Not Under Our Watch: The Effect of Global‐Local Identity on Boycott Participation

ABSTRACT

With boycotts becoming a ubiquitous global phenomenon, the paper examines the effects of global versus local identity on individuals' decisions to participate in boycotts. Across multiple studies, including real‐world multicountry secondary data and controlled experiments, the paper demonstrates that individuals with salient global (vs. local) identities exhibit a positive attitude towards boycotts and a greater tendency to participate in boycotts. In addition, the paper demonstrates the key effect across different boycott contexts. Furthermore, a stronger belief in collective action efficacy among individuals with salient global identities explains why such individuals exhibit a greater tendency to participate in boycotts. Later studies in this paper explore contextual factors that moderate this relationship and offer managerial, and policy implications aimed at corporate remedial response. Our findings offer valuable insights with significant implications for both theory and practice, particularly in the realms of marketing strategies and public policy.