Social boycott.

AutorCruz, Breno de Paula Andrade

1 Introduction

Consumers seem to be increasingly more aware of their role as citizens in society, whether through their political engagement in virtual social networks (Loader, Vromen & Xenos, 2014), or by seeking to be heard by companies turning thus, the communication process, which often seemed to be unidirectional--from companies to consumers (McGriff, 2012). And, specifically in this communication process, where consumer empowerment is strong, companies' marketing and communication strategies must take the possibility of a boycott into consideration, both in the on and offline environments.

On the consumer behavior subject, the boycott is the act of stopping to buy products or services from a company if one does not agree with a specific action, or even with the whole set of actions taken by a company (Friedman, 1999; Klein, Smith & John, 2004). The reasons for the boycott may have roots on ideological questions, as part of a group (John & Klein, 2003); for economic aspects, considering an economic downturn (Barda & Sardianou, 2010), or because they feel exploited from a monopolistic market structure, for example. As pointed out by Friedman (1999), Koku (2011) and Cruz & Botelho (2015), on consumer behavior literature, there are six types of boycott: economical, religious, minority, environmental, relational and labor boycott. Friedman's definition of labor boycott however, ignores aspects of the management context of a company and their interaction and involvement with other stakeholders, at that time; and consequently disregards the broad concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), almost exclusively focusing on working conditions of employees.

The labor boycott concept brought by Friedman (1999) has its bias in labor relations. Although guided by the management aspect, this boycott substantially explores the question of class struggle and the unbalanced relation between workers in large multinational, overcoming the discussions on the management level. Thus, the discussion of this type of boycott assumes a relevant activist stance towards the act, that may become a mechanism of transformation for companies actually neglecting to offer better labor conditions to their employees. Friedman analysis therefore, does not bring contexts, situations, actors and aspects involving a wider picture of the company>s activities - such as the issues related to their social impact towards the local community, corruption or psychological harassment in the workplace.

In the theoretical formulation of this study, the concept of CSR considers the same bias adopted in Harisson (2015), Retolaza, Ruiz-Roqueni & San-Jose (2015), VidaverCohen & Bronn (2015), Chakrabarty & Bass (2015), Jia & Zhang (2014) & Boaventura, Silva & Bandeira-deMello (2012) studies, since these authors perceive the CSR considering Stakeholders' Theory. Thus, CSR is understood as a management process that matches the interests of all actors, whether being directly or indirectly related to an organization, meaning, for example, consumers, society, shareholders and employees, among others (Freeman, 1984; Boaventura & e Fischmann, 2007; Costa, Vieira, Boaventura & Anez, 2013). This bias confirms the rejection of the CSR definition which points it as a set of philanthropic or welfare actions (a commonly found approach in Brazilian literature about the subject).

Regarding consumption, some studies indicate a relationship between consumers' CSR perceptions and a positive impact on their purchasing behavior (Hoffmann & Hutter, 2012; Neilson, 2010); highlighting thereby that consumers' rewards companies perceived as high standard CSR oriented, as shown on the buycott theory presented by Friedman (1999). That means that the consumer, by perceiving a socially responsible behavior from a company, tends to buy products or services as a form of reward.

Similarly, other studies have proved how a bad CSR orientation perception can influence consumer behavior as to make him stop buying a product or service (Post, 1985; Curbach, 2008; Wiedmann, Seegebarth, Hennings, Pankalla & Kassubek, 2011; Cruz, 2013a). That way, considering the consumer as a stakeholder, as well as employees, suppliers and the whole society (Fremman, 1984; Retolaza et al, 2015), one of the initial research questions was the possibility of broadening the Labor Boycott concept presented by Friedman (1999) into Social Boycott. This nomenclature amendment extends boycotts analysis' previously described in marketing literature studies (Hussain & Hussain, 2015; Castelo-Branco & Delgado, 2012; Smith, Palazzo & Bhattacharya, 2010; Palazzo & Basu, 2007) which cannot be defined as well as Labor Boycott - since such studies are not restricted to the labor conditions aspects, but also to the ones involving strategic choices and internal processes issues.

So, the Social Boycott considers, at an early reflection perspective, characteristics related to corporate social responsibility, cutting across the base of the Labor Boycott concept by specifically considering situations involving forced, semi-slavery or child labor. As other identified investigations in literature usually point to consumers' low CSR orientation perception as a motivating factor for the boycott, only considering the characteristics presented by Friedman in relation to Labor Boycott would seem, in the present contemporary society, to be incomplete - even though the author has robustly presented the concept. Therefore, the Social Boycott concept could consider other features that go beyond labor issues as reasons for the boycott, such as those contained on the CSR approach.

Thus, the objective of this paper is to present the concept of Social Boycott considering labor issues contained in the Labor Boycott concept presented by Friedman (1999), but going beyond that, by relating aspects of a company's performance regarding corporate social responsibility aspects. In particular, it seeks to: (i) discuss the absence CSR concept related characteristics to the Labor Boycott concept; (ii) consider and statistically test the impact of a low consumer perception of the management context of CSR in a company towards variables such as Boycott Intention (IB) and Boycott Efficacy (BE); and (iii) introduce the concept of Social Boycott in the literature, by associating it to the ideological dimension of the motivations for the boycott.

The relevance of this article for the consumer behavior literature stands on the importance of expanding the concept of Labor Boycott - which ignores consumers' perceptions on management context of CSR aspects. Besides this, it also makes the possibility of new research related to the types of boycott in the literature to be carried out, updating the contributions already made by the theme of researchers over the past two decades. The next item brings the types of boycott already found in the literature, mainly considering the characteristics of the Labor Boycott concept.

2 Boycott in Consumer Behavior Literature

The word Boycott is used by the media and the population in general to report any kind of repudiation of a person, group or social movements to a situation, context or third party acting (people or organizations). Even in literature there are different perspectives on the use of the term, being both used for (i) expressing generic rejection relations (Culcasi, 2016; Gould, 2013; Schmidmayr, 2013. Viana, 2007) as well as for (ii) analyzing a dismissive attitude by the customer towards a brand, company, products or services (Makaren & Jae, 2016; Albrecht, Campbell, Heinrich, & Lammel, 2013; Cruz, Ross, Braga & Abelha, 2012; Friedman, 1999; 1991).

The concept of boycott used in this study is strictly related to the principles based on the consumer's perspective, and it is indeed justified because in Marketing, the literature defines boycott as the act of deciding not to buy a product when the company preaches values, concepts or beliefs which are nonetheless distant from the consumer's. So, the main characteristic of the concept of boycott is the consumer's choice not to purchase goods or contract services from a company that fails to keep its reputation. This conceptual delimitation is important from the very beginning taking into consideration the fact that there are still two concepts which are closer to boycott (Backlash and Anti-consumerism).

Particularly relating to the backlash, Cruz (2013) deepens his analysis regarding the difference between backlash and boycott in consumer's behavior research. The author describes the boycott as a type of backlash - once understood as a rejection of an individual to something/someone. Thus, in Marketing, from the perspective of the consumption process, the boycott is the rejection strategy used by the consumer against a company to show their outrage towards them.

The reasons to join a boycott may be different (Klein et ah, 2004; 2002; Hoffmann, 2013) between each group of consumers or even among consumers of the same group boycotting the same company, products or services. Friedman (1999) pointed out five types of boycott in one of the first robust studies in the literature on boycott from a consumer perspective: economical, environmental, religious, minorities, relational and labor boycott, cutting across the early important research and reflections agenda published in 1991 in the article named 'Consumer Boycotts: A Conceptual Framework and Research agenda'. Thus, the author also presented a contrast to the boycott act: the buycott--which means consumers rewarding a company by choosing to purchase their products or services, as far as they meet their own ideologies or values.

Currently, digital platforms that allow the accomplishment of the virtual social networks and interaction between consumers in the virtual space concept provide a large amount of data regarding consumer Boycott. Some studies have already demonstrated consumer engagement to conduct the...

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