irrespective of self- or gift-purchases.

The research contributes to the familiar topic of consumers’ choice trade-offs between self- and gift-purchases. It documents the moderating role of the social adjustive function of consumers’ attitudes in whether they hold consistent or inconsistent choices across the two purchases. This extends the extensive research on self-other decisions.

The findings strongly suggest retailers identify or manipulate consumers’ attitude functions to make the attitude functions align with the purchase type when recommending products.

Most relevant literature focuses on exploring choice differences between self- and gift-purchases. This research not only explores the choice differences but also attempts to find the condition under which people’s choices do not differ between the two purchases.

Cause related marketing (CrM) has gained popularity in Europe within the past decade. Therefore, the authors aim to investigate corporate motive and the fit of a company brand with the CrM cause as determinants of CrM campaign success.

Conjoint analysis is applied to campaign evaluations from 278 students in Germany. Campaigns attached to laptop purchases supporting an African hospital with either medical (low fit) or IT (high fit) infrastructure and were based on altruistic, neutral, or profit‐oriented company motives.

The authors find that altruistic motives increase consumer evaluations. In contrast to their hypothesis, campaigns are evaluated more positively, when product cause fit is low.

Based on their findings, the authors suggest exploring the fit of CrM campaigns in more detail: future research might explicitly consider the congruence of a CrM donation with a company's product, with the brand's claim and philosophy, and with the supported NPO.

Companies should think twice before using CrM as means of profit maximization. When selecting an adequate cause, attention should be paid to the company brand and to a product's potential impact on society. Moreover, the donation type (money versus product) should be chosen in a way to clearly support the cause and to avoid potential allegation of aiming at an increased distribution of own products.

The authors apply conjoint analysis to corporate motive and cause‐brand fit; this integrated consumer evaluation appears more realistic than most existing studies. Based on their results, the authors develop diverse perspectives on fit in CrM. These may be applied in future research.

By replicating two seminal studies on cause‐related marketing (CRM) campaigns, this paper aims to investigate the influence of gender and of donation size on consumer perception of firm behavior, consumer attitude to product, consumer goodwill toward the CRM campaign, consumer perception of the benefit to the NPO, and consumer attitude toward CRM.

An online experiment was conducted with 306 students from a German university to evaluate their responses to a CRM campaign. The presented campaign supported a German children's charity, and varied with regard to donation size.

Consumer perception of firm behavior, consumer goodwill toward the CRM campaign, and consumer attitude to product vary significantly by gender. Donation size has a significant influence on consumer goodwill toward the CRM campaign and on consumer perception of the benefit to the NPO. The impact of donation size is rooted in external perceptions, and partly moderated by gender.

The chosen non‐forced stimulus presentation may overestimate the measured impact. The applied stimuli may underlie specific gender characteristics that influence responses. Further research might thus apply forced stimulus exposure designs to a broader set of causes and products.

Results imply that CRM campaigns promise to be particularly suitable for promoting products to women. When addressing men, small donations appear to be sufficient.

The authors expand existing research in three ways. Campaign impact is differentiated by consumer attitudes toward the company, toward the product, and toward the NPO. The article shows that the impact of donation size is gender‐specific. By investigating CRM response in Germany, the study regionally expands existing research.

This study explores the millennial perceptions of cause-related marketing (CRM) in international markets through the lens of an ethical continuum. Literature gaps exist in our understanding of cause-related marketing, ethics and millennials in an international context, with few studies offering insights into successful CRM campaigns in developed vs developing countries. Previous studies have yielded differing responses based on culture, sociodemographic and consumer perceptions.

An exploratory qualitative research method was adopted to build the theory necessary to address this research gap. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 155 undergraduate and postgraduate students representing 17 nationalities. Interviews were conducted in two regions (Ireland and United Arab Emirates) representing developed and developing markets.

Discrepancies exist between millennial consumers when it comes to ethical self-reporting, perceptions of CRM initiatives, choice criteria of CRM offers and purchase intentions. Findings also suggest that there is a relationship between the religious and ethical beliefs of millennials in certain regions. Gender showed no significant differences in perceptions of CRM.

This study examines millennial perceptions of CRM from multiple nationalities in developed vs developing markets. It introduces the ethical continuum in international CRM as a lens to examine perceptions of millennial consumers. The study identifies that millennials should not be treated as a homogenous group, suggesting different choice criteria of millennial consumers based on their ethical standards. It demonstrates emerging support for the role of religion in successful adoption of CRM.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the motives of Indian firms for engaging with corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and their interplay by using interpretive structural modelling methodology (ISM) and Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment (MICMAC) analysis.

The research uses ISM and Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment (MICMAC) analysis to find the structural relationship among the CSR motives of the Indian firms identified from the past literature and agreed upon by the experts.

The ISM model indicates that firms primarily engage in CSR either because of top management commitment to certain values, to meet the legal mandate or of the pressure from the NGOs. The top management commitment gives a strategic orientation to CSR, which results in community engagement by the firm as one of the important components of the strategy. The community engagement helps in engaging with its employees and investors along with finding sources of innovations, which, in turn, help the firm in engaging its customers, managing corporate reputation and getting a cost advantage. Collectively, these help them in improving their financial performance. However, the model highlights two autonomous sources, meeting legal mandate and pressure from NGOs also motivate firms to engage in CSR without having any strategic thought or engagement with its strategic system.

The study provides a comprehensive listing of CSR motives of Indian firms along with the structural relationships among the identified CSR motives. The model developed provides CSR professionals and policymakers an understanding of the primary CSR motives along with their driving power and dependence. This insight will help them in manipulating these motives for better CSR engagement by the Indian firms.