A Consumer Behavior Musing: Could the Use of Consumer Boycotts and/or Buycotts Encourage Businesses to Better Use CSR in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Abstract

This paper poses the possibility of consumer boycotts and buycotts as tools to move corporations to implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) that better serves their workers and the communities of the consumers who buy their products during this Covid-19 pandemic. Multiple definitions of CSR are given and critiqued in terms of how CSR implementation stands up to the needs of company stakeholders who are not stock. Boycotts and buycotts as consumer behavior tools are defined and discussed along with examples of each and the corporate actions that brought them into being. How consumers can best activate and affect companies’ CSR by using social media and voicing their disapproval (via boycotts) and approval (via buycotts) of how companies exercise their CSR is also discussed.