Projektakademie: Sustainable buyer behavior in the value chain: determinants and marketing implications

改变消费者行为被认为具有促进可持续发展的巨大潜力。但是，不仅仅是在价值链的末端，购买者通过他们的产品选择和使用来决定是否以及在多大程度上为可持续发展做出贡献。在价值链的上游阶段，购买和购买后决策成为其他参与者的前提，从而影响整个价值链的可持续性。然而，以往关于可持续购买者行为的研究，片面地关注价值链最后阶段的可持续消费决定因素，而将价值链上的内部过程（如调整机制、利益相关者关系和权力关系）视为黑箱。然而，遵循这种有限的方法可能无法发现供应链中进一步缺失可持续买方行为冲动的潜在原因（例如对产品使用或替代品的有限知识）以及价值链中可能出现的自下而上现象（例如信息缺陷）。因此，本研究项目旨在实证研究影响价值链不同阶段的可持续购买和购后行为的因素。一方面，如何利用行为心理学的理论和概念，从价值链的各个参与者的角度来解释仅仅表达的和实际可持续的买方行为之间的潜在差距。另一方面，有人问如何减少或避免这种差距。为此，对价值链上下游行为体（制造商-下游用户、下游用户-零售商、零售商-最终用户）不同阶段的所谓行为差距进行实证研究。在此基础上，通过系统地影响价值链中各个行动者的行为，作为可持续导向营销的一部分，推导出克服（避免和减少）不同价值创造层面上的行为差距的起点。在这里，重点是多层次营销，特别是多层次供应链沟通，它包含了供应商向客户的客户提供的所有营销或沟通措施，这在营销科学的实证研究中被广泛忽视。考虑到价值链中各自的利益相关者关系，因此也有可能为可持续购买行为创建逐步激励。

Changing consumer behavior is attributed a high potential for promoting sustainable development. But it is not only at the end of the value chain that buyers, through their product choice and use, decide whether and to what extent contributions are made for sustainable development. At upstream stages of the value chain, purchase and post-purchase decisions become the premise for other players and thus influence sustainability in the value chain as a whole. The previous research on sustainable buyer behavior, however, unilaterally focuses on determinants of sustainable consumption at the last stage of the value chain, while looking at the internal processes along the value chain (e. g. adjustment mechanisms, stakeholder relationships and power relations) as a black box. However, following such a limited approach may fail in detecting potential causes for missing impulses of a sustainable buyer behavior further up in the supply chain (such as limited knowledge of product uses or alternatives) as well as possible bottom-up phenomena in the value chain (such as information deficits). This research project therefore aims to empirically investigate which factors influence sustainable purchase and post-purchase behavior at different stages of the value chain. On the one hand, it is asked how the potential gap between merely expressed and actual sustainable buyer behavior can be explained from the perspective of various actors in the value chain by drawing on theories and concepts of behavioral psychology. On the other hand, it is asked how this gap can be reduced or avoided. For this purpose, this so-called behavioral gap at different stages of the value chain of upstream and downstream actors (manufacturers - downstream users, downstream users - retailers, retailers - end users) is empirically investigated. On this basis, starting points for overcoming (avoiding and reducing) the behavioral gap at different levels of value creation are derived by systematically influencing the behavior of the respective actors in the value chain as part of a sustainability-oriented marketing. Here, the focus is on multi-level marketing and in particular multi-level supply chain communication which subsumes all marketing or communication measures that a provider addresses to its customers' customers which has been widely ignored by empirical research in marketing science. Taking into account the respective stakeholder relationships in the value chain, it is thus also possible to create step-by-step incentives for sustainable buying behavior.