Consumers are met with an increasingly intense stream of signals concerning issues like sustainable development, such as climate change, political consumption, social responsibility (e.g. work conditions of employees in developing countries, environmental issues, organic foods, animal welfare, simple living). Many consumers do care about at least some of these issues, but in having to include ordinary parameters like price and quality, may end up feeling overwhelmed during the decision process given the complexities of, and at times dissonance between, societal expectations, cultural norms and categories, personal values, and everyday budgetary constraints. This course will examine these (hyper)complex decision-making processes of the consumer, including how consumer participation in subcultures, online communities and social networks affect consumers’ understanding of themselves as (consumer) citizens as well as consumer related ethical issues (e.g., Fair Trade), social trends, and social responsibilities (e.g., climate changes).

The academic world has only recently begun to study how these developments and trends affect consumer decision making. The course will be based on primarily consumer behavior and supplemented with recent studies relating to consumer culture, ethical consumption, CSR, online communities, etc.

The main topics of the course are:

• Consumers and hyper complexity in decision-making
• Consumer culture and the political consumer
• Consumer ethics
• Ethical aspects of consumer culture, -communities and social networks
• Theoretical perspectives on ethical and CSR initiatives by companies.
• The use/meaning of labels, such as Fair Trade, Organic, Ecological, Climate Friendly, Sustainable

The course´s development of personal competences:

The course aims at developing students’ competencies within ethical areas of consumer behavior, consumer culture and communities. These include a more detailed understanding of how firms use, rely on, and manipulate ethical marketing communication through the use of communicative CSR tactics, including labeling like Fair Trade, Organic and Sustainability.

Recommended literature:

Varey, Richard J. (2010), “Marketing Means and Ends for a Sustainable Society: A Welfare Agenda for Transformative Change”, Journal of Macromarketing, 30 (2), pp. 112-126

Trentmann, Frank (2007): “Citizenship and consumption”, Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol 7(2), pp. 147-158

Arnould, E.J. & Thompson, C..J. (2005): “Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): Twenty Years of Research”, Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 868-882

Sestoft, C.P. (2003): “White Rabbits and Political Consumers”, in: Morsing, Mette and Thyssen, Christina (eds.)(2003): “Corporate values and Responsibility: The Case of Denmark”, Copenhagen, Samfundslitteratur. pp.299-307

McGregor, Sue L.T. (2006), Understanding consumers’ moral consciousness. International Journal of Consumer Studies Vol. 30, No. 2, March , pp164–178

Jocz, Katherine E and Quelch, John A. (2008): “An Exploration of Marketing’s Impact on Society: A Perspective linked to Democracy”, American Marketing Association, Vol 27(2), pp. 202-206

Van Doorn and Verhoef (2010):Construction and Explanation of Sustainable Purchasing Behavior in the Dutch Food Market. Proceedings EMAC conference, Copenhagen Business School

CONNOLLY & SHAW (2006), Identifying fair trade in consumption choice, JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC MARKETING, Vol. 14, pp. 353–368

Smith, N.Craig, Drumwright, Minette E., and Gentile, Mary C. (2010): “The New Marketing Myopia”, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Vol. 29(1), pp. 4-11

Kucuk, S.U. 2008, "Negative Double Jeopardy: The role of anti-brand sites on the internet", Journal of Brand Management, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 209-222.

Luce, Mary Frances (1998): "Choosing to Avoid: Coping with Negatively Emotion-Laden Consumer Decisions". In: Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 24, pp. 409-433

Hansen, T and Thomsen, T.U. (2006): Supra-complex decision making. A framework for understanding the choice behavior of the modern food consumer. Working Paper no. 1, 2006. Department of marketing, Copenhagen Business School

Sestoft, C., (2010) The Specific State-form and Life-mode Consumption Theory. Revised version based on Ph.D. summary.

Jones, T. M. (1991) “Ethical decision making by individuals in organisations: An issue-contingent model” Academy of Management Review, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 366-395

Walck et. al. (2010): Information demand and willingness to pay for eco friendly shoes. Proceedings EMAC conference, Copenhagen Business School

Kambewa, Emma, Ingenbleek, Paul and van Tilburg, Aad (2008): “Improving Income Positions of Primary Producers in International Marketing Channels: The Lake Victoria EU Nile Perch Case”, Journal of Macromarketing 2008, 28; 53