In order to satisfy consumers' needs and wants, marketers present consumers with choices of products and services through marketplace exchanges (Bagozzi 1974; 1975). Some products and services offered in marketing exchange are prosocial, forcing consumers to consider social, environmental, and economic attributes in their decision making process (Devinney, Auger, and Eckhardt 2010; Peloza and Shang 2011). Prior research in sustainability gives limited consideration to consumer-centric approaches to prosocial consumption research (Sheth, Sethia, and Srinivas 2011). Equity theory (Adams 1963; 1965), a theoretical framework established in the management literature, serves as an appropriate framework for studying how consumers are predisposed to prosocial consumption choices. This dissertation fills a gap inherent to the current, reasoned action paradigm of prosocial consumption research by 1) presenting a framework of equity exchange that helps explain prosocial consumption and 2) investigating—with respect to equity exchange—how individual difference dispositions influence prosocial consumption. This dissertation consists of two essays: In the first essay, "Equity Exchange and Consumer Sensitivity to Prosocial Choices," I present a theory of equity exchange, an operationalized construct of equity exchange—equity exchange sensitivity (Huseman, Hatfield, and Miles 1985; 1987)—and empirical support for equity exchange sensitivity's role in the prosocial consumption literature. In the second essay, "The Role of Equity Exchange Sensitivity in the Price-Perceived Quality Context," I test how equity exchange segments predict prosocial consumption preferences with respect to the price-perceived quality relationship (Levin and Johnson 1984; Rao and Monroe 1989; Zeithaml 1988). This dissertation makes several theoretical and substantive contributions. First, I assess how equity exchange theory can impact how researchers and marketers can take a consumer-centric approach to prosocial consumption behaviors. Second, I review how equity exchange sensitivity segmentation benefits both researchers and marketers in understanding how individual difference dispositions predict prosocial consumption choice. Finally, I present suggestions for future research testing the boundary conditions of equity exchange theory, including the potential to broaden its applicability beyond prosocial consumption to more general consumption decisions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-6945 |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| Creators | Ross, Spencer Mitchel |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
Page generated in 0.0019 seconds