This study seeks to investigate, from both macro and micro perspectives, the effect of brand activism on consumer loyalty.  The macro perspective examines the general relationship between brand activism and consumer loyalty, whereas the micro perspective examines the specific context of companies' withdrawal from Russia as a form of brand activism.  The study conducts a comprehensive analysis of how the consumer receives information about brand activism. The macro-level literature review investigates the definition and evolution of brand activism, the relationship between brand activism and consumer loyalty, and the communication strategies' effect on consumer loyalty. On a micro level, the study concentrates on the decisions corporations made as part of their brand activism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict of 2022.  The purpose of this study is to thoroughly comprehend the intricate relationship between brand activism and consumer loyalty.  The methodology section describes the hypotheses model as well as the research strategy based on surveys and interviews.  This study's findings provide new insights into the influence of brand activism on consumer loyalty and its three components (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) as well as brand activism communication strategies on the macro level, and into the specific context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the micro level. It highlights that brand activism shapes consumer loyalty differently through the three components and according to the context. Additionally, social media is the communication channel that influences the most the relationship between brand activism and consumer loyalty on both macro and micro perspectives.  This study contributes to the disciplines of marketing and consumer behavior by advancing the relationship among brand activism, consumer loyalty, and communication.

This paper investigates the key corporate sustainability performance indicators from the consumers' perspective in Sweden. The aim is to deepen the understanding of consumers as main stakeholders and their preferences for corporate sustainability. An online quantitative survey with 1003 respondents showed that fair working conditions and employment terms were the most important indicators, followed by strong sustainability requirements for suppliers and actions in case of human violations. Furthermore, the research results show that young and better-educated consumers rank environmental parameters as a more important indicator. The research contributes to CSR and stakeholder theory in better understanding the consumers’ perspectives on corporate sustainability.

The aim of this research was to investigate the consumer perception of corporate social responsibility initiatives of companies in the vegan food industry, considering the consumers’ dietary choice and socio-demographic characteristics. The study is based on primary, quantitative data which was collected through anonymous surveys (N = 816). A social media sampling strategy was adopted, and a questionnaire was distributed among Europeans above the age of 18. The data was analysed with descriptive statistics, Cronbach Alpha reliability tests, one-way analysis of variance, and independent sample t tests. The findings showed that vegans care significantly more about CSR in the vegan food industry than non-vegans, hence they should be the target audience for CSR advertisements. Socio-demographic characteristics did not have an influence on perceptions among vegans, and only the characteristic of gender showed to be of importance, as women care more about CSR than men among vegetarians and omnivores. Therefore, the second target audience for CSR advertisements should be non-vegan women. CSR in the vegan food industry was rated as more legitimate compared to the rest of the food industry by all consumers, and all-vegan companies were rated as more socially responsible than companies that recently introduced vegan products in addition to their non-vegan range.

The research examines the target market for a meat product produced by the local university. Further, desirable attributes of meat and how consumers definition of “locally produced and/or raised” are identified. A total of 290 personal interviews were completed in San Luis Obispo County, California on the consumers’ willingness to purchase Cal Poly meat. Likely purchasers are found to be 31 percent of the San Luis Obispo population. The target buyer of Cal poly meat products are both male and females, who tend to be older, and make more than $60,000 a year. Local is defined by 31 percent of likely Cal Poly Meats buyers as being grown and/or raised within the county they reside in, and also shared by residents of San Luis Obispo County. Additionally, it was found local vegetables are a more highly valued product than local meats, fruits, and wines product grown within the San Luis Obispo County.

The sharing economy enables sustainable consumption through efficient access to products, but transitioning from ownership to a subscription-based model faces barriers. The thesis author explored how the decoupling of product ownership impact on the variables; consumer's perceptions of - psychological value, monetary value, social value, brand image, brand attachment, brand loyalty, service quality, and product quality and performance in the context of white goods. Furthermore, the thesis authors added sustainability awareness as an important variable, while discussing the decoupling of product ownership. Although, there is a lot of literature on the above-mentioned variables the relationship between the decoupling of product ownership and the mentioned variables was theoretically and empirically unexplored. Using a quantitative and deductive research approach, an online survey consisting of 29 questions was conducted. The empirical data revealed that the decoupling of product ownership impact all the variables under study and have a significant relationship with them. The impact of decoupling of product ownership was found to be strongest on consumers' perception of - service quality, followed by brand loyalty, brand attachment, product quality and performance, and monetary value. By gaining a deeper understanding of the relationships between the variables companies can effectively develop marketing strategies, subscription plans, and pricing strategies.

Servitization has long since proven its benefits for manufacturing companies and is expected to gain future importance due to its sustainable and competitive significance. Yet, research has insufficiently addressed the effect of consumer goods companies integrating services in their portfolio to meet customer demands and justify new pricing models in B2C markets. This research focuses on the consumer perception of services from different levels of complexity to provide managerial implications on how SMEs are advised to react to the Servitization trend in Sweden. A conceptualization of services according to the service scale by Mastrogiacomo et al. (2020) provides the framework for obtaining cross-sectional consumer data on the perception of servitization levels using a customer survey in the Swedish market for the durable consumer goods start-up Sjöstrand. Findings show that the key factors for the perception of services are demographics and the customer’s relation to the brand. The analyzed factors of age, customer relationship, and previous topic-related knowledge about servitization show that higher degrees of customer loyalty prove essential for implementing long-term service strategies like leasing or individualized service plans without transfer of ownership. Services that provide customers with additional knowledge and communication on an individual level demonstrate simple ways to provide high value in use and sustainability. Growing demands for personalization, customer co-creation, and the self-repair trend require companies to identify strategies to increase value-in-use. Furthermore, many services may require an assessment for deservitization as their value proposition can misalign with managerial expectations. / Tjänstefiering har sedan länge visat sig vara fördelaktigt för tillverkningsföretag och förväntas få ökad betydelse i framtiden på grund av dess hållbara och konkurrenskraftiga signifikans. Tidigare forskning har dock inte i tillräcklig utsträckning undersökt effekten för konsumentvaruföretag som integrerar tjänster i sin portfölj för att uppfylla kundernas krav och motivera nya prismodeller på B2C-marknaderna. Denna forskning fokuserar på konsumenternas uppfattning av tjänster från olika komplexitetsnivåer, för att vidare ge ledningsmässiga implikationer om hur små och medelstora företag bör reagera på tjänstefieringtrenden inom konsumentvarusegmentet i Sverige. En konceptualisering av tjänster enligt tjänsteskalan av Mastrogiacomo et al. (2020) utgör ramen för att få tvärsnittsdata från konsumenter om uppfattningen av tjänstefieringsnivåer. Detta framtogs med hjälp av en kundundersökning på den svenska marknaden för varaktiga konsumtionsvaror start-up Sjöstrand. Resultatet visar att de viktigaste faktorerna för uppfattningen av service är demografi och kundens relation till varumärket. Vidare analyseras att faktorer som ålder, kundrelation och tidigare ämnesrelaterad kunskap om tjänstefiering främjar kundlojalitet som är avgörande för att genomföra långsiktiga servicestrategier såsom leasing eller individualiserade serviceplaner utan överföring av äganderätten. Tjänster som bidrar med mer kunskap och kommunikation på individuell nivå visar enkelt ett högt värde i användning och hållbarhet för kunderna. Ökade krav på personalisering, medskapande och trenden med självreparationer kräver att företagen i allt högre grad identifierar strategier för att öka värdet i användningen. Många tjänster kan dessutom kräva en bedömning för ‘Deservitization’ (minskning av tjänsterna) eftersom deras värdeerbjudande kan missanpassas till ledningens förväntningar.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / This study focuses on determining what key differences predispose a consumer to regularly purchase and be willing to pay a premium for sustainably-produced fruits and vegetables. Organic, local, and small farm are the three cases used in the study. The research used a structured questionnaire to conduct an online survey of U.S. internet users with email addresses in the spring of 2011 with logit and ordered logit regression used as the analytical tools. Cost was the most important factor for consumers who did not purchase organic and local products more frequently while unavailability was the principal reason for not consuming produces from small farms. The study showed consumers of small farm products often (98.5 percent of the time) consume local fruits and vegetables also but not the other way around. The relevant socio-economic factors for determining organic purchasing frequency were gender, household size, and education. For small farm they were the ability to influence local change and the respondents’ frequency of purchase of local products. Socio-economic characteristics did not prove to be a factor in local purchasing decisions. Regular purchasers of organic fruits and vegetables provided a consistent perception of organic products with the USDA certified organic definition. Local consumers reported that taste and freshness are the most defining characteristics of local products while small farm consumers could not provide a clear picture of the definitional statements defining fruits and vegetables produced by a small farm. This implied that there is need for more work by small farm producers to differentiate themselves in the market. On the contrary, both local and organic producers have a clear point of differentiation to reach their customers. Industry marketing efforts can be greatly improved by focusing on the characteristics of the consumers they are trying to reach. Our results can be further investigated by completing the following recommendations. First, to conduct more targeted studies such as interviews or focus groups, second, to gain a deeper understanding of how consumers perceive these attributes and third to conduct a comprehensive study on the similarities and differences between small farm and local consumers.

Corporate Social Responsibility has grown in importance of the present society and therefore becomes a meaningful operation for companies today. Since the society is structured by consumers, companies have been forced to adapt this concept in their work, by the reason of keeping and gaining the consumers. For companies to be able to do so, they have to understand their customers and be aware of the different consumers purchase intention. These intention have shown to differ in regard of different industries, which is why this study have chosen to focus on the food industry, where the criticisms for the CSR initiatives are high. Consequently, the purpose of the study is to describe how consumers’ in the food industry perceive CSR and to explore how the perceived CSR affects their purchasing intention. Two research questions were made and to be able to answer these, relevant theories was established. The research was conducted using a quantitative study and a descriptive approach to analyze the collected data. The collection of data was made through nine interviews, divided into three involvement level for the reason of including all kinds of consumers. The results found that the general brand appearance is reflected in the companies’ products and therefore made their purchase based on this. The consumers perceived it hard to gain credible knowledge of companies CSR which leads them to make their purchase based on responsible certified labelling or recognition of the products instead. The consumers have a higher credibility for the negative information about companies. They therefore acts with CSR as a purchase criterion of this as they exclude products from this kind of companies. The consumer did however not act with CSR as a purchase criterion if the price was too high, as this was of a greater importance than CSR for the consumers. Because of the low information level and the low credibility, the consumers rather makes their decision based on what they perceive as less irresponsible instead of what they perceive as responsible. Keywords: CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, Consumer perception, Consumer awareness, Consumer values, Consumer attitudes, CSR purchase criterion

This thesis explores the relationship between designer intent and consumer response. A novel approach to evaluate the degree of correspondence between designer intent and consumer perceptions has been proposed. The empirical results have shown the influence of consumers’ cultural backgrounds on the way they perceive semantic and symbolic product personalities (characteristics of a product and its owner, respectively), comparing British and Japanese consumer groups. Semantic product personalities are more likely to be universally perceived and more easily intentionally elicited from consumers than symbolic product personalities. The research project consists of a pilot study (Phases I) and an experiment (Phase II) in which mixed methods of interview and survey are employed. Phase I seeks to explore the in-depth understanding of a designer’s thoughts by interviews, and to develop and test newly elaborated consumer surveys termed Designer-driven semantic differentials and Consumer-driven adjective selection. The findings have been considered to construct an analytical framework, characterised by Agreement among consumer perceptions and Correspondence between designer intent and the consumer perceptions, for evaluation of designers’ elicitation of intended product personalities from consumers. Phase II conducts a statistical examination of the impact of cultural difference on consumer perceptions under experimental conditions. The perception of target and non-target consumer groups as categorised by nationality were gauged by Designer-driven semantic differentials and Personality selection, specifically perception of USB sticks designed by three different designers. The survey results are analysed by using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and Chi-squared test within the analytical framework. Subsequently, the results from Phase I and II are extensively discussed based on a framework based on brand personality and Affect Control Theory, both of which may involve potential impact on the development of design research into product development with emotional attachment. The scene is set for future research opportunities based on the approach and findings of this study.

Aim The aim of the study is to test the relationship between augmented reality and the Swedish millennials’ purchase intention of shopping goods. Methods A survey was distributed online to Swedish millennials (born between the years of 1982 and 2000). Non-probability sampling was conducted in order to collect primary data by making use of convenience and snowball sampling. A total amount of 408 valid responses were collected which were analysed by correlation, linear regression and moderation regression analyses. Results The variables related to augmented reality (product perception, risk perception, augmented reality experience, hedonic experience and utilitarian experience) were found to be significantly related to the consumers’ purchase intention. The relationship between product perception and purchase intention was found to be moderated by the online experience with augmented reality. However, no proof was found that perceived risk when shopping online is moderated by using augmented reality. Conclusion Augmented reality can be used as a tool to enhance the consumers’ perception of the offered product and therewith raise the online purchase intention of Swedish millennials for shopping goods. The efficiency and informative aspects that augmented reality can provide are especially appreciated. Therefore, this study can recommend online retailers to introduce an augmented reality strategy in order to raise Swedish millennials’ purchase intention of shopping goods and therewith increase the sales numbers.