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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of eco-designed packaging on consumers’ responses. It defines the concept of eco-designed packaging, and proposes a consumer-led taxonomy of its cues. Attitudinal and behavioral, positive and negative responses triggered by the perception of these signals are analyzed.

Results were reached through qualitative methods. A phenomenological approach consisting of eight in-depth interviews has been followed by a series of ten Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) interviews. The synergy of these two methods is underlined.

The complexity of packaging ecological cues perception is outlined by expressing the differences in the nature of these cues. A taxonomy is then presented; ecological cues fall into three categories: structural cues, graphical/iconic cues and informational cues. Finally, consumers’ responses to the perception of eco-designed packaging are presented and perceived benefits and perceived sacrifices are revealed.

Packaging is of great importance in consumers’ purchase decision process, especially in situations of temporal pressure and hyperchoice environments. Since consumers take more and more into account the ethicality of the brand in their consumption, the understanding of their attitudes and behaviors toward eco-designed packaging may enable brands to build a competitive advantage.

The literature review reveals that there is no similar research available. The use of two qualitative methods enables to understand consumers’ deep-seated motivations, attitudes and behaviors toward eco-designed packaging. The results of this study can also be used by advertisers, for social marketing campaigns, to encourage consumers to reduce the global ecological footprint of packaging.

During 2020, governments around the world introduced contact-tracing apps to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In order for contact-tracing apps to be efficient tools in combatting pandemics, a significant proportion of the population has to install it. However, in many countries, the success of apps introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic has been limited due to lack of public support. This paper aims to better understand why consumers seem unwilling to install and use a contact-tracing app.

In this study, the authors test a number of determinants hypothesized to influence acceptance of contact-tracing apps based on the theory of privacy calculus (Dinev and Hart, 2006). Both perceived privacy concerns, as well as perceived hedonic, utilitarian and pro-social benefits are included. The hypotheses are tested through SEM analysis on a representative sample of 1,007 Swedish citizens.

The results indicate significant privacy concerns with using contact-tracing apps. However, this is to some extent offset by perceived hedonic and pro-social positive consequences of using the app. This study further shows that a general positive attitude towards innovation increases acceptance of the app.

The study contributes to research on consumer privacy, both in general in its application of the calculus model but also specifically in the context of contact-tracing apps. Moreover, as the results highlight which aspects that are important for consumers to accept and install an app of this kind, they also represent an important contribution to policymakers in countries around the world.

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is an emerging social phenomenon gaining tangible traction for its ability to tackle complex social and environmental problems against a backdrop of global sustainability challenges. This paper aims to unpack SE intentions, mindset and motivations to elucidate “why” and “how” social entrepreneurs (SE) initiate, perpetuate and sustain pro-social entrepreneurship activity. It specifically asks why SE do what they do, how they develop and sustain pro-social entrepreneurship action and how these normative drivers affect the social change process.

This qualitative research adopts an exploratory multiple case design approach in examining the tacit experience of eight SE tackling complex water, sanitation and environmental challenges in Indonesia, and combines this with scholarly insights from multiple bodies of knowledge. Case studies include six SE recognised by the Ashoka Foundation and two lesser-known “social enterprises” to enable finding patterns across the cases and compare key differences between pro-social and conventional entrepreneurship. Triangulating semi-structured interviews with secondary data analysis and semi-ethnographic fieldwork observations, this paper provides a rich theoretical and empirical basis to understand the emerging transformative potential of SE in tackling a range of sustainability issues.

Interviews with eight SE highlighted their intentions to advance inter and intra-generational equity, social justice and sustainability, bringing socially embedded empathetic values and a growth mindset to overcome challenges associated with disrupting existing social order. Direct engagement with the SE revealed 10 critical enabling factors to foster future SE potential, namely, individual background and experience, unmet social needs, empathy, sense of belonging, willingness/passion to alleviate other’s suffering, growth mindset, internal/external catalysts, intrinsic and extrinsic needs, beliefs and goals and declaration of a social mission to ensure consistency in behaviour and action. This demonstrates that while SE are motivated by a variety of self and other-oriented mechanisms, it is ultimately the process of developing empathy, a growth mindset and declaring a social mission that drives and sustains pro-social entrepreneurship action.

The output of this research is a new intentions model, which outlines the 5 phases of enterprise development and 10 critical enabling factors to foster future SE potential. These insights are critical to leveraging the emerging transformative potential of SE in tackling the world’s most urgent sustainability issues.

The paper presents a deep analysis of data on individual background, experience and characteristics in developing a new SE intentions model.

The distinct focus on inputs over processes and outcomes answers to a highly elusive topic while offering an alternative approach to understand how SE create remarkably different strategies, processes and outcomes to conventional developmental approaches.

Daily COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality rates are still high globally, and masking is considered a reliable method of preventing its infections. Yet, the rate of voluntary compliance with masking remains very low in most parts of the world, especially in developing countries. The authors hypothesize that the decision to wear a mask entails some benefit-cost analysis that involves time discounting. In addition, the authors surmise that feel-good benefits from pro-social behavior and from wearing fashionable masks are substantial.

The study is based on a survey of 900 fishermen and fish traders in Ghana. A simple experiment was designed to elicit individual rates of time preference. In addition, the fishers were asked questions about their political affiliation and knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. A logit model is used to investigate the determinants of the decision to wear a mask.

The authors found that masking compliance increases in time discounting for fishmongers, suggesting that private benefits from pro-social behavior or feel-good benefits from wearing a mask are very strong. In addition, those who belonged to the ruling political party were more likely to wear a mask. Other factors increasing the likelihood of masking include affiliation with the ruling political party, knowledge of COVID-19 and knowledge of someone who lost his/her job due to COVID-19.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the effect of time discounting on the voluntary compliance of a health safety measure, which could provide a direct utility. In addition, the study explores the effect of political affiliation on voluntary masking behavior.

As a rule, common courts are hermetic organizations, separated from their stakeholders by procedures based on legal provisions. For these reasons, they are often perceived as unreliable and non-transparent, and as such, they do not inspire trust among stakeholders. The authors posit that the court’s community involvement may lead to the increased accountability and legitimacy of courts, which should in turn result in jurisprudence benefits. This paper discusses the concept of community involvement of courts, demonstrates how this idea may be implemented and explains its benefits for courts.

The results of an action research study undertaken between June 2013 and March 2018 at the Regional Court in Gdansk (Poland) are discussed.

The results highlight factors underlying the implementation of the idea of community involvement, as well as the areas in which courts take these actions, and explain how it influences their accountability and legitimacy. This research describes the interests of different stakeholders and proposes a range of actions that may be taken by courts while cooperating with stakeholders to achieve the aims of community involvement. It also proposes a set of steps that enable courts to implement the idea of community involvement.

This paper develops the idea of the community involvement of courts, which may be used as an operating rule for public institutions to increase their legitimacy and accountability and explain its introduction in the context of courts. It offers a universal framework for the community involvement of courts that can be used in the context of any court in both the continental and Anglo-Saxon systems.

Hospitality companies increasingly sell their unsold, or so-called rescued meals, on food waste reduction applications (e.g. Too Good To Go [TGTG]). The purpose of this research is to explore the influence of product construal and benefit appeals on consumer evaluations.

Study 1 (N = 277 participants) is an online experiment with a 2 × 3 between subject design analyzed using ANOVA and planned contrast analysis. Study 2 is a 2 × 2 field experiment (N = 147 sold rescued food boxes) using chi-square tests for the main analysis.

This study finds that an abstract product description (e.g. a magic box with an opaque content) matched with an environmental benefit appeal renders significantly higher consumer evaluations in comparison to when the same product is paired with financial benefits. In contrast, a concrete product presentation featuring financial benefits as opposed to environmental benefits increases consumer purchase intentions and willingness to pay.

We empirically show how the interaction and congruency between product construal and benefit appeals affect evaluations in a last-minute purchase context.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to look at the interactive effect between product construal and benefit appeals in a food waste and technology context.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework of cool for social marketing through a comprehensive literature review and integrating extant literature on cool.

A comprehensive search and review of extant literature across social marketing, business disciplines, arts, psychology, social sciences and humanities was undertaken to develop an understanding of cool and its relevance to social marketing. The review permitted developing a comprehensive set of characteristics that are associated with cool.

A conceptual framework of cool organised according to the following dimensions is presented and discussed: deviating from norm, self-expressive, indicative of maturity, subversive, pro-social, evasive, and attractive.

This paper advances theoretical knowledge in the social marketing domain by offering a conceptual framework of cool, and by suggesting a set of guidelines to develop cool social marketing programs.

The purpose of this paper is to provide new ways of thinking about what motivates consumers to choose the green alternative, ideas that will be helpful in reducing the unsatisfactory green attitude-behaviour gap. Consumers have many self-aspects. This paper shows why it is necessary to activate consumers’ pragmatic selves if we want to predict purchase behaviour. The pragmatic self is concerned with costs and reference prices. When researchers activate consumers’ idealistic selves, they get idealistic answers which deviate from actual behaviour. The study also distinguishes between green alternatives with desirable green or non-green self-benefits, and green alternatives with other-benefits that are difficult to comprehend.

This study is based on a consumer survey and the data is analysed with structural equation modelling. The concept environmental colour is introduced to understand purchase differences between different consumer segments on the market.

This study shows that consumers buy benefits, which is why dark brown consumers choose the green alternative when it has a competitive advantage. It also shows that the propensity to choose the green alternative is highest among consumers who in addition see green as a benefit and have the habit of buying other green products. Another result is that the green consumers have higher self-awareness than brown consumers and are very cost conscious.

Good decisions are based on what consumers actually do, not what they say they would like to do. This paper offers practical help on understanding consumers’ purchase criteria and how to activate their pragmatic selves. Much more could be done to promote the pro-self and pro-social benefits of making sustainable choices.

To get a sustainable world, it is urgent to understand what motivates consumers to pay extra for environmentally friendly alternatives.

This paper offers new theoretical insights on how researchers can reduce the green gap.

It has been suggested that the future success of non-profit organizations lies in ensuring the sustainable involvement of the Millennial generation through social network sites. Facebook is a social media (SM) network that creates new research contexts and methodologies in service management. Organizations must now engage in learning how customer-with-customer interactions in SM could work best for them. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the factors influencing Millennials support for social causes through their autonomous engagement in the public environment of SM.

The authors conducted two studies of events for social causes (breast cancer and youth homelessness). In each, two Facebook event pages appealing to others-benefits and self-benefits were designed. Participants were randomly assigned the task of examining the appeal pages online. The dependent variables were two sets of intentions in support of the cause (online and offline). The effectiveness of an others-benefit vs a self-benefit Facebook appeal, the influence of empathetic identification with these causes and the direct and mediating effects of autonomous motivation was studied.

The studies provide consistent evidence that, to gain Millennial's support for social causes through SM, it is better to appeal mainly to the benefits others derive than to benefits to the self. Autonomous motivation is a strong predictor of supportive intentions and it also significantly mediates the positive influence of empathetic identification with a cause. Self-reported behavioral data following the youth homelessness event provided empirical evidence that the supportive intentions data were valid predictors of actual behaviors.

The paper used innovative experimental and correlational research methodologies to address Millennial's social behaviors within a SM context. The paper also introduced self-determination theory of motivation to this literature. From a practical standpoint, Millennials readily engage in impression management. Therefore, their supportive activities should be publicly lauded. Managers should also identify those Millennials who already empathize with the cause and facilitate their ability to influence other members in their networks. SM are changing at a fast pace and managers should employ Millennials in developing pertinent strategies and practices to keep pace. Taking advantage of marketing “with” Millennials can facilitate the development of new approaches for creating and supporting cause events.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of workplace ostracism on unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), by focusing on the moderating role of value alignment of WPS.

The theoretical model was tested using data collected from 434 employees in different companies from Shanxi provinces in China. Analysis of lagged data is used to empirically test the relationship between workplace ostracism and UPB.

The study found that ostracized individuals are more likely to engage in UPB when they embrace high value alignment with the organization.

This study examines the moderating effect of WPS, providing boundary condition for the relationship between workplace ostracism and UPB. So far, most of the empirical work has identified moderators that only buffer the relationship between ostracism and negative outcomes, and the result for moderators that actually determine pro-social responses has not yet to be discovered.