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92 / Journal of Marketing, July 2004Journal of Marketing

Vol. 68 (July 2004), 92109

Jill Gabrielle Klein, N. Craig Smith, & Andrew John

Why We Boycott: ConsumerMotivations for Boycott Participation

Although boycotts are increasingly relevant for management decision making, there has been little research of an

individual consumers motivation to boycott. Drawing on the helping behavior and boycott literature, the authorstake a costbenefit approach to the decision to boycott and present a conceptualization of motivations for boycottparticipation. The authors tested their framework during an actual boycott of a multinational firm that was promptedby factory closings. Consumers who viewed the closures as egregious were more likely to boycott the firm, thoughonly a minority did so. Four factors are found to predict boycott participation: the desire to make a difference, thescope for self-enhancement, counterarguments that inhibit boycotting, and the cost to the boycotter of constrainedconsumption. Furthermore, self-enhancement and constrained consumption are significant moderators of the rela-tionship between the perceived egregiousness of the firms actions and boycott participation. The authors alsoexplore the role of perceptions of others participation and discuss implications for marketers, nongovernmentalorganizations, policymakers, and researchers.

Jill Gabrielle Klein is Associate Professor of Marketing, INSEAD (e-mail:

jill.klein@insead.edu). N. Craig Smith is Associate Professor of Marketingand Ethics, London Business School (e-mail: ncsmith@london.edu).Andrew John is Chief Executive Officer, AJK Executive Consulting(e-mail: andrew.john@aya.yale.edu). The authors thank Richard P.Bagozzi, Paula Bone, Pierre Chandon, Pam Scholder Ellen, Minette E.Drumwright, Randall Heeb, John G. Lynch Jr., Naufel Vilcassim, and theBehavioral Reading Group at London Business School for helpful com-ments on previous drafts of this article. They also gratefully acknowledgethe collaboration of their anonymous corporate sponsor and its researchagency as well as financial and other assistance provided by LondonBusiness School, INSEAD, and University of New South Wales.

The boycott is the way we take our cause to the public.For surely if we cannot find justice in the courts of rural

California, we will find support with our brothers and sis-ters throughout the nation.

Cesar Chavez (qtd. in Why We Boycott[UnitedFarm Workers of America 1973])

Weve taken significant actions to improve the lives,opportunities, and working conditions of the people whomake our product around the world, and [we] regularlyinvest in the communities where we do business. And wedo this so that consumers can buy Nike products with theknowledge that these products have been manufacturedunder safe and fair working conditions.

Nikes response to criticism inNaomi KleinsNo Logo (Nike 2000)

Boycotts are an intriguing form of consumer behavior.They are unwelcome to marketers yet consistent

with the marketing concept, because firms targeted

by a well-supported consumer boycott have apparently

failed to sustain a sufficient customer focus. As a result of

greater public attention to corporate social responsibility

(CSR) and the increased vulnerability of brands and corpo-

rate reputations, boycotts have become ever more relevant

for management decision making. Furthermore, given that

they represent a source of consumer power and a mecha-

nism for the social control of business, boycotts also have

public policy implications. Boycotters deliberately use their

purchase votes to favor firms with preferred societal

impacts, consistent with the idea of consumer choice as arationale for capitalism (Dickinson and Hollander 1991;

Smith 1990). Yet there has been little research into the fac-

tors that influence a consumers motivation to boycott,

despite the need for marketers, boycott organizers, and pol-

icymakers to better understand these factors.

Friedman (1985, p. 97) defines a consumer boycott as

an attempt by one or more parties to achieve certain objec-

tives by urging individual consumers to refrain from mak-

ing selected purchases in the marketplace. The urging of

a boycott typically comes from a nongovernmental organi-

zation (NGO) that is protesting corporate practices. Thus,

boycotts are an extreme case of a broader category of con-

sumer behavior in which social and ethical issues, such asenvironmentalism, influence purchase decisions. Therefore,

a better understanding of boycott participation not only is

useful in its own right but also is likely to inform the under-

standing of ethical influences on buyer behavior in general.

Consumer boycotts date back at least as far as the four-

teenth century and have contributed to some spectacular

successes for relatively powerless groups. In the United

States, boycotts were the key to unionization (Wolman

1916), and the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott marks the

beginning of the modern civil rights movement (Friedman

1999). Elsewhere, examples include Gandhis boycotts of

British salt and cloth before Indian independence and the

British boycott of Barclays Bank before its withdrawal fromapartheid South Africa (Smith 1990). In the 1990s, the busi-

ness press agreed that boycotts were often successful and

were occurring more frequently (e.g., The Economist

1990).1 Recent prominent consumer boycotts include the

1The incidence of boycotts and their success are inherently hardto quantify because of difficulties in identifying calls for boycottsby NGOs and the understandable reluctance of firms to reportsales declines due to boycotts or to publicize concessions to boy-cott organizers.

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Consumer Boycott Participation / 93

European boycott of Shell because of its plan to sink the

Brent Spar oil platform at sea and the multicountry boycott

of Nike over alleged sweatshop conditions at Asian suppli-

ers. As these examples suggest, boycotts today are more

typically focused on corporate practices rather than on

broader sociopolitical goals such as civil rights. This shift in

boycott focus reflects both the increased power of the mod-

ern transnational corporation and, paradoxically, the height-

ened vulnerability of corporate reputation and brand image,

and it is consistent with recent findings that a firms CSR

record affects consumer perceptions of the firms brandsand products (Brown and Dacin 1997; Sen and Bhat-

tacharya 2001). It is with such a context in mind that we

develop and test a conceptualization of motivations for boy-

cott participation.

Motivations for BoycottParticipation

Table 1 summarizes prior research on consumer boycotts.

Most boycott studies have been conceptual or descriptive

(case studies), with a focus on boycott organizers and tar-

gets rather than on the consumer. Only two studies have

reported empirical research that focuses directly on vari-ables that influence an individual consumers boycott deci-

sion. Kozinets and Handelmans (1998) netnographic study

suggests that boycott participation represents a complex

emotional expression of individuality and a vehicle for

moral self-realization. Sen, Grhan-Canli, and Morwitz

(2001) test a theoretical framework that proposes that a fun-

damental question underlies a consumers decision to boy-

cott: Will the boycott be successful? They find that con-

sumers participation decisions are influenced by their

perception of the likelihood of the boycotts success, their

susceptibility to normative social influences (social pres-

sure), and the costs associated with boycotting.

Sen, Grhan-Canli, and Morwitz (2001) conceptualizeboycotts as social dilemmas, wherein a consumer chooses

between the individual benefit of consumption and the wish

of a collective to refrain from consumption so that all

receive the shared benefits of a successful boycott. Simi-

larly, a theoretical economic model of boycotting by John

and Klein (2003) treats boycott participation as a collective

action problem, in which individual consumers incentives

to participate are limited by the knowledge that they are

small relative to the market and by their opportunity to free

ride on the boycotting of others.

Consistent with the articles by Sen, Grhan-Canli, and

Morwitz (2001) and John and Klein (2003), we view boy-

cotting as a form of prosocial behavior by which actions

[are] intended to benefit one or more people other than one-

selfbehaviors such as helping, comforting, sharing, and

cooperation (Batson 1998, p. 282). This is broadly referred

to as helping behavior. Over the years, a substantial body

of literature in social psychology has grown from initial

analyses of emergency helping to a broad set of studies of

helping in many different contexts, including nonemer-

gency helping (Piliavin et al. 1981, 1982); voting, volun-

teering, and charitable donations (e.g., Chambre 1987; Pili-

avin and Charng 1990); blood donations (Piliavin and

2As a technical matter, the case of a single helper can often bereformulated as a collective action problem in which there is a setof potential helpers who decide to help with some probability(Lynch and Cohen 1978). In the language of game theory, poten-tial helpers might employ a mixed strategy.

Callero 1999); and corporate philanthropy (Piliavin and

Charng 1990). At its core, this research aims to understand

when and why people apparently act against selfish inter-

ests for the good of others.

Boycotting is a collective act similar to voting, which is

a prosocial behavior in which the individual benefit appears

to be limited; nonetheless, people go to the polls in large

numbers (for a discussion of the collective action problem

in voting, see, e.g., Blais 2001; Downs 1957). In the early

helping literature, helping typically was not viewed as a

collective action problem, but as the literature has broad-ened in scope, it has incorporated cases (e.g., voting) that

involve collective action. Likewise, some charitable contri-

butions (e.g., to local public goods, such as National Public

Radio in the United States) are examples of collective

action.2 Boycotting is also related to customer complaining

behavior, though complaining typically is neither prosocial

in intent nor collective. In most cases, a complaint is a

purely individual act that is completely independent of the

behavior of others (Blodgett and Granbois 1992; Boote

1998). Nonetheless, the literature identifies one form of

complaint as simply exit (i.e., the consumer decides to shun

the firms product offerings in the future), which is akin to

an individual act of boycott (Boote 1998; Hirschmann1970). In addition, as with boycotting, there is a trigger

event that prompts a dissatisfied customer to evaluate the

relative costs and benefits of lodging a complaint (Blodgett

and Granbois 1991; Singh and Wilkes 1991).

An explanation of helping that has received extensive

empirical support over the past three decades is the arousal:

costreward model (see Dovidio et al. 1991). According to

this approach, when a potential helper encounters another

person in distress, the helper interprets the seriousness of

the situation and experiences arousal based on this interpre-

tation. In response, the helper assesses the potential costs

and benefits of helping. The higher the net benefit of help-

ing (rewards minus costs), the more likely it is that help willbe given. Our approach to boycotting is similar: Consumers

encounter an initial trigger event (which we refer to as a

firms egregious act) that engenders negative arousal. In

response, each consumer evaluates the expected costs and

benefits of boycotting.

Table 1 indicates that several costs and benefits of boy-

cotting have previously been identified, but most have not

been tested empirically. Thus, drawing on the helping liter-

ature and the prior boycott literature, we conceptualize the

decision to participate in a boycott as akin to the decision to

help others in distress, to contribute to a charity, or to

donate blood. More specifically, we take a costbenefit

approach to our investigation of boycott participation. Fig-

ure 1 depicts our model.

Perceived Egregiousness

Consistent with the boycott literature (e.g., Friedman 1999;

Garrett 1987; Smith 1990; Smith and Cooper-Martin 1997),

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Consumer Boycott Participation / 95

Garrett(1987)

Ma

rketing

ma

nagement

Surveyresearch(boycotttargets

andorganizers

)andsecondary

sources(mediareports)

Potentialparticipantsawarenessoftheboycott

Whetherpa

rticipantattitudesareconsistentwithboycottgoals

Participant

values

Costofpar

ticipation

Socialpres

sure

Credibilityofboycottleader

MillerandSturdivant

(1977)

Co

nsumerbehavior

Surveyresearch(duringboycott)

Potentialparticipantsawarenessoftheboycott

Attitudesto

wardconsumerssocialresponsibility

Mahoney(1976)

Co

nsumerbehavior

Surveyresearchoffullversus

partialboycott

supporters(in

advanceofboycottstart)

Expectation

sofsuccess

Participant

alienation(lessperceivedpowerlessness)

Participant

values(futureworldorientation)

TABLE1

Continued

Author(s)

Orientation

Methodologic

alApproach

VariablesIn

fluencingBoycottParticipationa

aOnlyJohnandKlein(2003),Sen

,Grhan-Canli,andMorwitz(2001),andKozinetsandHandelman(1998)focusdirectlyonvariablesthatinfluenceaconsumersb

oycottdecision.Otherresearch

citeddoesnotfocusdirectlyonvariablesthatinfluenceboycottparticipation,butsuchvariablescanbereasonablyinferredfromtheinvestigationreported.

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96 / Journal of Marketing, July 2004

our starting point is the observation that, in general, boycott

participation is prompted by the belief that a firm has

engaged in conduct that is strikingly wrong and that has

negative and possibly harmful consequences for various

parties (e.g., workers, consumers, society at large). Typi-

cally, this perception varies across consumers: Some will

consider the firms actions seriously wrong, whereas others

will be less likely to do so, just as people in helping situa-

tions often have different interpretations of whether the sce-

nario they witness is serious enough to precipitate interven-

tion (Latane and Darley 1968; Schwartz 1977). To test this

idea, we conducted a preliminary study using materials thatpromote the long-standing boycott of Nestl over its mar-

keting of infant formula in developing countries. Perceived

egregiousness differed across consumers and predicted both

boycott participation and a more negative brand image

(Klein, Smith, and John 2003). Accordingly, we propose

that the level of perceived egregiousness has a direct impact

on boycott participation.

H1: Consumers who find the firms actions to be more egre-gious are more likely to boycott.

However, not all consumers who view the firms actions

as egregious will participate in the boycott. In our prelimi-

nary study, 70% of participants rated the problematic com-

pany practice at or above the midpoint on a composite

seven-point scale measure of egregiousness, but only a

minority (45%) said that they would definitely or probably

boycott Nestl. Thus, we ask, Why do people not participate

in boycotts in response to perceived egregious conduct?

From this perspective, our goal is as much to explain why

some people do notboycott as it is to explain why others do.

Answers to open-ended questions suggested that boy-

cotters often had multiple and different motivations for par-

ticipation, which reflected perceived costs or benefits of

participation. Drawing from economic and psychological

theory, especially the costreward model of helping, and

from our preliminary study and the boycott literature, we

propose four different categories of motivations: make a

difference, self-enhancement, counterarguments, and con-

strained consumption (Figure 1).

Benefits and Costs

Make a difference. The motivation to bring about soci-

etal change by participating in a boycott reflects perceived

benefits of boycotting. Boycotters may have an instrumental

motivation to change the target firms behavior and/or tosignal to the firm and others the necessity of appropriate

conduct (Friedman 1999; Kozinets and Handelman 1998).

Such motivation is typically tempered by a general will-

ingness to boycott, influenced by perceived consumer

effectiveness, that affects a consumers participation in any

specific boycott (Smith 1990). Likewise, Sen, Grhan-

Canli, and Morwitz (2001) refer to perceived efficacy as

the extent to which a consumer believes that each boycott

participant can contribute to the achievement of collective

goals, and John and Klein (2003) discuss how an exagger-

ated view of effectiveness might explain why people boy-

cott when the target is unlikely to notice. All this research is

consistent with findings that people are more cooperative in

social dilemmas if they expect that the group will attain its

goals (Wiener and Doescher 1991). It is also consistent with

research that shows that helping is more likely when poten-

tial helpers believe themselves competent to help and have

confidence that their actions will result in positive outcomes

(e.g., Midlarsky 1984). Thus:

H2a: Beliefs in boycotting to make a difference predict boycottparticipation. Consumers who believe that boycotting isappropriate and that it can be effective are most likely toparticipate in the boycott.

FIGURE 1

Motivators of Boycott Decisions

Companyaction

Perceivedegregiousness

Boycottdecision

Brand image(H1)

(H6a)

(H6b)

Prevalence ofboycotting(H2b)(H3b)

(H4b)(H5b)

(H2a )(H3a )(H4a )(H5a )

Self-Enhancement (H3)

GuiltUncomfortable if seenby others

Pressure of family/friendsFeel better

Make a

Difference (H2 )Boycott efficacy

Change firm decisionDo my part

Counterarguments (H4)

Free rideSmall agentBoycott induced harm(e.g., hurt jobs)

Constrained

Consumption (H5)Purchase history

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Consumer Boycott Participation / 97

As is shown in Figure 1, we suggest that this and our

other costbenefit motivations directly affect boycott partic-

ipation. For example, if a consumer believes that by boy-

cotting he or she can change the firms behavior, the con-

sumer is more likely to boycott beyond the direct effect of

egregiousness. We also propose that such motivations mod-

erate the relationship between perceived egregiousness and

the boycott decision: The effects of perceived egregiousness

may be enhanced or diminished through interactions with

the costbenefit motivations. For make a difference, weexpect that the relationship between egregiousness and boy-

cotting is stronger for consumers who believe that boycotts

can bring about change than for consumers who do not.

This interaction can be inferred from John and Kleins

(2003) theoretical boycott analysis and is consistent with

helping studies in which perceptions of the seriousness of a

situation have been shown to interact with perceived com-

petence to help (Cramer et al. 1988). Furthermore, research

on the relationship between environmental concern and

related prosocial behaviors, such as recycling, has identified

a moderating role for perceived consumer effectiveness

(Berger and Corbin 1992; Ellen, Wiener, and Cobb-Walgren

1991).H2b: Beliefs in boycotting to make a difference moderate the

relationship between egregiousness and the boycott deci-

sion. When these beliefs are strongly held, the relation-

ship between egregiousness and boycotting is greater

than when the beliefs are less strongly held.

Self-enhancement. Although H2a is consistent with Sen,

Grhan-Canli, and Morwitzs (2001) focus on the utility

gained from boycott success, we suggest that in addition to

such instrumental rewards, there are also intrinsic benefits

from boycott participation, potentially regardless of boycott

outcome. There is substantial evidence from the helping

behavior literature that peoples feeling good about them-selves and being admired by others are key benefits of help-

ing, whereas self-blame and public censure are conse-

quences of not helping (Dovidio et al. 1991). Thus, our

second category of costbenefit motivations incorporates

psychosocial variables that are associated with self-

enhancement: Participation enables the boycotter to boost

social and personal self-esteem either by associating with a

cause or group of people or simply by viewing him- or her-

self as a moral person. Kozinets and Handelman (1998, p.

477) observe that boycotting seems to allow for a bettering

that is akin to a hygienically cleansing process. This com-

parison is reminiscent of Smiths (1990) notion that poten-

tial boycotters may believe that they are under a moralobligation to keep away from the companys products in

order to have clean hands.

Socially embedded expectations or social pressures are

also likely to affect the guilt or positive feelings associated

with boycotting. The relevance of social pressure for boy-

cott participation is widely acknowledged in the boycott lit-

erature (Friedman 1999; Garrett 1987; Rea 1974; Sen,

Grhan-Canli, and Morwitz 2001) and in the helping litera-

3People can learn that helping is a good and desirable behaviorthat is independent of social approval (or direct reward) and thusengage in self-reward. This has been shown to be important to themaintenance of long-term helping, such as repeated and regularblood donation (Piliavin et al. 1982).

ture (Dovidio et al. 1991).3 Thus, self-enhancement through

boycott participation includes the avoidance of feelings of

guilt or the negative perceptions of others.

H3a: Self-enhancement factors predict boycott participation.The greater the perceived scope for self-enhancement(and avoidance of guilt or social censure), the more likelyis a consumer to boycott.

We also expect that self-esteem moderates the relation-

ship between egregiousness and boycotting, such that con-

sumers who perceive an opportunity for self-enhancementare more likely to translate perceived egregiousness into

boycott participation. Although to the best of our knowl-

edge this interaction has not been investigated directly in

the helping literature, there are helping studies that suggest

that perceived egregiousness and self-enhancement motiva-

tions interact. For example, participants who are made to

feel guilty are more likely to offer help in an unrelated situ-

ation to reduce their negative feelings (Carlsmith and Gross

1969), and participants experience of a boost or threat to

self-esteem affects perceptions of egregiousness (McMillen,

Sanders, and Solomon 1977). Boycotting when egregious-

ness is high (equivalently, giving aid when and where it is

most needed) presumably allows for the greatest degree of

self-enhancement. Thus:

H3b: Self-enhancement factors moderate the relationshipbetween egregiousness and the boycott decision. Thegreater the scope for self-enhancement, the greater is therelationship between perceived egregiousness andboycotting.

Counterarguments. Although there are benefits of boy-

cotting, there are also costs. Helping studies show that as

costs for helping increase, helping decreases. For example,

Schwartz (1977) asserts that in the process of deciding to

help another person in need, there is a defensive step of

assessing potential negative outcomes of helping (e.g.,

injuring or embarrassing the person in need). Thus, a poten-tial boycotter, even one who perceives the firms actions as

highly egregious, might refrain from participation if he or

she believes that boycotting could lead to unintended harm.

For example, consumers might not boycott sweatshop sup-

pliers because the protest could hurt those it was intended to

help.

Another type of counterargument pertains to the con-

sumers perception of whether his or her individual contri-

bution will play any role in achieving the collective action

goal. In this case, the counterargument pertains to the prob-

ability that the consumers boycott decision will influence

the firms decision. There are two variations. First, boy-

cotters might believe that their actions will have no impact

because they are too small to be noticed (John and Klein2003). This is analogous to the argument that there is no

point in voting because any individual vote will almost

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4Although some of the counterarguments may appear to be sim-ply the reverse of the make-a-difference motivation, analysesreveal that they are two distinct constructs. This is consistent withfindings in psychology that the positive and negative sides of thesame attitude are often distinct (e.g., Cacioppo and Berntson1994).

surely not affect the outcome of an election. Similarly, help-

ing often fails to occur because the potential helper believes

that he or she is unable to intervene effectively; there is a

sense of a powerlessness to change the victims predica-

ment. Second, boycotters might believe that their actions

are unnecessary because they can free ride on the boycott

decisions of others. In the helping literature, free-riding ten-

dencies are examined in studies of diffusion of responsibil-

ity, which find that the probability that a person will help

someone in need is drastically reduced when others are also

available to help (e.g., Latane and Nida 1981). The costbenefit model of helping suggests that this occurs because

the costs for not helping (e.g., guilt, worry about the victim)

are reduced as a result of the expectation that the victim will

receive help from others. Similarly, although boycotts

require widespread participation to be effective (i.e., to

reduce sales substantially), if the boycott is successful all

will receive the benefits regardless of whether they partici-

pated. Thus, some would-be participants might free ride.4

H4a: Counterarguments about boycotting are negativelyrelated to boycott participation. The more a consumerengages in counterarguments, the less likely is the con-sumer to boycott.

We propose that counterarguments also moderate the

relationship between perceived egregiousness and boy-

cotting. Conflict models of choice (Ajzen 1996) suggest

that a decision (in this case, boycotting) will not be reached

if a person feels powerless (small agent), shifts responsibil-

ity to others (free rides), or becomes concerned about

potential consequences. Decision making can be impeded

even when the stakes (in this case, egregiousness) are high

and can result in inaction even when the situation calls for

action (Hogarth 1980). Analogously, increased egregious-

ness may fail to translate into boycotting if counterargu-

ments loom large in the minds of consumers. Thus:

H4b

: Counterarguments about boycotting moderate the rela-tionship between egregiousness and the boycott decision.The stronger the counterarguments, the weaker is therelationship between perceived egregiousness andboycotting.

Constrained consumption. The direct cost of boycotting

(i.e., forgoing a preferred good) also factors into the con-

sumers boycott decision. Boycotting is likely to be most

costly for heavy users of the targeted companys products

before the boycott because such consumers face the greatest

constraint on their consumption if they participate in the

boycott. Thus, we anticipate that constrained consumption

has a direct effect on boycott participation.

H5a: The degree to which consumption is constrained predictsboycott participation. Consumers whose consumption ismost constrained by boycotting are less likely to boycott.

If the sacrifice required to help is sufficiently large,

increased seriousness of the situation will not necessarily

predict helping (Dovidio et al. 1991). Similarly, egregious-

ness is more likely to be related to boycotting at lower lev-

els of constrained consumption. We predict that this rela-

tionship is weaker at high levels of constrained

consumption because even high-egregiousness consumers

may find it too costly to boycott. Thus, the degree to which

boycotting constrains consumers consumption influences

the effect of egregiousness on their boycott decisions:

H5b: The degree to which consumption is constrained moder-ates the relationship between egregiousness and the boy-cott decision. There is a weaker relationship betweenegregiousness and boycotting for consumers who sufferthe greatest constraint in their consumption.

Estimated Participation of Others

Sen, Grhan-Canli, and Morwitz (2001) and John and Klein

(2003) suggest that perceptions of how many others are

boycotting (estimated participation) also affect individual

boycott participation. Empirical work on social dilemmas

(e.g., Wiener and Doescher 1994) suggests that an increase

in estimated participation is likely to lead to an increase in

actual participation. In the boycott context, there are manyways such an effect can operate. For example, more people

taking part may generate increased social pressure or may

affect perceptions of boycott efficacy; when more people

participate, an individual consumer may believe that his or

her own boycotting is more likely to affect the outcome

(because the consumer believes that the boycott is close to a

tipping point at which the firm might well capitulate).

Thus, in addition to a direct effect on boycotting, we might

find that estimated participation moderates the effect of

self-enhancement or make a difference.

Another possibility is that estimated participation mod-

erates constrained consumption. When the direct cost of

boycotting is high, people may be particularly averse tobeing exploited by others free-riding (Sen, Grhan-Canli,

and Morwitz 2001; Wiener and Doescher 1991) and thus

may be highly attuned to whether others are taking part.

Finally, higher estimated participation may decrease boy-

cotting because it affects the incentive to free ride. When

more people participate, the boycott is more likely to be

successful, and so the temptation to free ride increases

(John and Klein 2003); this suggests that estimated partici-

pation could moderate our free-rider variable. Thus, there

are theoretical reasons that estimated participation might

moderate all four factors. However, the links are complex;

thus, our analysis of this variable is more exploratory and

lacks explicit hypotheses.5

5These arguments also imply the possibility of three-way inter-actions between estimated participation, egregiousness, and thevariables that we discuss. We do not search for such interactionshere because our model is already complex. This discussion alsodoes not exhaust the possible ways that, as a matter of theory, esti-mated participation might affect boycotting. For example, con-sumers might infer egregiousness from estimated participation.Our data are not rich enough to distinguish among these potentialeffects.

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Consumer Boycott Participation / 99

6Miller and Sturdivant (1977) study an actual boycott due toworker mistreatment, but they focus on the effect of one firmsactions on perceptions of an affiliated firm and do not examineconsumer motivations for participation.

Brand Image

Consistent with our preliminary study, we expect that egre-

giousness affects brand image: Consumers who believe that

a firm has erred will have a more negative image of it than

will consumers who do not judge its actions as egregious

(see Dawar and Pillutla 2000; Smith and Cooper-Martin

1997).

H6a: There is a direct relationship between egregiousness andbrand image; the greater the perceived egregiousness, the

more negative is the brand image.

We also expect that boycotting damages brand image

beyond the direct effects of egregiousness. It is well estab-

lished in social psychology that actions can intensify atti-

tudes in the direction of the behavior. Both cognitive disso-

nance theory (e.g., Festinger 1957) and self-perception

theory (e.g., Bem 1972) predict that undertaking an action

leads to behavior-consistent attitudes. Thus, independent of

egregiousness perceptions, consumers who boycott are

likely to devalue their perception of the brand, simply

because they boycotted.

H6b: The boycott decision mediates the relationship betweenegregiousness and brand image.

Finally, the management of targeted firms often com-

municates with consumers to discourage boycott participa-

tion. Thus, we also examine responses to messages intended

to counter the boycott.

Methods

The Bremmer Boycott

We tested our hypotheses in an empirical study of an actual,

ongoing boycott. This contrasts with the work of both Sen,

Grhan-Canli, and Morwitz (2001), who conducted a labo-

ratory study (they informed subjects about an ongoing boy-

cott and manipulated factors predicted to affect participa-tion), and Kozinets and Handelman (1998), who examined

Internet chat-room data (they selected sites for the preva-

lence of boycott discussions). Thus, ours is the first quanti-

tative, consumer-focused study of an ongoing boycott in a

natural setting.6 The advantage of this approach is that we

capture real-time reactions to a boycott in the social milieu

in which it occurred. Although we lack the experimental

control of the laboratory, we gain access to a real boycott,

with all its inherent emotion and public controversy, with-

out needing to elicit or simulate moral outrage in an artifi-

cial setting.

The boycott in question was called against Bremmer

(name disguised), a European-based multinational firm thatsells consumer food products, primarily through grocery

outlets. The announcement of two factory closings occurred

approximately one month before the start of data collection.

The closings were a major event that received extensive

7Our confidentiality agreement precludes direct identification ofthe boycott target, and thus we provide no citations here (although,in accordance with our agreement, we did identify the target to thereviewers of this article). The plant closures and resultant boycott

were highly significant events that resulted in front-page newspa-per articles and major coverage in other media. The negativemedia coverage included the companys plant closures beingdescribed in the press as brutal and the company being depictedas a symbol of corporate greed because it was making closureseven though it was profitable. A government minister even decriedthe closures as unacceptable.

8Professionals represented 12% of the sample; mid- to low-levelmanagers and technicians, 15%; clerical workers, 11%; unskilledworkers, 22%; and unemployed or retired, 32%. A stratified sam-pling approach was taken to ensure that sample demographicsmatched those of the population.

media coverage, and some consumers began to boycott.7

Two weeks after the announcement, Bremmers chief exec-

utive officer was interviewed in the media about the clos-

ings. A large demonstration at a factory closing was staged

a week later, and a group of Bremmer employees and vari-

ous pressure groups, including an NGO known for its cam-

paigns against globalization, called for an official boycott.

Consumers were asked to boycott all the firms products,

but two product brands received the most media attention:

the brand made in the factories to be closed (Brand A) and

Bremmer brand-name products made in other factories(Brand B). Bremmer had other brands, but only some con-

sumers were aware of this.

We had access to sales-tracking data for Brand A, which

showed an 11% decrease in market share (i.e., 11% of share

in the three previous months) in the first two weeks follow-

ing the announcement of the closings (before the boycott

was officially called). Sales then recovered somewhat, but

for the four months following the call to boycott, market

share was down an average of approximately 4%. No sig-

nificant events occurred during the data collection period

(the third to tenth weeks following the call to boycott), and

market share remained lower and steady. Sales did not

recover to near their preboycott levels until five monthsafter the boycott was announced.

The Study

Our study was conducted by Bremmers research agency,

which used questions that we added to its corporate track-

ing surveys. We did not have control over the exact wording

or the format of the response scales (because of the need to

maintain consistency with previous Bremmer tracking

studies).

Subjects. A nationally representative stratified random

sample of 1216 adult consumers participated in the study

through a telephone survey (response rate was 40%).

Respondents were asked to participate in a survey on somecompanies, and there was no reference during recruitment

to Bremmer or to the boycott. Interviews were conducted in

two phases: during the third and tenth weeks after the boy-

cott was called. Women constituted 52.6% of the sample,

and the average age was 46.8

Measurement. Respondents were asked to indicate their

opinion of the firm on a three-point scale (from poor to

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100 / Journal of Marketing, July 2004

9In the media, much of the anger associated with the boycottwas attributed to reports that Bremmer was closing factoriesdespite being profitable overall.

very good). They were then asked whether they had heard

about the factory closings (There have been recent reports

in the press about planned factory closings and job losses in

the Bremmer group. Have you heard about them?). They

were also asked three questions that measured the perceived

egregiousness of the closings. Respondents were asked to

rate their confidence (on a four-point scale of no confi-

dence at all to complete confidence) in the managers of

Bremmer to not close factories except when necessary

and to ensure that the factory closings take place in the

best possible way for the workers. A third question askedfor agreement on a four-point scale to the statement,

Bremmer must close certain unprofitable factories to avoid

putting its entire [product] line in danger.9 Respondents

were also asked whether they disapproved of Bremmers

actions.

The next question asked about boycott participation,

stating that there had been appeals to boycott Bremmer in

reaction to the factory closings. Respondents were given

three possible responses: I am boycotting the products of10This question was modified in a subsequent phase of the sur-

vey. Interviewers first asked if the respondent was boycotting; ifthe answer was negative, they asked whether he or she wastempted to boycott.

Bremmer; I am tempted to boycott, but I dont know if I

will; and I am not boycotting the products of Bremmer.10

Respondents were also asked to estimate the percentage of

Bremmer customers who were boycotting Bremmer

products.

We measured the hypothesized benefit and cost motiva-

tors on a ten-point scale (1 = strongly disagree and 10 =

strongly agree). Table 2 lists the questions and descriptive

statistics for the make-a-difference, self-enhancement, and

counterargument items. We measured constrained con-

sumption by previous purchase frequency, because heavypurchasers of Bremmer products would pay a higher price

for boycotting than would light purchasers. Respondents

were asked how often, in general, they had bought the two

focal brands (A and B), on a four-point scale (1 = never or

almost never, and 4 = very often).

Bremmer management communicated two messages

about the factory closings: Three alternative jobs had been

TABLE 2Descriptive Statistics

Means

Variable Mean (s.d.) Nonboycotters Tempteds Boycotters

Egregiousness 2.77 (.81) 2.60 (.81) 3.00 (.66) 3.23 (.75)

Make a Difference 4.51 (2.67)a 3.54 (2.23) 5.55 (2.36) 7.44 (2.06)Boycotts are an effective means to make a company

change its actions. 4.76 (3.14) 3.96 (2.90) 5.48 (2.98) 7.17 (2.84)Everyone should take part in the boycott because

every contribution, no matter how small, is important. 4.65 (3.21) 3.57 (2.80) 5.91 (2.68) 7.83 (2.68)

By boycotting, I can help change Bremmer s decision. 4.14 (3.29) 3.10 (2.76) 5.20 (3.13) 7.34 (3.03)

Self-Enhancement 2.82 (2.15)a 2.21 (1.76) 3.41 (2.03) 4.75 (2.41)I would feel guilty if I bought Bremmer products. 3.27 (3.10) 2.48 (2.63) 4.07 (2.94) 5.76 (3.49)I would feel uncomfortable if other people who are

boycotting saw me purchasing or consumingBremmer products. 2.85 (2.91) 2.52 (2.71) 3.07 (2.75) 4.01 (3.49)

My friends/my family are encouraging me to boycottBremmer. 2.04 (2.31) 1.76 (1.94) 2.37 (2.58) 2.89 (3.09)

I will feel better about myself if I boycott Bremmer. 3.08 (3.01) 2.04 (2.16) 4.14 (2.89) 6.24 (3.54)

Counterarguments 5.67 (2.23)a 6.25 (2.00) 5.10 (2.00) 3.84 (2.24)I do not need to boycott Bremmer; enough other

people are doing so. 4.52 (3.32) 4.83 (3.37) 4.34 (2.95) 3.43 (3.25)I do not buy enough Bremmer products for it to be

worthwhile boycotting; it would not even be noticed. 5.22 (3.35) 5.53 (3.37) 5.25 (3.07) 3.89 (3.21)One shouldnt boycott because it will put otherBremmer jobs in danger. 7.02 (3.05) 7.92 (2.63) 5.89 (2.82) 4.46 (3.09)

I dont boycott Bremmer because it is a (country)company and boycotting would lead me to buyforeign products. 5.89 (3.47) 6.69 (3.29) 4.91 (3.11) 3.59 (3.28)

Constrained Consumption (Purchase History) 2.77 (.75)a 2.88 (.66) 2.80 (.68) 2.27 (.95)Brand A (central) 2.61 (.89) 2.70 (.85) 2.60 (.89) 2.27 (.99)Brand B (central) 2.93 (.85) 3.06 (.75) 3.00 (.72) 2.28 (1.06)

aDescriptive statistics are for the average of the items within each factor.Notes: s.d. = standard deviation.

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Consumer Boycott Participation / 101

offered to each worker in the closing factories, and Brem-

mer was seeking other companies that would be willing to

create jobs at the sites to be closed. In the survey, respon-

dents were asked whether they had heard these messages

(yes or no) and whether they were more sympathetic to

the firm as a result of these initiatives, on a four-point scale

(1 = not at all and 4 = very).

ResultsThe Bremmer controversy was well publicized: 95% of thesample had heard about the factory closings. Overall, 67%

of the sample were not boycotting, 17% were tempted to

boycott, and 16% were boycotting. Although respondents

overwhelmingly disapproved (81%) of Bremmers factory

closings, most consumers who disapproved were nonboy-

cotters (61%). Only 19% of disapprovers were currently

boycotting, and 20% were tempted to boycott but had not

yet done so. For most consumers, disapproval of the firms

actions did not lead to boycotting.

We averaged the three measures of egregiousness

described previously (Cronbachs = .73). The mean egre-giousness score was 2.79 (recall that responses to these

questions were on a four-point scale, and thus higher num-bers indicate greater egregiousness). Although 60% of the

sample averaged three or higher on the scale, only 22% of

this group boycotted (21% were tempted), which again

11Of participants in the sample who were high in egregiousness(scored three or higher) andwho disapproved, 25.5% were boy-cotting, 20.2% were tempted, and 54.3% were not boycotting.

12There were no substantial changes over time in the measuresreported in Table 2, with the exception that the last wave ofrespondents gave higher ratings to the belief that boycotts are aneffective means to make a company change its actions (p < .05),

and there were fewer respondents who were tempted to boycottbecause they were more decided on boycott participation. As aprecaution, we included the time of interview as a control in ourregression analyses.

indicates that not all consumers who view a firms actions

as wrong participate in a boycott.11

A principal components analysis (PCA) with Varimax

rotation of the costbenefit (motivation) variables found

four factors, as we predicted (Table 3). The PCAs con-

ducted factor by factor revealed each factor to be unidimen-

sional. The most strongly endorsed items were the counter-

arguments, particularly the idea that boycotting would hurt

other jobs and would lead consumers to buy foreign prod-

ucts. The least strongly endorsed were self-enhancement

items, particularly ones associated with social pressure. AsTable 2 shows, all motivations showed the expected differ-

ences across boycott groups (allps < .001).12

TABLE 3PCA with Varimax Rotation: Eigenvalues and Item Loadings

Component

Make a Self- ConstrainedDifference Enhancement Counterarguments Consumption

Eigenvalue 3.64 2.03 1.37 1.01(% of Variance) (28.01) (15.59) (10.57) (7.78)

Boycotts are an effective means to make acompany change its actions. .851 .047 .026 .037

Everyone should take part in the boycott becauseevery contribution, no matter how small, is important. .753 .224 .171 .088

By boycotting, I can help change Bremmers decision. .762 .361 .093 .018I would feel guilty if I bought Bremmer products. .286 .724 .071 .114I would feel uncomfortable if other people who are

boycotting saw me purchasing or consumingBremmer products. .137 .712 .172 .027

My friends/my family are encouraging me to boycottBremmer. .007 .756 .059 .042

I will feel better about myself if I boycott Bremmer. .466 .648 .129 .128I do not need to boycott Bremmer; enough other

people are doing so. .105 .070 .731 .043I do not buy enough Bremmer products for it to be

worthwhile boycotting; it would not even be noticed. .009 .003 .631 .240One shouldnt boycott because it will put other

Bremmer jobs in danger. .310 .089 .632 .223I dont boycott Bremmer because it is a (country)

company and boycotting would lead me to buyforeign products. .206 .099 .659 .264

Purchase history Brand A .030 .013 .049 .831Purchase history Brand B .084 .099 .065 .833

Notes: Numbers in boldface indicate variables included in component.

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102 / Journal of Marketing, July 2004

13If respondents answered the questionnaire appropriately, thepurchase history questions should capture constrained consump-

tion. However, there are two mismeasurement issues that canarise: First, consumers who never purchased Bremmers productsmight decide to report themselves as boycotters; second, respon-dents might have misinterpreted the purchase history question as aquestion about their current purchases. As a check, we also ran ouranalyses with the omission of consumers who reported never pur-chasing Bremmers products; our results were essentiallyunchanged.

14The low (high) values in Table 5 scale each score such that themean score for the scaled variable equals the true mean for thelower (upper) third of the actual sample. For example, consideregregiousness. In our sample, the mean value of egregiousness is

Regression Analyses

We first indexed our items according to our predicted fac-

tors. Make a difference has a Cronbachs of .78, and self-enhancement has a Cronbachs of .73. We averaged thetwo purchase history questions as a measure of constrained

consumption (r = .485, p < .01).13 The counterargument

items, while forming a clear factor in the PCA, had a Cron-

bachs of only .61; we return to this issue subsequently.As Table 2 shows, the mean of each of the motivation

variables is consistent with an equal interval dependent

variable: In each case, the mean for tempteds falls

between the means for the nonboycotting and boycotting

groups, equidistant or approximately equidistant from the

two extreme means. (This was the case across both phases

of the data collection.) We thus report simple ordinary least

squares regression (i.e., a linear probability model) in our

analysis. We also conducted analyses that do not require an

interval-scaled dependent variablespecifically, discrimi-

nant analysis and ordinal (logit) regressionand we

obtained similar results. We centered predictor variables

(raw score minus mean; Cohen and Cohen 1983).

Model A in Table 4 is our benchmark model. It includes

egregiousness and all the costbenefit motivation factors as

well as the interaction terms of each factor with egregious-ness. We included respondents sex in the model (see the

subsequent discussion) and added a dummy variable for the

phase of data collection. As H1 predicts, egregiousness has

a direct effect on boycotting, as do the four sets of cost

benefit factors. There were significant interactions between

egregiousness and self-enhancement and between egre-

giousness and constrained consumption. The make a differ-

ence egregiousness and the counterargument egregious-ness interactions are in the predicted direction but are not

significant.

Table 5 indicates the magnitude of the findings. We use

our data to predict how many people in our sample would

have boycotted had egregiousness and our four factors beencounterfactually lower or higher.14 For example, had our

sample had higher egregiousness (such that mean egre-

giousness for the entire sample equaled the true mean level

for the top third of the sample), we predict that 261 partici-

pants would have boycotted, which is a 45% increase from

the original 180. Had constrained consumption also been

low, we predict that 339 participants would have

2.77. The mean value for the lower third of the sample is 1.85. Toconstruct low egregiousness, we scaled down the egregiousnessscore for our entire sample such that the mean for the constructeddata is 1.85. Thus, we multiply everyones score on egregiousnessby a factor equal to approximately 1.85/2.77 = .668 (our actualscaling factor is slightly lower [.663], because we truncated thedata such that the minimum score is still 1). Likewise, to constructhigh egregiousness, we multiply all scores by a factor of 1.67,which ensures that the mean in our new constructed data equalsthe actual mean for the top one-third of the true data.

We generated the predictions using the ordinary least squaresregression as an indicator function for the respondents in our sam-ple, using the true data for all variables except those noted. Specif-ically, we used our original regression to identify a cutoff valuebetween boycotting and being tempted to boycott. (We could notsimply sum the predicted probabilities because of the tempteds.)Thus, the values in Table 5 should be interpreted as follows: Ifconsumers in our sample had, counterfactually, had proportion-ately higher egregiousness (such that mean egregiousness wasequal to that of the top third of the sample), we predict that 261would have been above the cutoff and would have boycotted. Hadthey also had a higher score on make a difference (such that themean was equal to that of the top third of the sample), our modelpredicts that there would have been more than 500 boycottersrather than 180.

15Although the interpretation of a change in egregiousness isstraightforward (the firms actions could have been perceived asmore egregious), a counterfactual change in a motivation is morecomplex. One interpretation is that the strength of the motivationsis indeed mutable for each participant. Another interpretation isthat different values of the motivations correspond to differentsubsamples of the population.

16Although our analysis raises the possibility of misspecifica-tion bias, this appears to be limited given that the results for therest of the model are similar in all five models in Table 4. In effect,the individual regressions provide an upper bound on the effect ofeach individual counterargument.

boycotted.15 Table 5 also illustrates the interaction effect:

Of this increase of 159 (= 339 180), we can attribute 50

(= 230 180) to the partial effect of the change in con-

strained consumption and 81 (= 261 180) to the partial

effect of the change in egregiousness. The remaining 28

(18% of the total change) are attributable to the interaction

effect. Our ordinal regression and discriminant analysis

approaches yielded similar predictions and interactions.

In Table 4, Models BE, we examine the counterargu-

ments in more detail. Although the four counterarguments

loaded on a single factor, they measure different objectionsto boycotting: free-riding is not the same as refraining from

boycotting because other jobs will be threatened. Further-

more, Cronbachs of .61 is less than the generallyaccepted cutoff of .70, which suggests that the items should

perhaps be represented individually in the regression equa-

tion. At the same time, the items are correlated with one

another (as indicated by the factor analysis and by the rs

ranging from .18 to .45), so the inclusion of all four items in

a single equation presents collinearity problems. We thus

ran separate regressions (Models BE) that included each

counterargument in turn as an individual variable. The

counterargument variables all have significant direct effects

on boycotting, and too small and hurts jobs show sig-nificant interactions with egregiousness. All interaction

terms are in the predicted direction.16

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Consumer Boycott Participation / 103

TABLE4

RegressionModelsAE

ModelB:

ModelC:

ModelD:

ModelE:

ModelA:

ThreeFactors+

Th

reeFactors+

ThreeFactors

+

ThreeFactors+

FourFactors

FreeRide

TooSmall

HurtJobs

Country

b

t

p

b

t

p

b

t

p

b

t

p

b

t

p

Egregiousness

.10

4.62

.00

.13

5.86

.00

.14

6.11

.00

.11

4.81

.00

.11

4.82

.00

Makeadifference

.09

12.13

.00

.11

13.34

.00

.11

13.28

.00

.10

12.06

.00

.10

12.79

.00

Difference

egregiousness

.01

1.08

.28

.01

1.24

.22

.01

1.24

.22

.01

1.15

.25

.01

1.35

.18

Self-enhancement

.07

7.71

.00

.07

6.78

.00

.07

6.61

.00

.06

6.26

.00

.07

7.19

.00

Self-enhancement

egregiousness

.02

1.98

.05

.03

2.18

.03

.02

1.97

.05

.03

2.12

.03

.03

2.34

.02

Counterarguments

.09

11.25

.00

Counterarguments

egregiousness

.01

1.07

.28

Constrainedconsumption

.10

4.37

.00

.12

5.03

.00

.13

5.43

.00

.10

4.12

.00

.10

4.20

.00

Constrainedconsumptione

gregiousness

.07

2.58

.01

.10

3.22

.00

.08

2.82

.01

.08

2.65

.01

.09

3.02

.00

Freeride

.03

5.64

.00

Freeride

egregiousness

.00

.17

.87

Toosmall

.03

5.81

.00

Toosmall

egregiousness

.01

2.12

.03

Hurtjobs

.06

9.27

.00

Hurtjobs

egregiousness

.02

2.16

.03

Countryproducts

.05

8.74

.00

Country

egregiousness

.01

.75

.45

Sex

.07

2.12

.04

.07

1.97

.05

.06

1.60

.11

.06

1.79

.07

.06

1.85

.07

Phase

.10

2.96

.00

.11

3.22

.00

.11

3.25

.00

.11

3.18

.00

.10

3.03

.00

AdjustedR2=.4

7

AdjustedR2=.42

AdjustedR2=.42

AdjustedR2=.4

6

AdjustedR2=.46

Notes:Numbersinboldfaceindicatevariablesthataresignificantatp