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Thesis (M.Com. (Business Management)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The primary objective of the study was to examine the effect of values (biospheric values, altruistic values, egoistic values and openness to change values) on voluntary pro-environmental behaviour of employees of SMMEs.In addition, the study investigated the moderating effect of demographic variables (gender, age and level of education) in the relationship between values and pro-environmental behaviour. The quantitative approach was utilised and the cross-sectional survey method was used to collect data from the respondents that were conveniently sampled. The Cronbach’s alpha was used to measure reliability and the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS SEM) was utilised to analyse data. The findings of the study indicated that biospheric values has a negative relationship with employees’ voluntary proenvironmental behaviour. Three values (altruistic, egoistic and openness to change values) have significant positive relationships with voluntary pro-environmental behaviour of employees. The moderating effects of gender, age and level of education are insignificant. Recommendations on how to use values to improve the voluntary pro-environmental behaviour of employees of SMMEs are outlined.

Social media sites and platforms have been on the rise for the last decade. Especially sincethe start of the still on-going Covid-19 pandemic it reached an all time high. Over half of theworld’s population is using social media. Everyone knows Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,TikTok, Snapchat, and many more. This fact has not gone unnoticed by companies as theyincreasingly integrate social media into their portfolio. Social media advertising is nowadayseverywhere. There is not a single site without any ads. Regardless the research about it is stillvery scarce. This master thesis will investigate the influence of social media advertising on consumerbehavior. More detailed it will focus on how consumers react to advertisements. For thispurpose, a quantitative survey has been conducted. The base for this survey is a developedconceptual framework based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model and the Value-Belief-Norm theory model. Further factors of the survey include different values and beliefs onwhich the analysis is depending. The main value playing a role in this study is sociallyresponsible consumption behavior. This value tackles how much consumers care about theenvironment and the human society. Simply spoken, how sustainable and how social do theybehave. Furthermore, three beliefs have been chosen in tandem with this value: Self -confidence, impulsiveness, and interpersonal/group influence. All are believed to have animpact on how consumers are perceiving advertisements they see on social media. Eachconnection between the value, the beliefs, and the reaction to advertisements will be tested.Believed connections are between the sustainability value of the consumers and the threebeliefs as well as towards the video. Further, it is believed that the beliefs will have an effecton the reaction to advertisements from consumers. My study will indicate how companies cantake advantage of advertisements to gain more followers on social media and sell moreproducts. The outcome of this study will present a clear picture of the role of sustainable andsocially responsible behavior towards ads on social media as well as the impact of beliefs.

Even though international conflicts often lead to varied responses from state actors, the reasons behind these differences remain underexplored, especially regarding political support for those who are harmed. This study investigates why some states express solidarity with those harmed in armed conflict, focusing on the Israel-Gaza conflict as a case study. I argue that the intensity of civil society advocacy significantly influences state actors’ solidarity behaviour. This argument is structured around a three-step causal mechanism: civil society advocacy raises public awareness, prompting public pressure on state actors, which increases costs of inaction, leading to solidarity expressions. By employing a structured, focused comparison of Spain and Italy, the study qualitatively assesses public solidarity manifestations and civil society advocacy intensity, using protest data and media coverage as indicators. The findings suggest that Spain’s intense civil society advocacy has resulted in significant public pressure and official solidarity displays, whereas Italy’s weaker civil society response led to less solidarity manifestations. These results highlight the crucial role of civil society in shaping state behaviour during conflicts, providing both theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of civic engagement and state’s conflict response.

Holiday air travel behaviors are nowadays a significant issue in relation to climate change and sustainable tourism. Indeed, transportation, and especially air transportation, have a significant role in climate change. Hence, it is important that the tourism industry includes the transportation sector when developing solutions for sustainable tourism. As students are the future main target group of this industry, it is important to understand the reasons behind their choices. Until now, travel behaviors have been explained using single and specific theories, which did not include many factors explaining holiday air travel decisions. In this study, this concern is addressed by combining two theories in relation to behavior formation - the theory of planned behavior and the value-belief-norm theory - in order to understand all motivations and barriers behind students’ holiday air travel behaviors. The analysis of the findings shows that many internal and external factors affect students decisions in regards to flying during holidays, including values, beliefs, social and personal norms, as well as accessibility, country of origin, price, time, distance, and social influence. However, the analysis of the results also demonstrates two gaps between attitudes and behaviors within the student community, which link to the cognitive dissonance theory: an awareness-attitude behavior gap and a contextual gap. The paper argues that while the theory of planned behavior and the value-belief-norm theory can be used simultaneously in order to analyze decisions regarding holiday air transportation, they are not sufficient as these two gaps emerged. The study concludes suggesting destination developers and national governments to take into account the present factors behind students’ decisions in order to develop sustainable destinations.

The concept of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) has been promoted in the past few decades all over the world. Non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners play an important role in that aspect in the U.S. because of their number (about 16 millions), the size of forest land under their control (about half of all forest land in the continental US), and the dynamism of their population (increasing number of new owners). This study sought to better understand how NIPF owners come to a decision for adoption (or non-adoption) of SFM practices. We developed a theoretical model combining four theories (the Value-Belief-Norm theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Elaboration Likelihood Model, and the Innovation-Diffusion Process) to explain NIPF's decision making. Using multivariate analyses, we determined which elements of the developed theoretical model were significant in explaining adoption of eight groups of practices. Overall, some of the most significant predictors of adoption we identified were technical assistance, motivations for owning land and the use of a written management plan. Particular attention was also directed toward the eventual relationship between education and adoption of SFM practices and it was found that NIPF owners who attended educational programs tended to be likely adopters compared to those who did not attend any educational program. Since SFM was not limited to the US, we also analyzed the concept of SFM with the same goals as in the US, but under a completely different context (socio-cultural, economic and ecologic) in Africa, through the community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) system. We used four case studies and focused on criteria such as participation, equity (both procedural and distributive, power devolution, trust, etc) to analyze how CBNRM works on the field, what lessons to take from the cases to better ensure the goal of sustainability of the resources. / Ph. D.

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