Date of Award

12-15-2014

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Moore School of Business

First Advisor

Satish Jayachandran

Abstract

This dissertation consists of two essays. In both, product sustainability is broadly focused on the environmental and social performance (Luchs et al. 2010) of a product. The first essay explores the role of firm sustainability reputation in behavioral intentions for sustainable products. Additionally, this essay applies construal level theory (Liberman and Trope 1998; Vallacher and Wegner 1985, 1987) and addresses the situation that exists wherein sales of sustainable products produced by firms founded under sustainability principles are more stable than those produced by traditional firms (Clifford and Martin 2011). The second essay introduces a measure of consumer perceived product sustainability (CPPS) for food and beverage products. The impact of consumer perceptions of environmental and social performance on willingness to pay and purchase intentions is explored. Both consumer characteristics (i.e., construal level) and product characteristics (i.e., utilitarian versus hedonic product types) are studied as moderators.

Rights

© 2014, Kealy Carter

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