Business School

Consumer behaviour

This research stream focuses on the study of consumers and consumption-related issues. Contemporary issues include consumers’ processing of, and responses to, marketing communications, packaging and design; the impact of the computer-mediated environment; consumers’ experiences, including the role of rituals and attachment; and consumers’ responses to companies’ social responsibility efforts.

Research in these areas encompasses the following domains:

Consumers in the digital environment: how the digital environment differs from the physical environment and how digital technology affects relationships with consumers.
Consumers’ responses to marketing communications: how consumers read advertising texts, process advertising messages, and respond to messages embedded in entertainment content.
Consumers’ experience of shopping: how consumers construct the shopping experience, what motivates their shopping behaviour, and what happens when their expectations are disconfirmed.
Consumers’ experience of possessions and place: how do ritual, possession meaning, and self-conceptualisation influence consumers’ attachments to possessions and places?
Ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR): how consumers react to companies’ CSR efforts.

Researchers in consumer behaviour