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A COMPARISON OF EUROPEAN AND
LATIN AMERICAN BOYCOTTER PROFILES
Abstract:
Profiles of European and Latin American boycotters are compared. Boycotters are
people that in the last 12 months have considered punishing a company they see as
not socially responsible. Globescan allowed us to use data from 2013 representative
samples of Brasil (n=800), Mexico (n=800) and Peru (n=1,020). With these
secondary data, an ordered logistic regression was performed to determine which
variables were significant to explain boycotting behavior. Results were compared
to the profile for the European boycotter according to the specialized literature.
Some coincidences (education) and important differences (age, gender and income)
were found in the Europe-Latin America comparison.
Keywords:
Political consumerism – Consumer boycotts – Corporate social irresponsibility -
Socially responsible consumer behavior
Track:
Social Responsibility & Ethics
1. INTRODUCTION
There is a widespread recognition that political consumerism is an unconventional
form of political participation that is progressively replacing more traditional forms of
political activism, such as be member of political parties, participate in election
campaigns, or collaborate with organizations or political groups, among others.
Recently, in the last decade, academics have begun to pay attention to political
consumerism. They are studying it as a new form of claim that expresses the values and
beliefs of a growing group of population that wants to change, through its buying
decisions, institutional or market practices that they consider ethical or politically
objectionable (Stolle and Micheletti, 2003). The accumulated casuistic about boycott is
showing that this form of political activism is very effective to influence the way
businesses are conducted or political decisions are taken.
Being that political consumerism is more extended in Europe, it is expected that the
literature about this subject revolves around the study of the European boycotter profile
(mainly, in Northern European countries). There are also some studies in North America
(USA and Canada) and Australia, but very little has been published about the Latin
American boycotter.
There is, therefore, a gap in the knowledge of the profile of the political consumer in
Latin American countries. In order to help fill this gap, data provided by the GlobeScan
Radar 2013 - Business in Society will be used for Brazil, Mexico and Peru. These data
will allow to explore the profile of the Latin American boycotter in terms of gender,
age, education and income level, and to compare it with its European counterpart.
2. POLITICAL CONSUMERISM AND BOYCOTT
Political consumerism or political consumption (PC) is as a new form of political
engagement. It is “the evaluation and choice of producers and products with the aim of
changing ethically or politically objectionable institutional or market practices” (Stolle,
Micheletti and Berlin, 2010:4). Therefore, political consumers are the ones who decide
to buy (positive consumerism) or not to buy (negative consumerism) specific products or
brands with the intention to express their approval (buycott) or disapproval (boycott) of
institutional or market practices. Authors point out that for a buying/not buying decision
to be labeled as PC, people should be “motivated by ethical or political considerations,
or at least wish to change social conditions, either with or without relying on the
political system” (Stolle, Hooghe and Micheletti, 2005:255).
Based on the definition of PC, boycott is defined as “the consumer choice of
producers and products based on a variety of ethical and political considerations” (Stolle
and Micheletti, 2003:4). In boycotts, consumer deliberately rejects buying certain
products or from particular producers, for political, ethical or environmental reasons
(Ferrer-Fons 2004; Stolle and Micheletti, 2003).
From the literature it can be inferred that PC is clearly more developed in Europe
and, specifically, in Northern Europe, being Scandinavian countries the leaders of this
form of activism. In these countries, PC, together with protest activities, seems to be the
non-conventional political civic action more often practiced by citizens (Ferrer and
Fraile, 2006). Although there are different expressions of PC, boycott has been
traditionally used to label this phenomenon (Ferrer-Fons, 2004). Additionally, it is
easier to find data available about boycotts than buycotts.
Literature about the demographics of the European boycotter points out the
following main conclusions:
Gender: PC tends to be woman friendly (Ferrer-Fons 2004). There is a clear
prevalence of female presence among political consumers, mainly in Northern Europe
(Stolle and Micheletti, 2005; Stolle, Hooghe and Micheletti, 2005; Stolle, Micheletti
and Berlin, 2010; Ferrer and Fraile, 2006). Even though literature reports that, in
general, women boycott more than men do, some studies report the opposite. Shaaleva
(2014) and Gallego (2008) found that, in some European countries, there is more
boycotting among men than women.
Age: In the majority of the European countries studied, the most active political
consumers are middle age (35-54) followed by the youngest (15-34) (Ferrer-Fons, 2004;
Stromsnes, 2004; Stolle and Micheletti, 2005; Ferrer and Fraile, 2006; Stolle, Micheletti
and Berlin, 2010). Moreover, it has been found that citizens of 55 and older are the least
active political consumers in all European countries studied, with the exception of the
United Kingdom.
Income: Most studies agree on describing political consumer as a high income
citizen or as a qualified worker, which means that he/she is well paid (Ferrer and Fraile,
2006; Ferrer-Fons, 2004; Gallego, 2008). However, some studies haven´t found
significant differences among groups of income to explain the boycotting behavior
(Shaleeva, 2014; Neilson, 2010).
Education: Education is a very important factor to explain participation in PC and is
the socio-economic demographics that, along literature, shows the most positive and
stable relation with the PC activity. Ferrer-Fons (2004) refers that the most important
socio-demographic effect for boycotting is, by far, education. From our revision we
conclude that the European political consumer tends to have a high educational level.
Literature agrees that the higher the level of education, the higher the probability that
consumer gets involved in PC activities (Stolle and Michelletti, 2003; Ferrer-Fons,
2004; Stolle, Michelletti, 2005; Ferrer and Fraile, 2006; Gallego, 2008; Stolle,
Micheletti and Berlín, 2010; Stromsnes, 2004). Moreover, the differences in boycotting
among the highly educated and the lowest educated consumers are enormous (Ferrer-
Fons, 2004). These differences are more accentuated in Northern and Central European
countries than in Southern Europe (Ferrer and Fraile, 2006).
3. METHODOLOGY
This study was based on data for Brazil, Mexico and Peru kindly provided by
GlobeScan. These data were originally collected in each country as part of a wide
research called GlobeScan Radar 2013. Table 1 shows the technical details of the
random sample analyzed in each country.
Table 1 – Technical details of the surveys
Information
Brazil
Mexico
Peru
Research institute
Market Analysis
Parametría
Datum
Field dates (in 2013)
Jan 23 - Feb 15
February 16-20
February 16-20
Survey method
Face-to-face interview
Statistical unit
Individuals aged 18 or more
Sample size (unweighted)
800
800
1,020
Sampling error
± 3.5%
± 3.5%
± 3.1%
Confidence level
95%
Source: GlobeScan (2013)
4. RESULTS
Data were processed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 22. Table 2 shows the
distribution of the sample in each country for the relevant variables (gender, income,
education, age and boycott) after a listwise deletion of missing cases.
Table 2 – Distribution of the samples
VARIABLE
CATEGORIES
Brazil
Mexico
Peru
GENDER
1 = Female
52,4%
50,3%
47,7%
0 = Male
47,6%
49,7%
52,3%
TOTAL
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
LEVEL OF
INCOME
3 = High / Very high
2,7%
14,4%
22,5%
2 = Average
32,2%
38,1%
10,4%
1 = Low
56,3%
30,2%
28,0%
0 = Very low
8,8%
17,3%
39,1%
TOTAL
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
LEVEL OF
EDUCATION
4 = Some or completed university studies
12,8%
15,5%
37,0%
3 = Completed High/Secondary School
41,5%
26,9%
34,2%
2 = Some of High or Secondary School
11,3%
21,1%
12,9%
1 = Completed elementary school
15,1%
20,1%
10,3%
0 = No formal education / Some of elementary school
19,3%
16,4%
5,6%
TOTAL
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
AGE
(in years)
Average
39,57
45,48
37,81
Standard Deviation
13,64
16,58
13,22
BOYCOTT
3 = Have actually done this in the past year
4,3%
7,9%
10,8%
2 = Considered this, but didn’t actually do it
10,2%
24,0%
24,6%
1 = Not considered doing this
85,5%
68,1%
64,6%
TOTAL
100,0%
100,0%
100,0%
Source: Own research
Boycott (the dependent variable) was measured with the following question: “In the
past year, have you considered punishing a company you see as not socially responsible
by either refusing to buy their products or speaking critically about the company to
others?”.
Given the ordinal nature of this dependent variable, an ordered logistic regression
model was proposed. This model can be thought of as an extension of the logistic
regression model that applies to dichotomous dependent variables, allowing for more
than two (ordered) response categories. The link function used in our regression model
was not the standard Logit f(x)=log(x/(1−x), because it assumes evenly distributed
categories of the dependent variable (boycott). Instead, a negative log-log
f(x)=−log(−log(x)) was used, as it assumes that the lower categories of the dependent
variable (boycott) are more probable, as seen in Table 2.
Table 3 shows the main results of the applied ordered logistic regression.
Table 3 – Results of the Ordered Logistic Regression model
VARIABLE /
CATEGORY
Brazil
Mexico
Peru
Estimate
Standard
error
Wald
Sig.
Estimate
Standard
error
Wald
Sig.
Estimate
Standard
error
Wald
Sig.
AGE
(covariable)
.008
.008
.993
.319
-.004
.005
.847
.357
.003
.005
.309
.579
GENDER
Female
-.488
.201
5.917
.015
.347
.146
5.691
.017
.166
.116
2.057
.151
INCOME
High / Very high
.204
.679
.090
.764
.756
.305
6.142
.013
.255
.163
2.442
.118
INCOME
Average
.092
.462
.039
.843
.489
.260
3.540
.060
.059
.202
.084
.772
INCOME
Low
.094
.436
.046
.830
.730
.254
8.237
.004
-
.283
.158
3.208
.073
EDUCATION
Some or completed
university studies
1.025
.413
6.168
.013
.452
.280
2.613
.106
.860
.348
6.100
.014
EDUCATION
Completed High or
Secondary School
.824
.343
5.757
.016
-.160
.255
.395
.530
.610
.343
3.172
.075
EDUCATION
Some of High or
Secondary School
.474
.444
1.141
.285
-.325
.266
1.493
.222
.398
.370
1.158
.282
EDUCATION
Completed
elementary school
.334
.413
.653
.419
-.377
.260
2.106
.147
.358
.377
.905
.341
Reference categories: Gender (male), Income (very low), Education (No formal education /
Some of elementary school)
Source: Own research
Table 3 shows, for each country, the following information (from left to right):
- Estimate: the ordered log-odds (logit) regression coefficients.
- Standard errors of the individual regression coefficients.
- The Wald chi-square test value used to test the null hypothesis that the estimate
equals 0.
- Significance: the p-values of the coefficients.
5. COMPARISON OF EUROPEAN AND LATIN AMERICAN BOYCOTTER
PROFILES
Analysis of table 3 reveals that:
- Age is a non-significant variable. It is not significantly related to boycotting in
any of the three considered countries. This finding differs from the European
boycotter profile, where some age groups significantly boycott more than others.
- Gender shows contradictory results along the countries. While being female has
no significant relation to boycotting in Peru, it has a significant and direct relation
in Mexico, and a significant but inverse relation in Brazil. Findings for Mexico are
consistent with most results obtained in the studies of the boycotter profile in
Europe. Results for Brazil are consistent with a few findings of some European
countries. Results for Peru are not consistent at all with the European ones.
- Income shows poor results. It is a non-significant variable related to boycotting in
Brazil and Peru, as illustrated in some European studies. Only in Mexico the
high/very high income and low income consumers show significant direct
differences in boycotting compared to the very low income consumers (reference
category). Thus, Mexico is the only country in which results are consistent with
the direct income-boycott relation found in most European studies.
- Level of education is a significant variable in Brazil and Peru, but not in Mexico.
In the first two countries the most educated consumers show significant
differences and a direct relation with boycotting compared to consumers with “no
formal education” or “with some of elementary school” (reference category).
Mexico is the only country in which results differ from the generalized findings
for the European boycotter.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Political consumerism is the most common non-conventional tool for citizen
participation, the most known and observed practice of consumers´ political activism
and the fastest growing strategy used by activist groups to demand a corporate behavior
aligned with sustainability (Stolle, Hooghe and Micheletti, 2005). Consumer boycott of
products or brands for ethical, social, environmental or political reasons is a form of
political consumerism that is growing in importance and getting the attention of the
Academy in recent years. Boycotting is more extended in Northern Europe, where a
rising number of consumers consider not only price, quality or other physical attributes
of the product when purchasing, but also “the politics behind products” (Micheletti,
2003). However, very little is known about PC and the profile of people who boycott in
developing countries, particularly in Latin America.
Using Globescan data from 2013 random samples of Brasil (n=800), Mexico (n=800)
and Peru (n=1,020), this study explores the profile of Latin American boycotters using
an ordered logistic regression model, and compares the resultant profile to the existing
European counterpart.
Findings of this study show that the profile of the Latin American boycotter is not
similar to the European one. Age and gender show inconsistent results compared to the
European literature on this topic. Income also offers some poor results. The only
variable in which we can find coincident results with the European profile is education.
The profile of the Latin American boycotter is still not clear, and each country shows a
different profile, with very few coincidences among them.
Consumption is one of the main features of modern society. Decisions on “what to buy”
or “not to buy” are what really define people as consumers, even more so than their
ideology, hobbies or tastes. It is in this context that we must understand political
consumerism and consumer boycotting of products and brands. While the profile of the
European boycotters seems to be clear and consistent, this is not the case for Latin
Americans. In this region, boycotters who believe that the market can be used as an
expression of their ethical, social, environmental or political concerns have a no clear
profile, and more research on this topic is needed.
7. REFERENCES
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