OBJECTIVES To propose criteria to help advocates: (1) determine when tobacco related boycotts may be useful; (2) select appropriate targets; and (3) predict and measure boycott success. METHODS Analysis of tobacco focused boycotts retrieved from internal tobacco industry documents websites and other scholarship on boycotts. RESULTS Tobacco related boycotts may be characterised by boycott ta...

This paper suggests that consumer boycotts target irresponsible behaviors of corporations toward consumer, political, and social issues. After identifying the characteristics of consumer boycotts’ best practices, the paper documents the results of a field study conducted on consumer boycotts in Switzerland. Results reveal its peculiarities compared to the reality in the United States, where emp...

This paper presents a model of consumer boycotts where the discrete choices of concerned consumers are represented as a stochastic processes. Boycotts are interpreted as a form of voting where consumers are trying to shape the behavior of firms.We solve for the limiting distribution of the process and analyze its properties. We then discuss how the model relates to standard game-theoretic appro...

The main goal of this project is to analyze the mechanisms of trade boycotts and their effectiveness in disrupting international trade flows. International boycotts are a special form of non-violent conflict between countries and are often sparked by nationalist or religious feelings. Similar to violent forms of conflict like war, they are costly and ex-post inefficient as they destroy rents in...

A boycott is never far from a firm’s exchanges with its customers. Researchers in marketing need to understand consumer protest behavior, both to aid NGOs who wish to organize boycotts and to assist managers who wish to develop appropriate strategic responses. Boycotts, like many other problems of collective action, are subject to free-rider and small-agent problems: there appears to be little ...

Sumanta Banerjee ([email protected]) is best known for his book In the Wake of Naxalbari: A History of the Naxalite Movement in India (1980). The Maoists want a provision in the electoral rules to arm the voter with the right to reject a candidate, but if the voters are granted such a provision, will they allow them to participate in the elections, or still insist on boycotting them? It is hi...

While the threat of boycotts has become an important consideration in management decision-making, there has been little research of factors influencing an individual's motivation to participate in a boycott. This paper examines self-enhancement and need for consistency as possible explanations. It also adapts theories about pressure group motivations underlying calls for boycotts to explain ind...