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  • 1.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-23-2009 15:22

    Dear ONE'ers,

     

    The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism.

     

    The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the environment than any other sustainability attribute.

     

    The study's authors called for future research to use more appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours. They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic variables, as they predict behaviour better.

     

    The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.


    To join the Network, email info@nbs.net. Membership is free.

    Cheers,

    Tom

     

    Tom Ewart
    Managing Director
    519-661-2111 x80094

    Network for Business Sustainability
    Business. Thinking. Ahead.

    http://www.nbs.net

    http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet

    Facebook

     



  • 2.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-23-2009 16:49

    Dear Tom, dear ONE colleagues,

    Thanks for publishing this very useful review. I could not agree more on your call for better methods to study sustainability-related consumer behaviour. Perhaps one example that we can share here from Europe is a recent survey we have done using choice experiments to assess consumer decisions related to buying energy efficient TVs. We have surveyed German consumers and were particularly interested in understanding the relative effectiveness of two formats of European eco-labelling in guiding consumer decisions - one being the existing A to G scale, and one being an amended "beyond A" scale as it is currently proposed by the European Commission, and controversially discussed between industry associations and consumer organizations. The paper can be downloaded on our website using the following link:

    http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/org/iwo/web.nsf/50d290ba51a5bf21c12569f50045e85b/475d7723f2abaa0ac12575b60039c789/$FILE/Heinzle_W%C3%BCstenhagen_Energy%20Label.pdf

    For a quick summary of our findings, you may also look at James Kanter's article on the New York Times website:

    http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/labels-consumers-and-efficient-tvs/

    Best regards

    Rolf


    Heinzle, S. and Wüstenhagen, R. (2009): Consumer survey on the new format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of a "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format, Working Paper, University of St. Gallen.



    +++

    Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen
    Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies
    University of St. Gallen
    Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ-HSG)
    Tigerbergstrasse 2
    CH-9000 St. Gallen
    Switzerland

    Tel. +41-71-224 25 87
    Fax +41-71-224 27 22

    http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch

    mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch
    Mobile +41-76-306 43 13



    "Ewart, Tom" <tewart@NBS.NET>
    Gesendet von: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>

    23.09.2009 22:23

    Bitte antworten an
    Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion              <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
    An
    		ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
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    		We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability





    Dear ONE'ers,
     
    The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism.
     
    The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the environment than any other sustainability attribute.
     
    The study's authors called for future research to use more appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours. They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic variables, as they predict behaviour better.
     
    The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.

    To join the Network, email     info@nbs.net. Membership is free.

    Cheers,
    Tom
     
    Tom Ewart
    Managing Director
    519-661-2111 x80094

    Network for Business Sustainability
    Business. Thinking. Ahead.

    http://www.nbs.net
    http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet
    Facebook
     


  • 3.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-23-2009 17:03
    hi tom,
     
    i appreciate very much you bringing the nbs review to the attention of the list . . .
     
    i don't have any basis for disagreeing with the conclusion that after 30 years and 1700 studies we need research that uses more appropriate methods and more valid variables . . .
     
    but i wonder if part of the problem is the lack of a clear question . . . the nbs said they were performing a systematic review of research on socially conscious consumerism (scc) . . . it would be interesting to know what was the research trying to find out about scc . . .
      how much is there
      who does it
      why do they do it
      how did they come to do it
      why don't others do it
      what would influence others to do it
    it seems to me that the answers to these questions are not at all necessarily the same
     
    cheers,
     
    craig
     
    craig k harris
    department of sociology
    michigan agricultural experiment station
    national food safety and toxicology center
    institute for food and agricultural standards
    michigan state university
     

    From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion [mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Ewart, Tom
    Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 3:22 PM
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Dear ONE'ers,

     

    The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism.

     

    The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the environment than any other sustainability attribute.

     

    The study's authors called for future research to use more appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours. They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic variables, as they predict behaviour better.

     

    The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.


    To join the Network, email info@nbs.net. Membership is free.

    Cheers,

    Tom

     

    Tom Ewart
    Managing Director
    519-661-2111 x80094

    Network for Business Sustainability
    Business. Thinking. Ahead.

    http://www.nbs.net

    http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet

    Facebook

     



  • 4.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-23-2009 17:44
    It would be worth looking at the more than half a dozen papers we have put out on the subject ... there is a book coming out with Cambridge University Press next year entitled the Myth of the Ethical Consumer (Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt), which goes over this and work in psychology, economics, evolutionary biology, etc. .... Even in the case of choice experiments you can significantly overstate preferences for socially acceptable outcomes unless you put individuals in realistic settings that consider other alternatives that do not embody social choice.  For example, even in the case of examining social issue x, if you do not do this in an environment where they can trade off things normally, you will overinflate the actual response (as DCM is a state preference approach).  For example, work has shown that individuals will, in some cases, respond negatively to GM foods.  Yet if you put them in circumstances where they are dealing with the issue as part of a more complex realistic choice, GM foods become inconsequential.  Louviere and many others have been conducting work like this (mainly published in the environmental economics area for decades).

    My own view on this shows that scales of any type are going to give you biased results and the best solution is to utilize mixed methods that capture aspects of behavior or to examine behaviors in more complex environments.  Another example is an experiment we ran on organic foods, where people believed they were helping design the layout and location of a new grocery store.  The actual experiment had mixed baskets of goods but the stores were located in different places.  The stated demand for organics and non-gm food plummeted (indeed it nearly matched the actual organic market share).  Similarly, we ran a field experiment for a major coffee producer on fair trade labels.  It was run using scanner data in groceries across an EU country and involved 500,000 shoppers.  We varied advertising, location, labeling, price and on site promotions.  The result was that the labeling had no direct impact.  It had an impact but that impact was complex and interacted with the perceived quality of the coffee.  There was, however, a small segment (about 10%) that were influenced by the labels.

    What amazes me about all the work in this field (and Cottee's article that Tom brings up does not deal with this either, despite its comprehensiveness) is the degree to which work in economics (e.g., I have never seen a reference to Levitt and List's great article in J. Econ Perspectives), marketing (e.g., I have yet to see a reference to Russo's seminar work on price labeling in supermarkets -- or the failure of nutritional labeling to work), evolutionary biology and psychology is so totally ignored.  Also, that most of it looks at direct or interacting effects yet more an more work is looking at individual level heterogeneity.

    Again, my own two cents on this is that the field is behind significant in methodology and in many ways is repeating work done many years back in other fields w/o doing the due diligence to discover what others know.

    Tim


    On 24/09/2009, at 6:52 AM, Rolf Wuestenhagen wrote:


    Dear Tom, dear ONE colleagues,

    Thanks for publishing this very useful review. I could not agree more on your call for better methods to study sustainability-related consumer behaviour. Perhaps one example that we can share here from Europe is a recent survey we have done using choice experiments to assess consumer decisions related to buying energy efficient TVs. We have surveyed German consumers and were particularly interested in understanding the relative effectiveness of two formats of European eco-labelling in guiding consumer decisions - one being the existing A to G scale, and one being an amended "beyond A" scale as it is currently proposed by the European Commission, and controversially discussed between industry associations and consumer organizations. The paper can be downloaded on our website using the following link:

    http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/org/iwo/web.nsf/50d290ba51a5bf21c12569f50045e85b/475d7723f2abaa0ac12575b60039c789/$FILE/Heinzle_W%C3%BCstenhagen_Energy%20Label.pdf

    For a quick summary of our findings, you may also look at James Kanter's article on the New York Times website:

    http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/labels-consumers-and-efficient-tvs/

    Best regards

    Rolf


    Heinzle, S. and Wüstenhagen, R. (2009): Consumer survey on the new format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of a "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format, Working Paper, University of St. Gallen.



    +++

    Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen
    Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies
    University of St. Gallen
    Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ-HSG)
    Tigerbergstrasse 2
    CH-9000 St. Gallen
    Switzerland

    Tel. +41-71-224 25 87
    Fax +41-71-224 27 22

    http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch

    mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch
    Mobile +41-76-306 43 13



    "Ewart, Tom" <tewart@NBS.NET>
    Gesendet von: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>

    23.09.2009 22:23

    Bitte antworten an
    Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion              <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
    An
    		ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Kopie
    Thema
    		We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability





    Dear ONE'ers,
     
    The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism.
     
    The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the environment than any other sustainability attribute.
     
    The study's authors called for future research to use more appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours. They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic variables, as they predict behaviour better.
     
    The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.

    To join the Network, email     info@nbs.net. Membership is free.

    Cheers,
    Tom
     
    Tom Ewart
    Managing Director
    519-661-2111 x80094

    Network for Business Sustainability
    Business. Thinking. Ahead.

    http://www.nbs.net
    http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet
    Facebook
     

    Prof. Timothy Devinney

    Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440

    Other Numbers:
    Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467
     USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202
     Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974
     China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087 



  • 5.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-24-2009 03:04
    Good point, Tim. Cross-flow between fields is, unfortunately, uncommon. Hell, we typically don't know what other people in our own fields, or even in our own departments, are doing. It's just too hard to stay abreast of all the things going on elsewhere. It's also a problem of what's rewarded -- publication in one's own discipline, not in others. As a result, we just wind up building up a bunch of islands of partial insights, each with different names. Thanks for your efforts to bring in some highly relevant work from the outside. Maybe it's time for more efforts at cross-disciplinary conferences/pubs/etc?

    Best,
    Mike

    *************
    Michael L. Barnett
    Professor of Strategy, Said Business School, University of Oxford
    Research Director, Oxford U. Centre for Corporate Reputation
    Fellow in Strategy, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford
    http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Barnett+Mike/

    View my research on my SSRN Author page:
    <http://ssrn.com/author=414796<https://email.usf.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://ssrn.com/author=414796>>
    ________________________________
    From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion [ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Timothy Devinney [timothy.devinney@GMAIL.COM]
    Sent: 23 September 2009 22:43
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    It would be worth looking at the more than half a dozen papers we have put out on the subject ... there is a book coming out with Cambridge University Press next year entitled the Myth of the Ethical Consumer (Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt), which goes over this and work in psychology, economics, evolutionary biology, etc. .... Even in the case of choice experiments you can significantly overstate preferences for socially acceptable outcomes unless you put individuals in realistic settings that consider other alternatives that do not embody social choice. For example, even in the case of examining social issue x, if you do not do this in an environment where they can trade off things normally, you will overinflate the actual response (as DCM is a state preference approach). For example, work has shown that individuals will, in some cases, respond negatively to GM foods. Yet if you put them in circumstances where they are dealing with the issue as part of a more complex realistic choice, GM foods become inconsequential. Louviere and many others have been conducting work like this (mainly published in the environmental economics area for decades).

    My own view on this shows that scales of any type are going to give you biased results and the best solution is to utilize mixed methods that capture aspects of behavior or to examine behaviors in more complex environments. Another example is an experiment we ran on organic foods, where people believed they were helping design the layout and location of a new grocery store. The actual experiment had mixed baskets of goods but the stores were located in different places. The stated demand for organics and non-gm food plummeted (indeed it nearly matched the actual organic market share). Similarly, we ran a field experiment for a major coffee producer on fair trade labels. It was run using scanner data in groceries across an EU country and involved 500,000 shoppers. We varied advertising, location, labeling, price and on site promotions. The result was that the labeling had no direct impact. It had an impact but that impact was complex and interacted with the perceived quality of the coffee. There was, however, a small segment (about 10%) that were influenced by the labels.

    What amazes me about all the work in this field (and Cottee's article that Tom brings up does not deal with this either, despite its comprehensiveness) is the degree to which work in economics (e.g., I have never seen a reference to Levitt and List's great article in J. Econ Perspectives), marketing (e.g., I have yet to see a reference to Russo's seminar work on price labeling in supermarkets -- or the failure of nutritional labeling to work), evolutionary biology and psychology is so totally ignored. Also, that most of it looks at direct or interacting effects yet more an more work is looking at individual level heterogeneity.

    Again, my own two cents on this is that the field is behind significant in methodology and in many ways is repeating work done many years back in other fields w/o doing the due diligence to discover what others know.

    Tim


    On 24/09/2009, at 6:52 AM, Rolf Wuestenhagen wrote:


    Dear Tom, dear ONE colleagues,

    Thanks for publishing this very useful review. I could not agree more on your call for better methods to study sustainability-related consumer behaviour. Perhaps one example that we can share here from Europe is a recent survey we have done using choice experiments to assess consumer decisions related to buying energy efficient TVs. We have surveyed German consumers and were particularly interested in understanding the relative effectiveness of two formats of European eco-labelling in guiding consumer decisions - one being the existing A to G scale, and one being an amended "beyond A" scale as it is currently proposed by the European Commission, and controversially discussed between industry associations and consumer organizations. The paper can be downloaded on our website using the following link:

    http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/org/iwo/web.nsf/50d290ba51a5bf21c12569f50045e85b/475d7723f2abaa0ac12575b60039c789/$FILE/Heinzle_W%C3%BCstenhagen_Energy%20Label.pdf

    For a quick summary of our findings, you may also look at James Kanter's article on the New York Times website:

    http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/labels-consumers-and-efficient-tvs/

    Best regards

    Rolf


    Heinzle, S. and Wüstenhagen, R. (2009): Consumer survey on the new format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of a "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format, Working Paper, University of St. Gallen.



    +++

    Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen
    Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies
    University of St. Gallen
    Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ-HSG)
    Tigerbergstrasse 2
    CH-9000 St. Gallen
    Switzerland

    Tel. +41-71-224 25 87
    Fax +41-71-224 27 22

    http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch

    <http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch/>mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch
    Mobile +41-76-306 43 13
    <mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch>


    "Ewart, Tom" <tewart@NBS.NET<mailto:tewart@NBS.NET>>
    Gesendet von: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>

    23.09.2009 22:23
    Bitte antworten an
    Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>




    An
    ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
    Kopie

    Thema
    We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability







    Dear ONE’ers,

    The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism<http://www.nbs.net/SearchResultsKnowledgeDetails.aspx?Id=a2d3a3fd-6f19-4920-9985-1fb31493cb21>.

    The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the environment than any other sustainability attribute.

    The study’s authors called for future research to use more appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours. They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic variables, as they predict behaviour better.

    The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.

    To join the Network, email info@nbs.net<mailto:info@nbs.net>. Membership is free.

    Cheers,
    Tom

    Tom Ewart
    Managing Director
    519-661-2111 x80094

    Network for Business Sustainability
    Business. Thinking. Ahead.

    http://www.nbs.net<http://www.nbs.net/>
    http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet
    Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Network-for-Business-Sustainability/120372257748?ref=nf>


    Prof. Timothy Devinney

    Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440

    Other Numbers:
    Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467
    USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202
    Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974
    China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087

    Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au<mailto:Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au>

    Web 1 (Academic): http://www.agsm.edu.au/tdevinney
    Web 2 (China Related): http://vincitveritas.spaces.live.com/
    Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/


  • 6.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-24-2009 03:57
    Over four years I studied how CEOs deal with sustainability issues. In
    that I used a socio-psychological constructionist theory to explore
    discursive data. See a single page summary of my findings:
    http://intergon.net/tsw/sustainableceos.pdf

    My findings also contribute to a number of papers as well as chapters in
    Harre and Moghaddam 2003 The Selfcand Others, the 2006 RMIT Women and
    Work monograph, and Leal and Mannke 2009 Multidisciplinary Aspects of
    Climate Change.

    Consumer behaviour is no different; it is socially constructed by
    discourse. Of course, if you are a behaviouralist you would disagree
    with great furour.

    Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
    Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer@rmit.edu.au
    Graduate School of Business
    my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory"
    now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
    >>> Timothy Devinney <timothy.devinney@GMAIL.COM> 24/09/09 9:38 AM >>>
    It would be worth looking at the more than half a dozen papers we have
    put out on the subject ... there is a book coming out with Cambridge
    University Press next year entitled the Myth of the Ethical Consumer
    (Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt), which goes over this and work in
    psychology, economics, evolutionary biology, etc. .... Even in the
    case of choice experiments you can significantly overstate preferences
    for socially acceptable outcomes unless you put individuals in
    realistic settings that consider other alternatives that do not embody
    social choice. For example, even in the case of examining social
    issue x, if you do not do this in an environment where they can trade
    off things normally, you will overinflate the actual response (as DCM
    is a state preference approach). For example, work has shown that
    individuals will, in some cases, respond negatively to GM foods. Yet
    if you put them in circumstances where they are dealing with the issue
    as part of a more complex realistic choice, GM foods become
    inconsequential. Louviere and many others have been conducting work
    like this (mainly published in the environmental economics area for
    decades).

    My own view on this shows that scales of any type are going to give
    you biased results and the best solution is to utilize mixed methods
    that capture aspects of behavior or to examine behaviors in more
    complex environments. Another example is an experiment we ran on
    organic foods, where people believed they were helping design the
    layout and location of a new grocery store. The actual experiment had
    mixed baskets of goods but the stores were located in different
    places. The stated demand for organics and non-gm food plummeted
    (indeed it nearly matched the actual organic market share).
    Similarly, we ran a field experiment for a major coffee producer on
    fair trade labels. It was run using scanner data in groceries across
    an EU country and involved 500,000 shoppers. We varied advertising,
    location, labeling, price and on site promotions. The result was that
    the labeling had no direct impact. It had an impact but that impact
    was complex and interacted with the perceived quality of the coffee.
    There was, however, a small segment (about 10%) that were influenced
    by the labels.

    What amazes me about all the work in this field (and Cottee's article
    that Tom brings up does not deal with this either, despite its
    comprehensiveness) is the degree to which work in economics (e.g., I
    have never seen a reference to Levitt and List's great article in J.
    Econ Perspectives), marketing (e.g., I have yet to see a reference to
    Russo's seminar work on price labeling in supermarkets -- or the
    failure of nutritional labeling to work), evolutionary biology and
    psychology is so totally ignored. Also, that most of it looks at
    direct or interacting effects yet more an more work is looking at
    individual level heterogeneity.

    Again, my own two cents on this is that the field is behind
    significant in methodolomany years back in other fields w/o doing the due diligence to
    discover what others know.

    Tim


    On 24/09/2009, at 6:52 AM, Rolf Wuestenhagen wrote:

    >
    > Dear Tom, dear ONE colleagues,
    >
    > Thanks for publishing this very useful review. I could not agree
    > more on your call for better methods to study sustainability-related
    > consumer behaviour. Perhaps one example that we can share here from
    > Europe is a recent survey we have done using choice experiments to
    > assess consumer decisions related to buying energy efficient TVs. We
    > have surveyed German consumers and were particularly interested in
    > understanding the relative effectiveness of two formats of European
    > eco-labelling in guiding consumer decisions - one being the existing
    > A to G scale, and one being an amended "beyond A" scale as it is
    > currently proposed by the European Commission, and controversially
    > discussed between industry associations and consumer organizations.
    > The paper can be downloaded on our website using the following link:
    >
    >
    http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/org/iwo/web.nsf/50d290ba51a5bf21c12569f50045e85b/475d7723f2abaa0ac12575b60039c789/$FILE/Heinzle_W%C3%BCstenhagen_Energy%20Label.pdf
    >
    > For a quick summary of our findings, you may also look at James
    > Kanter's article on the New York Times website:
    >
    >
    http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/labels-consumers-and-efficient-tvs/
    >
    > Best regards
    >
    > Rolf
    >
    >
    > Heinzle, S. and Wüstenhagen, R. (2009): Consumer survey on the new
    > format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of
    > a "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format, Working Paper,
    > University of St. Gallen.
    >
    >
    >
    > +++
    >
    > Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen
    > Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies
    > University of St. Gallen
    > Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ-HSG)
    > Tigerbergstrasse 2
    > CH-9000 St. Gallen
    > Switzerland
    >
    > Tel. +41-71-224 25 87
    > Fax +41-71-224 27 22
    >
    > http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch
    >
    > mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch
    > Mobile +41-76-306 43 13
    >
    >
    >
    > "Ewart, Tom" <tewart@NBS.NET>
    > Gesendet von: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion
    <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > >
    > 23.09.2009 22:23
    > Bitte antworten an
    > Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion
    <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > >
    >
    > An
    > ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > Kopie
    > Thema
    > We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on
    > sustainability
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > Dear ONE’ers,
    >
    > The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic
    > review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism.
    >
    > The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing
    > to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the
    > environment than any other sustainability attribute.
    >
    > The study’s authors called for future research to use more
    > appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including
    > forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they
    > will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner
    > or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours.
    > They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic
    > variables, as they predict behaviour better.
    >
    > The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.
    >
    > To join the Network, email info@nbs.net. Membership is free.
    >
    > Cheers,
    > Tom
    >
    > Tom Ewart
    > Managing Director
    > 519-661-2111 x80094
    >
    > Network for Business Sustainability
    > Business. Thinking. Ahead.
    >
    > http://www.nbs.net
    > http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet
    > Facebook
    >

    Prof. Timothy Devinney

    Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440

    Other Numbers:
    Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467
    USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202
    Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974
    China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087

    Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au

    Web 1 (Academic): httpFlickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/


  • 7.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-24-2009 18:54
    Mike ... We are indeed trying to do a bit more of this ... however,
    even more would be better ... the problem is that it is
    threatening ... particularly when most scholars have quite heavy
    hammers and universities want them to publish rather than influence.

    Tim


    On 24/09/2009, at 7:23 PM, Mike Barnett wrote:

    > Good point, Tim. Cross-flow between fields is, unfortunately,
    > uncommon. Hell, we typically don't know what other people in our
    > own fields, or even in our own departments, are doing. It's just
    > too hard to stay abreast of all the things going on elsewhere. It's
    > also a problem of what's rewarded -- publication in one's own
    > discipline, not in others. As a result, we just wind up building up
    > a bunch of islands of partial insights, each with different names.
    > Thanks for your efforts to bring in some highly relevant work from
    > the outside. Maybe it's time for more efforts at cross-disciplinary
    > conferences/pubs/etc?
    >
    > Best,
    > Mike
    >
    > *************
    > Michael L. Barnett
    > Professor of Strategy, Said Business School, University of Oxford
    > Research Director, Oxford U. Centre for Corporate Reputation
    > Fellow in Strategy, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford
    > http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Barnett+Mike/
    >
    > View my research on my SSRN Author page:
    > <http://ssrn.com/author=414796<https://email.usf.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://ssrn.com/author=414796
    > >>
    > ________________________________
    > From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion [ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > ] On Behalf Of Timothy Devinney [timothy.devinney@GMAIL.COM]
    > Sent: 23 September 2009 22:43
    > To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > Subject: Re: We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour
    > on sustainability
    >
    > It would be worth looking at the more than half a dozen papers we
    > have put out on the subject ... there is a book coming out with
    > Cambridge University Press next year entitled the Myth of the
    > Ethical Consumer (Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt), which goes over
    > this and work in psychology, economics, evolutionary biology,
    > etc. .... Even in the case of choice experiments you can
    > significantly overstate preferences for socially acceptable outcomes
    > unless you put individuals in realistic settings that consider other
    > alternatives that do not embody social choice. For example, even in
    > the case of examining social issue x, if you do not do this in an
    > environment where they can trade off things normally, you will
    > overinflate the actual response (as DCM is a state preference
    > approach). For example, work has shown that individuals will, in
    > some cases, respond negatively to GM foods. Yet if you put them in
    > circumstances where they are dealing with the issue as part of a
    > more complex realistic choice, GM foods become inconsequential.
    > Louviere and many others have been conducting work like this (mainly
    > published in the environmental economics area for decades).
    >
    > My own view on this shows that scales of any type are going to give
    > you biased results and the best solution is to utilize mixed methods
    > that capture aspects of behavior or to examine behaviors in more
    > complex environments. Another example is an experiment we ran on
    > organic foods, where people believed they were helping design the
    > layout and location of a new grocery store. The actual experiment
    > had mixed baskets of goods but the stores were located in different
    > places. The stated demand for organics and non-gm food plummeted
    > (indeed it nearly matched the actual organic market share).
    > Similarly, we ran a field experiment for a major coffee producer on
    > fair trade labels. It was run using scanner data in groceries
    > across an EU country and involved 500,000 shoppers. We varied
    > advertising, location, labeling, price and on site promotions. The
    > result was that the labeling had no direct impact. It had an impact
    > but that impact was complex and interacted with the perceived
    > quality of the coffee. There was, however, a small segment (about
    > 10%) that were influenced by the labels.
    >
    > What amazes me about all the work in this field (and Cottee's
    > article that Tom brings up does not deal with this either, despite
    > its comprehensiveness) is the degree to which work in economics
    > (e.g., I have never seen a reference to Levitt and List's great
    > article in J. Econ Perspectives), marketing (e.g., I have yet to see
    > a reference to Russo's seminar work on price labeling in
    > supermarkets -- or the failure of nutritional labeling to work),
    > evolutionary biology and psychology is so totally ignored. Also,
    > that most of it looks at direct or interacting effects yet more an
    > more work is looking at individual level heterogeneity.
    >
    > Again, my own two cents on this is that the field is behind
    > significant in methodology and in many ways is repeating work done
    > many years back in other fields w/o doing the due diligence to
    > discover what others know.
    >
    > Tim
    >
    >
    > On 24/09/2009, at 6:52 AM, Rolf Wuestenhagen wrote:
    >
    >
    > Dear Tom, dear ONE colleagues,
    >
    > Thanks for publishing this very useful review. I could not agree
    > more on your call for better methods to study sustainability-related
    > consumer behaviour. Perhaps one example that we can share here from
    > Europe is a recent survey we have done using choice experiments to
    > assess consumer decisions related to buying energy efficient TVs. We
    > have surveyed German consumers and were particularly interested in
    > understanding the relative effectiveness of two formats of European
    > eco-labelling in guiding consumer decisions - one being the existing
    > A to G scale, and one being an amended "beyond A" scale as it is
    > currently proposed by the European Commission, and controversially
    > discussed between industry associations and consumer organizations.
    > The paper can be downloaded on our website using the following link:
    >
    > http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/org/iwo/web.nsf/50d290ba51a5bf21c12569f50045e85b/475d7723f2abaa0ac12575b60039c789/$FILE/Heinzle_W%C3%BCstenhagen_Energy%20Label.pdf
    >
    > For a quick summary of our findings, you may also look at James
    > Kanter's article on the New York Times website:
    >
    > http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/labels-consumers-and-efficient-tvs/
    >
    > Best regards
    >
    > Rolf
    >
    >
    > Heinzle, S. and Wüstenhagen, R. (2009): Consumer survey on the new
    > format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of
    > a "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format, Working Paper,
    > University of St. Gallen.
    >
    >
    >
    > +++
    >
    > Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen
    > Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies
    > University of St. Gallen
    > Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ-HSG)
    > Tigerbergstrasse 2
    > CH-9000 St. Gallen
    > Switzerland
    >
    > Tel. +41-71-224 25 87
    > Fax +41-71-224 27 22
    >
    > http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch
    >
    > <http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch/>mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch
    > Mobile +41-76-306 43 13
    > <mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch>
    >
    >
    > "Ewart, Tom" <tewart@NBS.NET<mailto:tewart@NBS.NET>>
    > Gesendet von: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > <mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>
    >
    > 23.09.2009 22:23
    > Bitte antworten an
    > Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > <mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > An
    > ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
    > Kopie
    >
    > Thema
    > We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on
    > sustainability
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > Dear ONE’ers,
    >
    > The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic
    > review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism<http://www.nbs.net/SearchResultsKnowledgeDetails.aspx?Id=a2d3a3fd-6f19-4920-9985-1fb31493cb21
    > >.
    >
    > The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing
    > to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the
    > environment than any other sustainability attribute.
    >
    > The study’s authors called for future research to use more
    > appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including
    > forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they
    > will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner
    > or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours.
    > They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic
    > variables, as they predict behaviour better.
    >
    > The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.
    >
    > To join the Network, email info@nbs.net<mailto:info@nbs.net>.
    > Membership is free.
    >
    > Cheers,
    > Tom
    >
    > Tom Ewart
    > Managing Director
    > 519-661-2111 x80094
    >
    > Network for Business Sustainability
    > Business. Thinking. Ahead.
    >
    > http://www.nbs.net<http://www.nbs.net/>
    > http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet
    > Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Network-for-Business-Sustainability/120372257748?ref=nf
    > >
    >
    >
    > Prof. Timothy Devinney
    >
    > Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440
    >
    > Other Numbers:
    > Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467
    > USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202
    > Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974
    > China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087
    >
    > Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au<mailto:Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au>
    >
    > Web 1 (Academic): http://www.agsm.edu.au/tdevinney
    > Web 2 (China Related): http://vincitveritas.spaces.live.com/
    > Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/

    Prof. Timothy Devinney

    Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440

    Other Numbers:
    Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467
    USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202
    Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974
    China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087

    Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au

    Web 1 (Academic): http://www.agsm.edu.au/tdevinney
    Web 2 (China Related): http://vincitveritas.spaces.live.com/
    Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/


  • 8.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-24-2009 20:25
    My academic work has been with the multidisiplinary Centre for
    Management Quality Research, which was sadly closed down. Why permit
    excellence to offend the mediocre when the lowest commond denominator is
    so much more palatable? Of course, the Graduate School of Management is
    also an excellent organisation and I am equally proud to be a part of
    that.

    The multidisiplinary is difficult to achieve, as most people cannot
    comprehend the value of such aggregate knowledge; or perhaps most people
    are not rewarded for such pursutes. Incentives are the key to achieving
    things of value - if rewards are not given for going in a particular
    direction, then people will not go there. Which is also part of my
    framework:
    http://intergon.net/tsw/sustainableceos.pdf

    In any event, see my previous posting.

    Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
    Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer@rmit.edu.au
    Graduate School of Business
    my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory"
    now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
    >>> Mike Barnett <michael.barnett@SBS.OX.AC.UK> 24/09/09 7:24 PM >>>
    Good point, Tim. Cross-flow between fields is, unfortunately, uncommon.
    Hell, we typically don't know what other people in our own fields, or
    even in our own departments, are doing. It's just too hard to stay
    abreast of all the things going on elsewhere. It's also a problem of
    what's rewarded -- publication in one's own discipline, not in others.
    As a result, we just wind up building up a bunch of islands of partial
    insights, each with different names. Thanks for your efforts to bring
    in some highly relevant work from the outside. Maybe it's time for more
    efforts at cross-disciplinary conferences/pubs/etc?

    Best,
    Mike

    *************
    Michael L. Barnett
    Professor of Strategy, Said Business School, University of Oxford
    Research Director, Oxford U. Centre for Corporate Reputation
    Fellow in Strategy, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford
    http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Barnett+Mike/

    View my research on my SSRN Author page:
    <http://ssrn.com/author=414796<https://email.usf.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://ssrn.com/author=414796>>
    ________________________________
    From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion
    [ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Timothy Devinney
    [timothy.devinney@GMAIL.COM]
    Sent: 23 September 2009 22:43
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on
    sustainability

    It would be worth looking at the more than half a dozen papers we have
    put out on the subject ... there is a book coming out with Cambridge
    University Press next year entitled the Myth of the Ethical Consumer
    (Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt), which goes over this and work in
    psychology, economics, evolutionary biology, etc. .... Even in the case
    of choice experiments you can significantly overstate preferences for
    socially acceptable outcomes unless you put individuals in realistic
    settings that consider other alternatives that do not embody social
    choice. For example, even in the case of examining social issue x, if
    you do not do this in an environment where they can trade off things
    normally, you will overinflate the actual response (as DCM is a state
    preference approach). For example, work has shown that individuals
    will, in some cases, respond negatively to GM foods. Yet if you put
    them in circumstances where they are dealing with the issue as part of a
    more complex realistic choice, GM foods become inconsequential.
    Louviere and many others have been conducting work like this (mainly
    published in the environmental economics area for decades).

    My own view on this shows that scales of any type are going to give you
    biased results and the best solution is to utilize mixed methods that
    capture aspects of behavior or to examine behaviors in more complex
    environments. Another example is an experiment we ran on organic foods,
    where people believed they were helping design the layout and locatiogoods but the stores were located in different places. The stated
    demand for organics and non-gm food plummeted (indeed it nearly matched
    the actual organic market share). Similarly, we ran a field experiment
    for a major coffee producer on fair trade labels. It was run using
    scanner data in groceries across an EU country and involved 500,000
    shoppers. We varied advertising, location, labeling, price and on site
    promotions. The result was that the labeling had no direct impact. It
    had an impact but that impact was complex and interacted with the
    perceived quality of the coffee. There was, however, a small segment
    (about 10%) that were influenced by the labels.

    What amazes me about all the work in this field (and Cottee's article
    that Tom brings up does not deal with this either, despite its
    comprehensiveness) is the degree to which work in economics (e.g., I
    have never seen a reference to Levitt and List's great article in J.
    Econ Perspectives), marketing (e.g., I have yet to see a reference to
    Russo's seminar work on price labeling in supermarkets -- or the failure
    of nutritional labeling to work), evolutionary biology and psychology is
    so totally ignored. Also, that most of it looks at direct or
    interacting effects yet more an more work is looking at individual level
    heterogeneity.

    Again, my own two cents on this is that the field is behind significant
    in methodology and in many ways is repeating work done many years back
    in other fields w/o doing the due diligence to discover what others
    know.

    Tim


    On 24/09/2009, at 6:52 AM, Rolf Wuestenhagen wrote:


    Dear Tom, dear ONE colleagues,

    Thanks for publishing this very useful review. I could not agree more on
    your call for better methods to study sustainability-related consumer
    behaviour. Perhaps one example that we can share here from Europe is a
    recent survey we have done using choice experiments to assess consumer
    decisions related to buying energy efficient TVs. We have surveyed
    German consumers and were particularly interested in understanding the
    relative effectiveness of two formats of European eco-labelling in
    guiding consumer decisions - one being the existing A to G scale, and
    one being an amended "beyond A" scale as it is currently proposed by the
    European Commission, and controversially discussed between industry
    associations and consumer organizations. The paper can be downloaded on
    our website using the following link:

    http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/org/iwo/web.nsf/50d290ba51a5bf21c12569f50045e85b/475d7723f2abaa0ac12575b60039c789/$FILE/Heinzle_W%C3%BCstenhagen_Energy%20Label.pdf

    For a quick summary of our findings, you may also look at James Kanter's
    article on the New York Times website:

    http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/labels-consumers-and-efficient-tvs/

    Best regards

    Rolf


    Heinzle, S. and Wüstenhagen, R. (2009): Consumer survey on the new
    format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of a
    "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format, Working Paper, University
    of St. Gallen.



    +++

    Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen
    Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies
    University of St. Gallen
    Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ-HSG)
    Tigerbergstrasse 2
    CH-9000 St. Gallen
    Switzerland

    Tel. +41-71-224 25 87
    Fax +41-71-224 27 22

    http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch

    <http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch/>mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch
    Mobile +41-76-306 43 13
    <mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch>


    "Ewart, Tom" <tewart@NBS.NET<mailto:tewart@NBS.NET>>
    Gesendet von: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion
    <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>

    23.09.2009 22:23
    Bitte antworten an
    Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion
    <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>




    An
    ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
    Kopie

    Thema
    We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on
    sustainability
    review of the body of research on Socially Conscious
    Consumerism<http://www.nbs.net/SearchResultsKnowledgeDetails.aspx?Id=a2d3a3fd-6f19-4920-9985-1fb31493cb21>.

    The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing to
    change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the environment than
    any other sustainability attribute.

    The study’s authors called for future research to use more appropriate
    methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including forced-choice
    experiments, experiments where consumers believe they will be paying
    their own money, and field experiments using scanner or other sales
    data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours. They also
    recommended using personality variables, not demographic variables, as
    they predict behaviour better.

    The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.

    To join the Network, email info@nbs.net<mailto:info@nbs.net>. Membership
    is free.

    Cheers,
    Tom

    Tom Ewart
    Managing Director
    519-661-2111 x80094

    Network for Business Sustainability
    Business. Thinking. Ahead.

    http://www.nbs.net<http://www.nbs.net/>
    http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet
    Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Network-for-Business-Sustainability/120372257748?ref=nf>


    Prof. Timothy Devinney

    Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440

    Other Numbers:
    Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467
    USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202
    Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974
    China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087

    Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au<mailto:Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au>

    Web 1 (Academic): http://www.agsm.edu.au/tdevinney
    Web 2 (China Related): http://vincitveritas.spaces.live.com/
    Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/


  • 9.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-25-2009 02:36
    If there's any hope for cross-discipinary flow in any division, it's in ONE, not only due to the nature of the division's subject, but particularly due to the nature of the people in the division. I've never gotten the sense that the bulk of ONE folk concern themselves greatly with what their universities or the broader market reward.

    Maybe a journal special issue or two on, "What other fields/disciplines can tell us about X, Y, Z", and if that takes off, maybe a journal dedicated to cross-disciplinary research?

    Best,
    Mike

    *************
    Michael L. Barnett
    Professor of Strategy, Said Business School, University of Oxford
    Research Director, Oxford U. Centre for Corporate Reputation
    Fellow in Strategy, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford
    http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Barnett+Mike/

    View my research on my SSRN Author page:
    <http://ssrn.com/author=414796>
    ________________________________________
    From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion [ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Timothy Devinney [timothy.devinney@GMAIL.COM]
    Sent: 24 September 2009 23:54
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Mike ... We are indeed trying to do a bit more of this ... however,
    even more would be better ... the problem is that it is
    threatening ... particularly when most scholars have quite heavy
    hammers and universities want them to publish rather than influence.

    Tim


    On 24/09/2009, at 7:23 PM, Mike Barnett wrote:

    > Good point, Tim. Cross-flow between fields is, unfortunately,
    > uncommon. Hell, we typically don't know what other people in our
    > own fields, or even in our own departments, are doing. It's just
    > too hard to stay abreast of all the things going on elsewhere. It's
    > also a problem of what's rewarded -- publication in one's own
    > discipline, not in others. As a result, we just wind up building up
    > a bunch of islands of partial insights, each with different names.
    > Thanks for your efforts to bring in some highly relevant work from
    > the outside. Maybe it's time for more efforts at cross-disciplinary
    > conferences/pubs/etc?
    >
    > Best,
    > Mike
    >
    > *************
    > Michael L. Barnett
    > Professor of Strategy, Said Business School, University of Oxford
    > Research Director, Oxford U. Centre for Corporate Reputation
    > Fellow in Strategy, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford
    > http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Barnett+Mike/
    >
    > View my research on my SSRN Author page:
    > <http://ssrn.com/author=414796<https://email.usf.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://ssrn.com/author=414796
    > >>
    > ________________________________
    > From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion [ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > ] On Behalf Of Timothy Devinney [timothy.devinney@GMAIL.COM]
    > Sent: 23 September 2009 22:43
    > To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > Subject: Re: We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour
    > on sustainability
    >
    > It would be worth looking at the more than half a dozen papers we
    > have put out on the subject ... there is a book coming out with
    > Cambridge University Press next year entitled the Myth of the
    > Ethical Consumer (Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt), which goes over
    > this and work in psychology, economics, evolutionary biology,
    > etc. .... Even in the case of choice experiments you can
    > significantly overstate preferences for socially acceptable outcomes
    > unless you put individuals in realistic settings that consider other
    > alternatives that do not embody social choice. For example, even in
    > the case of examining social issue x, if you do not do this in an
    > environment where they can trade off things normally, you will
    > overinflate the actual response (as DCM is a state preference
    > approach). For example, work has shown that individuals will, in
    > some cases, respond negatively to GM foods. Yet if you put them in
    > circumstances where they are dealing with the issue as part of a
    > more complex realistic choice, GM foods become inconsequential.
    > Louviere and many others have been conducting work like this (mainly
    > published in the environmental economics area for decades).
    >
    > My own view on this shows that scales of any type are going to give
    > you biased results and the best solution is to utilize mixed methods
    > that capture aspects of behavior or to examine behaviors in more
    > complex environments. Another example is an experiment we ran on
    > organic foods, where people believed they were helping design the
    > layout and location of a new grocery store. The actual experiment
    > had mixed baskets of goods but the stores were located in different
    > places. The stated demand for organics and non-gm food plummeted
    > (indeed it nearly matched the actual organic market share).
    > Similarly, we ran a field experiment for a major coffee producer on
    > fair trade labels. It was run using scanner data in groceries
    > across an EU country and involved 500,000 shoppers. We varied
    > advertising, location, labeling, price and on site promotions. The
    > result was that the labeling had no direct impact. It had an impact
    > but that impact was complex and interacted with the perceived
    > quality of the coffee. There was, however, a small segment (about
    > 10%) that were influenced by the labels.
    >
    > What amazes me about all the work in this field (and Cottee's
    > article that Tom brings up does not deal with this either, despite
    > its comprehensiveness) is the degree to which work in economics
    > (e.g., I have never seen a reference to Levitt and List's great
    > article in J. Econ Perspectives), marketing (e.g., I have yet to see
    > a reference to Russo's seminar work on price labeling in
    > supermarkets -- or the failure of nutritional labeling to work),
    > evolutionary biology and psychology is so totally ignored. Also,
    > that most of it looks at direct or interacting effects yet more an
    > more work is looking at individual level heterogeneity.
    >
    > Again, my own two cents on this is that the field is behind
    > significant in methodology and in many ways is repeating work done
    > many years back in other fields w/o doing the due diligence to
    > discover what others know.
    >
    > Tim
    >
    >
    > On 24/09/2009, at 6:52 AM, Rolf Wuestenhagen wrote:
    >
    >
    > Dear Tom, dear ONE colleagues,
    >
    > Thanks for publishing this very useful review. I could not agree
    > more on your call for better methods to study sustainability-related
    > consumer behaviour. Perhaps one example that we can share here from
    > Europe is a recent survey we have done using choice experiments to
    > assess consumer decisions related to buying energy efficient TVs. We
    > have surveyed German consumers and were particularly interested in
    > understanding the relative effectiveness of two formats of European
    > eco-labelling in guiding consumer decisions - one being the existing
    > A to G scale, and one being an amended "beyond A" scale as it is
    > currently proposed by the European Commission, and controversially
    > discussed between industry associations and consumer organizations.
    > The paper can be downloaded on our website using the following link:
    >
    > http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/org/iwo/web.nsf/50d290ba51a5bf21c12569f50045e85b/475d7723f2abaa0ac12575b60039c789/$FILE/Heinzle_W%C3%BCstenhagen_Energy%20Label.pdf
    >
    > For a quick summary of our findings, you may also look at James
    > Kanter's article on the New York Times website:
    >
    > http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/labels-consumers-and-efficient-tvs/
    >
    > Best regards
    >
    > Rolf
    >
    >
    > Heinzle, S. and Wüstenhagen, R. (2009): Consumer survey on the new
    > format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of
    > a "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format, Working Paper,
    > University of St. Gallen.
    >
    >
    >
    > +++
    >
    > Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen
    > Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies
    > University of St. Gallen
    > Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment (IWÖ-HSG)
    > Tigerbergstrasse 2
    > CH-9000 St. Gallen
    > Switzerland
    >
    > Tel. +41-71-224 25 87
    > Fax +41-71-224 27 22
    >
    > http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch
    >
    > <http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch/>mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch
    > Mobile +41-76-306 43 13
    > <mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch>
    >
    >
    > "Ewart, Tom" <tewart@NBS.NET<mailto:tewart@NBS.NET>>
    > Gesendet von: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > <mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>
    >
    > 23.09.2009 22:23
    > Bitte antworten an
    > Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    > <mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > An
    > ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
    > Kopie
    >
    > Thema
    > We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on
    > sustainability
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > Dear ONE’ers,
    >
    > The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic
    > review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism<http://www.nbs.net/SearchResultsKnowledgeDetails.aspx?Id=a2d3a3fd-6f19-4920-9985-1fb31493cb21
    > >.
    >
    > The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing
    > to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the
    > environment than any other sustainability attribute.
    >
    > The study’s authors called for future research to use more
    > appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including
    > forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they
    > will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner
    > or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours.
    > They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic
    > variables, as they predict behaviour better.
    >
    > The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.
    >
    > To join the Network, email info@nbs.net<mailto:info@nbs.net>.
    > Membership is free.
    >
    > Cheers,
    > Tom
    >
    > Tom Ewart
    > Managing Director
    > 519-661-2111 x80094
    >
    > Network for Business Sustainability
    > Business. Thinking. Ahead.
    >
    > http://www.nbs.net<http://www.nbs.net/>
    > http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet
    > Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Network-for-Business-Sustainability/120372257748?ref=nf
    > >
    >
    >
    > Prof. Timothy Devinney
    >
    > Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440
    >
    > Other Numbers:
    > Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467
    > USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202
    > Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974
    > China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087
    >
    > Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au<mailto:Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au>
    >
    > Web 1 (Academic): http://www.agsm.edu.au/tdevinney
    > Web 2 (China Related): http://vincitveritas.spaces.live.com/
    > Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/

    Prof. Timothy Devinney

    Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440

    Other Numbers:
    Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467
    USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202
    Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974
    China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087

    Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au

    Web 1 (Academic): http://www.agsm.edu.au/tdevinney
    Web 2 (China Related): http://vincitveritas.spaces.live.com/
    Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/


  • 10.  We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability

    Posted 09-27-2009 13:37
    I agree. Alfie

    Mike Barnett wrote:
    60B33E234D51474EACC018C6415BD1CE01F92705FF@sbs-vs52ex.sbs.ox.ac.uk" type="cite"> 
    If there's any hope for cross-discipinary flow in any division, it's in ONE, not only due to the nature of the division's subject, but particularly due to the nature of the people in the division.  I've never gotten the sense that the bulk of ONE folk concern themselves greatly with what their universities or the broader market reward.    Maybe a journal special issue or two on, "What other fields/disciplines can tell us about X, Y, Z", and if that takes off, maybe a journal dedicated to cross-disciplinary research?  Best, Mike  ************* Michael L. Barnett Professor of Strategy, Said Business School, University of Oxford Research Director, Oxford U. Centre for Corporate Reputation Fellow in Strategy, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Barnett+Mike/  View my research on my SSRN Author page: <http://ssrn.com/author=414796> ________________________________________ From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion [ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Timothy Devinney [timothy.devinney@GMAIL.COM] Sent: 24 September 2009 23:54 To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU Subject: Re: We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability  Mike ... We are indeed trying to do a bit more of this ... however, even more would be better ... the problem is that it is threatening ... particularly when most scholars have quite heavy hammers and universities want them to publish rather than influence.  Tim   On 24/09/2009, at 7:23 PM, Mike Barnett wrote:    
    Good point, Tim.  Cross-flow between fields is, unfortunately, uncommon.  Hell, we typically don't know what other people in our own fields, or even in our own departments, are doing.  It's just too hard to stay abreast of all the things going on elsewhere.  It's also a problem of what's rewarded -- publication in one's own discipline, not in others.  As a result, we just wind up building up a bunch of islands of partial insights, each with different names. Thanks for your efforts to bring in some highly relevant work from the outside.  Maybe it's time for more efforts at cross-disciplinary conferences/pubs/etc?  Best, Mike  ************* Michael L. Barnett Professor of Strategy, Said Business School, University of Oxford Research Director, Oxford U. Centre for Corporate Reputation Fellow in Strategy, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Barnett+Mike/  View my research on my SSRN Author page: <http://ssrn.com/author=414796<https://email.usf.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://ssrn.com/author=414796     
    ________________________________ From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion [ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU ] On Behalf Of Timothy Devinney [timothy.devinney@GMAIL.COM] Sent: 23 September 2009 22:43 To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU Subject: Re: We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability  It would be worth looking at the more than half a dozen papers we have put out on the subject ... there is a book coming out with Cambridge University Press next year entitled the Myth of the Ethical Consumer (Devinney, Auger and Eckhardt), which goes over this and work in psychology, economics, evolutionary biology, etc. .... Even in the case of choice experiments you can significantly overstate preferences for socially acceptable outcomes unless you put individuals in realistic settings that consider other alternatives that do not embody social choice.  For example, even in the case of examining social issue x, if you do not do this in an environment where they can trade off things normally, you will overinflate the actual response (as DCM is a state preference approach).  For example, work has shown that individuals will, in some cases, respond negatively to GM foods.  Yet if you put them in circumstances where they are dealing with the issue as part of a more complex realistic choice, GM foods become inconsequential. Louviere and many others have been conducting work like this (mainly published in the environmental economics area for decades).  My own view on this shows that scales of any type are going to give you biased results and the best solution is to utilize mixed methods that capture aspects of behavior or to examine behaviors in more complex environments.  Another example is an experiment we ran on organic foods, where people believed they were helping design the layout and location of a new grocery store.  The actual experiment had mixed baskets of goods but the stores were located in different places.  The stated demand for organics and non-gm food plummeted (indeed it nearly matched the actual organic market share). Similarly, we ran a field experiment for a major coffee producer on fair trade labels.  It was run using scanner data in groceries across an EU country and involved 500,000 shoppers.  We varied advertising, location, labeling, price and on site promotions.  The result was that the labeling had no direct impact.  It had an impact but that impact was complex and interacted with the perceived quality of the coffee.  There was, however, a small segment (about 10%) that were influenced by the labels.  What amazes me about all the work in this field (and Cottee's article that Tom brings up does not deal with this either, despite its comprehensiveness) is the degree to which work in economics (e.g., I have never seen a reference to Levitt and List's great article in J. Econ Perspectives), marketing (e.g., I have yet to see a reference to Russo's seminar work on price labeling in supermarkets -- or the failure of nutritional labeling to work), evolutionary biology and psychology is so totally ignored.  Also, that most of it looks at direct or interacting effects yet more an more work is looking at individual level heterogeneity.  Again, my own two cents on this is that the field is behind significant in methodology and in many ways is repeating work done many years back in other fields w/o doing the due diligence to discover what others know.  Tim   On 24/09/2009, at 6:52 AM, Rolf Wuestenhagen wrote:   Dear Tom, dear ONE colleagues,  Thanks for publishing this very useful review. I could not agree more on your call for better methods to study sustainability-related consumer behaviour. Perhaps one example that we can share here from Europe is a recent survey we have done using choice experiments to assess consumer decisions related to buying energy efficient TVs. We have surveyed German consumers and were particularly interested in understanding the relative effectiveness of two formats of European eco-labelling in guiding consumer decisions - one being the existing A to G scale, and one being an amended "beyond A" scale as it is currently proposed by the European Commission, and controversially discussed between industry associations and consumer organizations. The paper can be downloaded on our website using the following link:  http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/org/iwo/web.nsf/50d290ba51a5bf21c12569f50045e85b/475d7723f2abaa0ac12575b60039c789/$FILE/Heinzle_W%C3%BCstenhagen_Energy%20Label.pdf  For a quick summary of our findings, you may also look at James Kanter's article on the New York Times website:  http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/labels-consumers-and-efficient-tvs/  Best regards  Rolf   Heinzle, S. and W�stenhagen, R. (2009): Consumer survey on the new format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of a "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format, Working Paper, University of St. Gallen.    +++  Prof. Dr. Rolf W�stenhagen Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies University of St. Gallen Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment (IW�-HSG) Tigerbergstrasse 2 CH-9000 St. Gallen Switzerland  Tel. +41-71-224 25 87 Fax +41-71-224 27 22  http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch  <http://goodenergies.iwoe.unisg.ch/>mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch Mobile +41-76-306 43 13 <mailto:rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch>   "Ewart, Tom" <tewart@NBS.NET<mailto:tewart@NBS.NET>> Gesendet von: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU <mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>  23.09.2009 22:23 Bitte antworten an Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion              <ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU <mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>>     An        ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU<mailto:ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU> Kopie  Thema        We need better methods to understand consumer behaviour on sustainability        Dear ONE�ers,  The Network for Business Sustainability has published a systematic review of the body of research on Socially Conscious Consumerism<http://www.nbs.net/SearchResultsKnowledgeDetails.aspx?Id=a2d3a3fd-6f19-4920-9985-1fb31493cb21     
    .       
    The review found that more studies showed that consumers are willing to change their behaviour and pay a price premium for the environment than any other sustainability attribute.  The study�s authors called for future research to use more appropriate methods for predicting consumer behaviours, including forced-choice experiments, experiments where consumers believe they will be paying their own money, and field experiments using scanner or other sales data, instead of relying on self-reported behaviours. They also recommended using personality variables, not demographic variables, as they predict behaviour better.  The systematic review covered 1700 sources over 30 years of research.  To join the Network, email info@nbs.net<mailto:info@nbs.net>. Membership is free.  Cheers, Tom  Tom Ewart Managing Director 519-661-2111 x80094  Network for Business Sustainability Business. Thinking. Ahead.  http://www.nbs.net<http://www.nbs.net/> http://www.twitter.com/NBSnet Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Network-for-Business-Sustainability/120372257748?ref=nf     
     Prof. Timothy Devinney  Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440  Other Numbers: Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467 USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202 Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974 China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087  Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au<mailto:Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au>  Web 1 (Academic): http://www.agsm.edu.au/tdevinney Web 2 (China Related): http://vincitveritas.spaces.live.com/ Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/     
      Prof. Timothy Devinney  Global Numbers: +61 2 8006 0048 or +1 412 5677440  Other Numbers:         Australia (Mob): +61 412 276 467         USA (Mob): +1 (847) 207 3202         Germany (Mob): +49 (151) 5316 7974         China (Mob): +86 (136) 5116 1087  Email: Timothy.Devinney@uts.edu.au  Web 1 (Academic): http://www.agsm.edu.au/tdevinney Web 2 (China Related): http://vincitveritas.spaces.live.com/ Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdevinney/