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Religion as a cultural element has the potential to drive a strong boycott campaign. Previous studies acknowledge the role of religion in consumer boycotts yet did not investigate its role in influencing the very core of consumers’ motivation to participate in religion-based boycott. The purpose of this paper is to explore the fundamental nature of religious influence in an international religion-based consumer boycott. The research model tests the role of intrinsic religious motivation as the root of Muslim consumers’ motivational factors to participate and their intention to boycott US food brand.

The study adopted the Hoffman’s’ (2013) consumer boycott model to test the hypotheses. Survey method is used to collect primary data from Muslim millennials in a northern state of Malaysia. The study tested its five hypotheses on a data set of 325 cases using structural equation modelling (partial least squares regression).

The findings support the primary role of religion influences underlying boycott motivation factors. The intrinsic religious motivation is related to all the four boycott’s motivation factors (i.e. attitudes towards boycotting the brand, subjective norms, make a difference, self-enhancement), and indirectly contributing to intentions to boycott US food brand through the constructs of self-enhancement, subjective norms and attitudes towards the boycott.

The study is a cross-sectional in nature, confined to one US food brand. The findings may be limited to Muslim millennials in the same region or similar cultural background of the country surveyed.

Businesses may want to consider working with social agencies involved in a religion-driven consumer boycott in mitigating negative influences of such boycott on brands.

The study shows the root of consumers’ motivation to participate in an international religion-based consumer boycott, i.e. intrinsic religious motivation, by illustrating the mechanisms of religious influences (i.e. intrinsic religious motivation) on consumers’ intention to participate in Islam-driven boycott.

This paper aims to investigate the motivations behind Muslim consumers’ boycotting of foreign products. The act of boycotting foreign products has become increasingly common among Muslim consumers. Products from different countries-of-origin are their boycott targets.

The study adopted semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus-group discussions for data collection. A total of 36 Indonesian subjects participated in the study, representing the “university student” and “non-university student” samples. Leximancer, a qualitative analytical tool, was used to identify important motivations for boycotting behaviour among Muslim consumers.

Contrary to previous findings, this study found that Muslim consumers do not boycott solely for religious reasons. For example, most participants reported they boycotted Chinese products because they would like to protect their local products, along with the religious-based motivation of rejecting uncertainty about the halal certification of the products. Thus, the motivations identified from this study were not related exclusively to religion.

The present study offers new insights into the religious and secular motivations of Muslim consumers’ boycotts. Foreign products should adopt localised strategies such as repeatedly reminding consumers of the true halal nature of their products and their contribution to the local people.

This study contributes to the recognition of new insights into Muslim motivation to boycott product. The results develop important concepts surrounding the issue of boycotting foreign products. A concept map has been produced to offer a more comprehensive picture of Muslim’s boycotting behaviour.

Given the division between conservative and liberal ideologies on many issues, brands navigate social media minefields whenever they take a social or political stance. This study aims to explore real-time social media consumer responses to eight US boycott threats, including both conservative-based and liberal-based calls for boycott.

A grounded theory analysis of approximately 800 tweets collected in the 24 h following each brand’s trigger event led to a framework of motivations for using social media to engage in boycott discussions over a brand’s political stance.

Eleven pro-boycott and 11 anti-boycott consumer profiles emerged across cases. Overarching motivations for pro- and anti-boycotters include a desire to cause/prevent change, seeking justice/fairness, self-enhancement and expression of hostility. Findings suggest that political consumerism occurs with differing motivations and varying levels of emotion, that brand defenders may lessen boycott effectiveness and that threats to boycott may not always translate to actual boycotts.

This paper explores actual consumer boycott calls from various industries as they unfolded in real-time, as opposed to other research that explores hypothetical boycotts or a single case study. Additionally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is among the first to explore how consumers enter the boycott conversation in defense of the brand and attempt to diffuse the call for a boycott.

In this paper, the authors aim to offer a cross-cultural comparison of the boycott intentions of university students in Canada with those of students in Korea.

The data were collected from students at Inje University and York University via self-administered questionnaire. A t-test found that Canadian students’ answers showed significantly greater scores in ethnocentrism, boycott attitudes prior to reading the target article and motivations related to self-enhancement compared to those acquired from Korean students. However, the motivation of counterarguments and the boycott intentions of Korean students’ toward Rogers, the parent company of Maclean’s magazine, showed significantly higher scores than those gained from Canadian students.

The boycott case used in the study is Maclean’s magazine, a Canadian news magazine, which published a controversial article called, “Too Asian? Some frosh don’t want to study at an “Asian” University”. A noticeable gap in each group of students’ boycott attitude and intentions toward Rogers, the parent company of Maclean’s magazine was found.

In the multiple regression analysis, the boycott motivation of self-enhancement was the most influential variable on boycott intentions. The boycott case examined in this paper is a practical case study of cross-national grouping as well as the perceptional difference of the locus of corporate accountability that comes from cross-cultural backgrounds.

The purpose of this study is to identify, in the context of virtual social networks (VSNs), other types of boycott which have not yet been addressed in the literature. We relate the boycott(s) emerged on the VSNs with those found in the literature (economic, religious, of minorities, ecological and labor boycott), and verify the motivation that must be unique to such context.

Grounded theory was used in triangulation with netnography (interacting with 183 customers), non-participant observation (68 postings/47 complaints, from 2009 to 2012) and in-depth interview (15 consumers).

A new classification of boycott was proposed, which emerged on the basis of company service quality, named “relational boycott”, which can generate additional acts of repudiation, such as interaction, unity of the group and encouragement of third parties.

The model of relational boycott proposed was not empirically tested, but insights for future test are provided.

A model of how the relational boycott is structured is provided, being a deliberate, primary act of the consumer resulting from the management problems of a company generating backlash actions.

Since boycott represents a mechanism of protesting, it is a way that consumers pressure companies to provide better services and products, which may improve consumer’s wellbeing in the long range.

A new type of boycott emerges in the research, named relational boycott, structured in a model that can be tested empirically.

This paper aims to examine non-Muslim consumers’ willingness and motivation to boycott American-based companies operating in Malaysia, where Islam is prominent. The underlying base used in this study is an on-going boycott spurred by the Palestinian/Israel conflict in the Middle East.

Two products were selected based on their market presence: consumer familiarity and product affordability. A total of 340 completed questionnaires were obtained from non-Muslim university students and validated by partial least squares approach.

Three factors were found to be significant in predicting willingness to boycott, which were self-enhancement, perceived egregious behavior and country image.

This paper addresses boycott motivations from the context of Malaysian non-Muslims quantitatively, based on an issue strongly related to Muslims. The results may have some implications on multinational firms, non-government organizations, policymakers as well as consumers.

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, to investigate whether religiosity holds a significant effect on religious animosity in boycott circumstances in Indonesia and the interplay of religiosity dimensions (Study 1). Second, to investigate the antecedents of the intention to participate in religious boycotts (Study 2). The theory of planned behavior (TPB) is used as the foundation to explore and develop the antecedents.

The quantitative research uses a scenario from a real case of boycott incident in Indonesia; a significant country for the Muslim community and the host to the biggest Muslim population in the world. The case is related to a boycott toward the leading brand of the bakery (Sari Roti). In total, 270 adult Muslims participate as respondents using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The data is then analyzed using multiple regression analyzes.

Study 1 reveals that religiosity has a significant effect on religious animosity. Thus, religiosity is a relevant factor in affecting boycotts. Further, the dimensions of religiosity (intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity) play intertwining roles in affecting religious animosity. Study 2 reveals that the significant antecedents of religious boycott intention are attitude toward religious boycott, normative belief, motivation to comply. The political tendency is a significant covariate. The attitude toward religious boycott has the highest effect on religious boycott intention and is preceded by religious animosity and perceived success likelihood.

The sample is chosen from the population of Indonesian adult Muslims. Hence, caution should be applied when generalizing across other populations.

Results of the current research can help managers to prevent and to anticipate the potential negative impacts of a religious boycott on their businesses through the understanding of the factors affecting the intention to participate in such boycotts. Managers may initiate marketing interventions for such anticipations by creating communications responding to the potential animosity and boycott issues.

Governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can benefit from the current research in their efforts to prevent potential national instability and social or political chaos. The research findings may increase the understanding about antecedents of religious boycott, and, in turn, the governments and NGOs can plan social engineering initiatives for corrective and preventive actions accordingly.

The paper fulfills the conceptual gap by investigating whether religiosity and religious animosity are relevant in the boycott context. The paper also shows the different effects and the interplay among the antecedents of religious boycott intention. There is no prior literature that initiates and integrates the antecedents of religious boycott intention using TPB as the base theory.

The frequency and sophistication of consumer boycotts continue to increase from already high levels. Surprisingly, only limited research in marketing has investigated this topic. The purpose of this paper is to provide a strategic analysis of an actual consumer protest with implications for better managerial decisions.

The animosity model of consumer purchase behavior was employed in two longitudinal studies to investigate an ongoing marketplace protest – Australian consumers' boycott of French products. Study 1 was carried out while France was engaged in nuclear testing in the South Pacific. Study 2 was carried out 1 year after the resolution of the conflict.

Results from Study 1 show that Australian consumers' animosity toward France was negatively related to their willingness to purchase French products. Consistent with a key prediction from the animosity model, this effect was independent of evaluations of French product quality. The findings from Study 2 show that, a year after the cessation of nuclear testing, Australian consumers continue to have strong negative affect toward France, which in turn, had negative marketplace consequences for French products.

While the results from Study 1 show that consumer anger over nuclear testing did not necessarily lead to the denigration of the quality of French goods, the second study indicates that, beyond the duration of the official protest, there may be repercussions for products associated with the offending party. Accordingly, managers should consider implementing communications programs which, over time, effectively reinforce the quality of their products in the minds of protesting consumers.

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate and ascertain the effects of integrative motivation on the willingness to participate in boycott activities.

This paper uses a mail survey to examine the relationships among six constructs in a boycotting issue context, in order to explore Chinese consumers' willingness to boycott against Japanese products or services with the fallout from a Japanese former PM's continuous visits to a controversial war shrine since 2001.

The findings suggest that there are significant and positive pairwise relationships between boycott participation and three factors (i.e. animosity, efficacy, and prior purchase). High animosity towards Japanese goods and the other two constructs, at the high end of the attitude spectrum, increase the level of willingness to engage in consumer boycott practices.

Consumer boycotts are a worldwide and historic phenomenon in modern society. As the number of protests grows and as local authorities recognize the economic and political impact of such activities, then multinational companies (MNCs) and host countries begin to see the historic and cultural perspective of these events in addition to the conventional consumer behaviour perspective. To enable boycotting to become less harmful, MNC management need to understand what makes local consumers so affronted. The results of the evaluation can potentially be generalized towards a strategic analysis of the boycott model in other hostile market situations.

The findings of this paper offer pivotal implications for decision makers and the management of those Western multinational enterprises who are concerned with increasing their share of the world's largest consumer market. In particular, Japanese MNCs need to pay much more attention to the oppressed and potentially explosive emotion of animosity as the legacy of past conflicts (i.e. war, economic, political, etc.) between Japan and China.

This study aims to investigate how unethical corporate behavior of pharmaceutical companies affects consumer behavior of German consumers, especially boycotts of over‐the‐counter drugs.

Borrowing from psychological theory as well as consumer behavior theory, the study develops a conceptual model that considers affective and cognitive determinants of boycotting behavior. Within the scope of the German pharmaceutical sector, the researchers conducted a survey to validate the research hypotheses using moderated regression analysis.

Individuals' inclination to join boycotts and engage in boycott communication results from anger about animal testing, perceived immorality of pharmaceutical companies' corporate behavior and negative corporate image of pharmaceutical companies. An empirical analysis reveals significant moderation effects.

This research focuses on the pharmaceutical sector and the boycott of over‐the‐counter drugs.

The study results may help pharmaceutical companies develop communication responses to accusations of unethical corporate behavior.

The paper offers new insights on the effects of unethical corporate behavior on consumers, which may be useful to the crisis‐prone pharmaceutical sector.