Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Also available in print.

Shared social responsibility (SSR) has been increasingly promoted in sustainability research. While conceptual development has been expanded, empirical developments are still in their infancy. Extant SSR literature acknowledges that entities like industry, governments, consumers, and others must accept responsibility for achieving a common goal. However, a basic understanding of how consumers view this responsibility in the shared setting is lacking. Since collaborative efforts towards sustainability may be strategically more effective than individual efforts, this research investigates SSR from the consumers' perspective in order to determine how responsibility is assigned to the various entities involved in a specific form of sustainability, "green" product consumption. Perceptions of responsibility may influence future sustainability-minded consumer behavior; hence, this research offers relevant contributions for understanding the shared social dynamic. Utilizing elements of attribution theory, equity theory, and diffusion of responsibility, this research examined how ability, perceived consumer effectiveness, perceptions of equity, and group size influence consumer attribution of responsibility for future "green" product consumption. Three experiments were conducted; the first two used an online scenario-based approach while the third was administered primarily at the University of Arizona. Data was analyzed using various statistical techniques, including multivariate analysis of variance to address the study hypotheses. Results established that consumers share responsibility for future "green" product consumption with corporations, government, and other consumers - but this responsibility is not shared evenly. Under most of the conditions evaluated, corporations, and government to a lesser degree, were attributed significantly more responsibility than consumers assigned themselves. The amount of effort required to use a "green" product, ability to positively change the environment, and equity of an interaction between a consumer and a manufacturer did not affect consumer attribution of responsibility. Group size had some impact, such that consumers who were not made explicitly aware of being in a group and those interacting with one other entity evenly shared responsibility for future "green" product consumption with the others involved. Consumers in larger groups assigned more responsibility to corporations than to themselves. Social loafing was determined not to be a factor in how consumers assigned responsibility in groups of various sizes.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how consumer behavior related to food changed during the pandemic in Sweden. At the beginning of 2020 a global pandemic named Covid-19 hit all the countries, Sweden being one of them.  The pandemic has forced everyone to change their usual lifestyle in order to be safe from the virus. The consumers' food choices have been changed during the pandemic, this topic would be interesting to be researched by the authors. Since the pandemic has urged worldwide, most of the countries have been affected because of it. The researchers have conducted a  questionnaire in order to be able to analyze the situation in Sweden from the consumers point of view. The findings indicate changes in consumer behavior and buying behavior that are tied with the pandemic times in the context of health. Some changes have been observed in product buying for food consumption as many people bought healthier products.