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A Stitch in Time Saves Nine: Facilitators and Impediments of Sustainable Use.

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Thesis(1.68 MB)

Date

2023

Authors

Ashcroft, Zoe

Supervisor

Kapitan, Sommer

Item type

Thesis

Degree name

Master of Business

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Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

In the past people mended goods and kept them in use, by darning socks and utilising skills of a cobbler, through sheer necessity. These behaviours have been lost in today’s modern consumerist society. This throw-away mindset is both financially and environmentally expensive and therefore it is imperative it be revised (e.g., Jung & Jin, 2016). Academic literature has focused on factors that influence the sustainability of purchases. Less research has examined factors influencing how consumers might sustainably use a good, despite product usage and product life extension factors being crucial to sustainable consumption (Makri et al., 2020; Sheoran & Kumar, 2022; Den Hollander & Bakker, 2012; Cherrier, 2010; Sekhon & Armstrong Soule, 2020). This research uses an experiment to reveal if more (vs. less) sustainable acquisition can impact more (vs. less) sustainable use of a good. It also investigates how differing levels of consumer wisdom could impact these behaviours. The study employed a 2 (product category: high-end vs. low-end) x 2 (durable framing vs. non-durable control framing) between-subjects factorial design. New Zealander participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and primed via an advertisement image of three consumer products (stick vacuum cleaner, boots, and duvet inner). Participants were asked a series of questions that included: product attitude evaluation, purchase intentions, product care tendency, product repair propensity, and attitudes toward product retention. Finally, consumer wisdom was measured, and respondents filled in general demographics. The thesis findings show that more sustainable acquisition does not necessarily lead to more sustainable use, and this holds true across all three consumer products tested. This is the first step to answering the first research question, ‘How does sustainable acquisition of goods impact sustainable use?’ In short, it doesn’t. Yet, when addressing the second research question, ‘How does consumer wisdom influence sustainable acquisition and sustainable use of goods?’ it appears that consumer wisdom as a secondary mechanism can be responsible for altering sustainable usage behaviours. This research has clear theoretical, methodological, and managerial contributions and implications. In terms of theory, this study offers more knowledge on the understudied consumption stage of usage and presents additional confirmation of the durability bias within a different consumer context. This thesis answers the call for more quantitative research on product usage (Ackermann et al., 2021). This is among the first studies to practically apply scales measuring consumer usage behaviours— the product care tendency scale (Ackermann et al., 2021) and product repair propensity (Scott & Weaver, 2014)— in relation to the consumer wisdom scale (Luchs, Mick & Haws, 2021). Secondly, this New Zealand-based study also has methodological contributions, as it increases the body of knowledge of consumer behaviour outside the heavily researched United Kingdom and United States contexts. Managerial implications of this thesis emphasise the value of target market identification for marketers. Of note, marketers with a target market who are likely to demonstrate higher levels of consumer wisdom have a heightened preference for purchasing higher-end products in some but not all product categories and more sustainable product usage behaviour.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10292/16827

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