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2025COM005
Public access from
30/06/2027
Doctoral thesis

An uncharted path : unveiling producer anti-production and producer resistance behaviours

  • 2025

PhD: Università della Svizzera italiana

Anti-consumption
Consumer resistance
Market activism
Power
Producer anti-production
Producer resistance
Responsibilisation
English Three decades of marketing studies on final consumers have demonstrated the existence of consumption behaviours where, individually or collectively, consumers reject products offered by companies or the whole consumeristic culture. These behaviours are known as anti-consumption and consumer resistance. Can entrepreneurs also adopt behaviours that break with the dominant economic logic in a sector? And, if so, how and why do their deviant behaviours differ? This work aims to answer both questions and offers four main contributions based on 27 in-depth interviews conducted with actors in the Italian wine sector - a context in which I have had a long naturalisation over the last 15 years and wherein Italy is the largest producer in volume in the world (OIV, 2024). First, relying upon an extensive literature review, I disentangle the streams of anti-consumption and consumer resistance, which suffer from a layering of contributions that have made their differences and interdependencies particularly opaque. I define anti-consumption as a critical, oppositional, and project-oriented set of consumption-centred behaviours, which is promoted by an individual consumer pursuing an identity project or a group of consumers guided by a philosophy of life, meant to challenge the consumerist culture in general or specific brands and consumption domains in particular. In contrast, I define consumer resistance as a more radical and collective subset of anti-consumption behaviours, explicitly targeting dominant market ideologies and power structures to subvert them. Second, from the literature review I elaborate an all-encompassing taxonomy of anti-consumption behaviours grounded on two dimensions: (1) the purpose and (2) the object of anti-consumption behaviours, which respectively differentiate between anti-consumption behaviours pursued for personal versus societal motivations, and between anti-consumption behaviours directed to specific brands/consumption domains versus the general consumeristic culture. By crossing the two dimensions, I derive four types of anti-consumers (1) simpli-frugal anti-consumers, (2) responsible and resistance anti-consumers, (3) collective brand-related consumers, and (4) individual anti-loyal consumers. Third, and regarding the first research question, I provide empirical support to the conclusion that producers too can engage in anti-production and producer resistant behaviours, whenever they value ideological behavioural motivations - however defined - at least as much as, if not more than, financial motivations. Fourth, and referring to the second research question, I show that said behaviours differ substantially in terms of (1) behavioural types - from mildly critical, as per anti-production, to radically alternative, as per resistance - and (2) behavioural motivations - from heralding in favour of a collegial heritage and terroir to expressing individual identity projects and artistry. By crossing these two dimensions, I derive a taxonomy of anti-production and producer resistant behaviours for the Italian wine industry: (1) conventional, (2) biodynamic, (3) organic, and (4) natural wine producers. Notably, these four producer groups entail substantive differences in the way they interpret their (1) role and profit orientation, (2) product philosophy and relationship with nature, and (3) their interactions with contextual agents (competitors, stakeholders and their education, and technological forces). The empirically grounded contributions are specific to the Italian wine sector that is characterised by (1) a strong dominance of territorial identities, which conflate to distinctive heritages; (2) a deep and internationally recognised expertise, which grants a ‘made in’ support and nurtures storytelling; (3) a massive presence of family businesses, for which production can more easily be an extension of the owners’ self. Sectoral contexts characterised by similar traits could more easily allow for an extension of my results. In sum, the various forms of anti-production and producer resistance I document are a minority yet may represent a weak signal that anticipates a wider change - as it was with the earliest anti-consumption cases thirty years ago.
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Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
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Open access status
green
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https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1332250
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