HCBE Theses and Dissertations
Campus Access Only
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Date of Award
2016
Document Type
Dissertation - NSU Access Only
Degree Name
Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
Department
H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship
Advisor
Ramdas Chandra
Committee Member
Yuliya Yurova
Committee Member
Russell Abratt
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the antecedents and reinforcements of fairtrade purchase intention and to examine the effect of reporting good fairtrade practices on consumers’ punishment behavior. A stratified sample of 240 English-speaking, American, adult subjects was collected online. First, the Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM) (Foxall, G., 2007) was modified and four manipulations varying luxury/commodity product type and open/closed purchase settings were presented. The results of paired-sample t-tests demonstrated closed purchase settings did not increase luxury purchase intention by itself. A split-plot ANOVA combining closed setting and the participant’s fairtrade learning history did not produce significant results, but post-hoc testing revealed a significant effect of positive learning history on purchase intention. Two separate, repeated-measures ANOVA found that utilitarian reinforcement was not affected by purchase setting, but informational reinforcement was significantly increased by the presence of others. Second, four manipulations of good/bad press events were presented without/without the firm’s fairtrade performance history mentioned in a news article. A two-way, between-subjects ANOVA produced insignificant results for the effect of information on willingness to pay. Importantly, the type of event significantly affected willingness to pay, accounting for 18% of the variation, with positive events generating higher willingness to pay than negative, regardless of whether fairtrade performance information was included. This study suggested firms would benefit from including cues for the social reward aspect of luxury fairtrade purchasing in marketing efforts and from preventing missteps rather than bragging about past practices. Future research suggestions included further analyzing the effect of information on punishment of bad corporate actors, investigating the credibility of self-declaration of fairtrade certification versus independent certification labels, and incorporating the effect of culture into the BPM.
NSUWorks Citation
Patricia C. Nicelli. 2016. Antecedents and Reinforcements of Luxury Fairtrade Purchasing and the Halo Effect of Reporting Fairtrade Practices. Doctoral dissertation. Nova Southeastern University. Retrieved from NSUWorks, H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship. (123)
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hsbe_etd/123.