No abstract

Sustainable consumption, provision of a clean and healthy environment, as well as improvements to the quality of life of current and future generations, are all integral parts of the sustainable development strategy, which is understood as a compromise between the environmental, economic and social objectives of society. The pro-environmental and pro-social consumer engagement in sustainable consumption may lead to behavioral change, thus contributing to the resolution of current global challenges. Although recently the pro-environmental and pro-social engagement concept has received considerable attention, there is still no consensus on what determines it. Moreover, the recent research is limited to identifying individual factors of this phenomenon. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the factors that determine pro-environmental and pro-social consumer engagement in sustainable consumption. The authors employed a qualitative method approach, conducting semi-structured interviews with consumers engaged in sustainable consumption in Lithuania. The research results reveal that these consumers were affected by cognitive, attitudinal and psychosocial factors. In terms of external factors, consumers named contextual factors for sustainable consumption, social norms and the promotion of sustainable consumption. Research results also show an additional internal factor of perceived responsibility, which means perceived duty as an individual to do good for society and the environment.

This study was designed to explore the relationship between destination brand personality, self-congruity and the behavioral intentions of tourists at a local spa resort. The findings indicate that domestic tourists (N=232) of the spa resort attribute personal characteristics to the destination, and the brand personality of this resort is a combination of five dimensions which positively correlate with the tourists’ intentions to return to and recommend the location. The results of the study also confirm that the self-congruity theory can be applied to a spa destination, as positive relationships between all four self-congruity dimensions and intentions to recommend were found. However, our research reveals that there is negative though insignificant correlation between social self-congruity and intention to return.

The findings of the research are consistent and demonstrate the negative relationship between materialism and subjective well-being. The literature also suggests that materialism is one of the main predictors of impulsive buying. It should also be noted that though the relationship of materialism and subjective well-being has been extensively explored, the ambiguity with respect to the directionality of the relationship still prevails in the literature. Subjective well-being recently became the subject of interest of scientists from different fields. However, the relationship of well-being with consumer buying behaviour received scarce attention. In particular the effect of life satisfaction (well-being) on consumers' tendency toward impulsive buying behaviour, except for a few attempts, has been nearly left unaddressed. This study attempts to explain the underlying mechanism of the relationship of subjective well-being and inclination toward impulsive buying behaviour. We hypothesise that subjective well-being affects the propensity toward impulsive buying indirectly through the presence of materialism. Lower levels of well-being increase materialism that in turn leads to a higher-level impulsive buying tendency. The results of the applied path analysis (regression based mediation) support the assumption of the indirect well-being-impulsive buying tendency link, mediated by the level of materialism.

This study explored how different types of perceived corporate social responsibility serve to affect customer loyalty, and how consumer ethical ideologies affect perceived corporate social responsibility. The empirical research analysis reveals that respondents are more often characterised by an ethical ideology of idealism, and that they are most aware of any corporate social responsibility (CSR) that is consumer-orientated. In addition, it has been found that the perceived CSR, which focuses on the public, has a significantly lower impact, while the impact of the perceived employee-orientated CSR is statistically significant only in respect to repeat purchases.