Prof. Dr. Stefan Hoffmann

Principal Investigator, Kiel Centre for Globalization
Chair of Marketing, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel
Email: stefan.hoffmann@bwl.uni-kiel.de
Tel: +49(0)431-880-2165

Expertise:

  • Consumer Behaviour
  • Health Marketing
  • Communication
  • Intercultural Marketing

 


How consumer animosity drives anti-consumption: A multi-country examination of social animosity

29th January 2025
KCG Secretary
Authors: Tinka Krüger, Stefan Hoffmann, Ipek N. Nibat, Robert Mai, Olivier Trendel, Holger Görg, Wassili Lasarov (Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2024, 81: 103990)

In times of uncertainty, the study of consumer animosity and how it affects anti-consumption behavior becomes more important for both academics and practitioners. This study focuses on the social nature of boycotts and contributes to the literature by analyzing the influence of normative components[...]

The Backfire Effect of Sustainable Social Cues. New Evidence on Social Moral Licensing

8th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: WassiliLasarov, RobertMai, StefanHoffmann (Ecological Economics, 2022, 195 : 107376)

To encourage individuals to consume sustainably, managers and policymakers often highlight positive examples that others have set regarding sustainable consumer behavior (e.g., donations to a good cause). This study shows that under certain circumstances, this strategy provokes a paradoxical effect such that consumers deliberately deviate from these positive examples[...]

Vanishing Boycott Impetus: Why and How Consumer Participation in a Boycott Decreases Over Time

8th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Wassili Lasarov, Stefan Hoffmann, Ulrich Orth (Journal of Business Ethics, forthcoming)

Media reports that a company behaves in a socially nonresponsible manner frequently result in consumer participation in a boycott. As time goes by, however, the number of consumers participating in the boycott starts dwindling. Yet, little is known on why individual participation in a boycott declines and what type of consumer is more likely to stop boycotting earlier rather than later. Integrating research on drivers of individual boycott participation with multi-stage models and the hot/cool cognition system, suggests a “heat-up” phase in which boycott participation is fueled by expressive drivers, and a “cool-down” phase in which instrumental drivers become more influential[...]

When Drivers Become Inhibitors of Organic Consumption: The Need for a Multistage View

7th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Robert Mai, Stefan Hoffmann, Ingo Balderjahn (Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2021, 49: 1151–1174)

The organic market is characterized by remarkable disparities, and confusion persists about which motives drive organic consumption. To understand them, this research introduces the idea that the same consumer motives can exert different and potentially opposite impacts when organic consumption patterns unfold[...]

Indirect Rebound Effects on the Consumer Level: A State-of-the-art Literature Review

19th November 2021
KCG Secretary
Authors: Hanna Reimers, Anke Jacksohn, Dennis Appenfeller, Wassili Lasarov, Alexandra Hüttel, Katrin Rehdanz, Ingo Balderjahn, Stefan Hoffmann (Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, 2021, Vol. 3, Article: 100032)

Indirect rebound effects on the consumer level occur when potential greenhouse gas emission savings from the usage of more efficient technologies or more sufficient consumption in one consumption area are partially or fully offset through the consumers’ adverse behavioral responses in other areas[...]

Too Cold to Be Skeptical: How Ambient Temperature Moderates the Effects of CSR Communication

19th November 2021
KCG Secretary
Authors: Wassili Lasarov, Robert Mai, Jan S. Krause, Ulrich Schmidt, Stefan Hoffmann (Ecological Economics , 2021, 183, Article: 106943)

Consumer reactions to firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication range from favorable approval to outright skepticism toward the company. This paper contributes to the CSR literature by introducing a so-far overseen but relevant variable that helps to explain why consumer sometimes react positively and sometimes negatively to CSR communication: the ambient temperature[...]

Virtue Ethics between East and West in Consumer Research: Review, Synthesis and Directions for Future Research

19th November 2021
KCG Secretary
Authors: Guli-Sanam Karimova, Nils Christian Hoffmann, Ludger Heidbrink, Stefan Hoffmann (Journal of Business Ethics, 2020, 165: 255–275)

This literature review systematically synthesizes studies that link consumer research to differences and similarities in virtue ethics between the East and the West, with a focus on early Chinese and ancient Greek virtue ethics. These two major traditions provide principles that guide consumer behavior and thus serve as a background to comparatively explain and evaluate the ethical nature of consumer behavior in the East and the West[...]

Welfare Beyond Consumption: The Benefits of Having Less

19th November 2021
KCG Secretary
Authors: Alexandra Hüttel, Ingo Balderjahn, Stefan Hoffmann (Ecological Economics, 2020, 176, Article: 106719)

In developed regions worldwide, so-called anti-consumers are increasingly resisting high-level consumption lifestyles or shifting to alternative forms of consumption. A general reduction in consumption levels is considered necessary to attain global sustainability goals[...]

KCG Managing Director Holger Görg is Invited to Join a Hearing on Supply Chain Law Today

28th April 2021
KCG Secretary
Today there will be a hearing on “Supply Chain Law” in the Environment and Agriculture Committee of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein. Prof. Holger Görg, Ph.D. (KCG Managing Director) is invited to provide his views on this topic. In total, 16 experts and representatives of environmental and development organisations as well as industry/business associations are expected to share their opinion on the topic from various aspects at the hearing[...]

KCG Policy Paper No. 7: Ein Lieferkettengesetz für Deutschland?

12th February 2021
KCG Secretary
Authors: Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, Ludger Heidbrink, Stefan Hoffmann, Till Requate

Ein Lieferkettengesetz kann einen starken Anreiz dafür setzen, dass deutsche Unternehmen sich für nachhaltige Sozial- und Umweltbedingungen in globalen Lieferketten einsetzen. Dabei sollte jedoch überdacht werden, ob es zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt nicht sinnvoller wäre, eine gesetzlich vorgeschriebene Haftung durch eine zunächst zeitlich befristete Selbstverpflichtungsphase zu ersetzen oder zu ergänzen[…]

Chain of Blame: A Multi-Country Study of Consumer Reactions towards Supplier Hypocrisy in Global Supply Chains

23rd March 2020
KCG Secretary
Authors: Nils Christian Hoffmann, Juelin Yin, and Stefan Hoffmann (Management International Review, 2020, Vol. 68, 247-286)

Recent research identified firms’ hypocritical behavior as a major threat to their reputation among consumers. This paper expands the dyadic relationship to a triadic relationship, integrating the hypocritical behavior of suppliers in global supply chains. Introducing a chain of blame[…]

Under Which Conditions Are Consumers Ready to Boycott or Buycott? The Roles of Hedonism and Simplicity

14th November 2019
KCG Secretary
Authors: Stefan Hoffmann, Ingo Balderjahn, Barbara Seegebarth, Robert Mai and Mathias Peyer (Ecological Economics, 2018, Vol. 147, 167-178)

There are two fundamental ways in which consumers can express their concerns and obligations for society through their consumption decisions: They can boycott companies that they deem to be irresponsible or they may deliberately buy from companies that they perceive to act responsibly[…]

Virtue Ethics Between East and West in Consumer Research: Review, Synthesis and Directions for Future Research

14th November 2019
KCG Secretary
Authors: Guli-Sanam Karimova, Nils Christian Hoffmann, Ludger Heidbrink and Stefan Hoffmann (Journal of Business Ethics, 2019)

This literature review systematically synthesizes studies that link consumer research to differences and similarities in virtue ethics between the East and the West, with a focus on early Chinese and ancient Greek virtue ethics. These two major traditions provide principles that guide consumer behavior and thus serve as a background to comparatively explain and evaluate the ethical nature of consumer behavior in the East and the West. The paper first covers Eastern and Western[…]

KCG Involved in a New DFG Project on Social and Vicarious Consumer Animosity

28th August 2019
KCG Secretary
Prof. Dr. Stefan Hoffmann (KCG and Kiel University) will lead a new research project “Me, we, and them: A context-sensitive model of social and vicarious consumer animosity (ME-WE-THEM)”, in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Oliver Trendel (Grenoble Ecole de Management) and Prof. Dr. Robert Mai (Grenoble Ecole de Management). Two further KCG Research Fellows will be[…]

KCG Researchers Investigate Consumer Roles in Collaborative Consumption

9th August 2019
KCG Secretary
The rapid development of new digital technologies has facilitated the formation of new e-business ideas. Many of these ideas can be seen as the implementation of a new collaborative form of consumption and production and are expected to have their potential economic impact beyond national boundaries. Here economic agents take both roles of consumers and suppliers. This makes them different from the traditional business models where the classic supplier-consumer dualism usually applies[…]

Hungry Bellies Have No Ears. How and Why Hunger Inhibits Sustainable Consumption

12th July 2019
KCG Secretary
Authors: Stefan Hoffmann, Robert Mai, Wassili Lasarov, Jan Krause and Ulrich Schmidt (Ecological Economics, Vol. 160, 96-104)

While reports state that consumers are increasingly willing to consume more sustainably, no study has considered how the activation of very basic human needs, such as the state of hunger, affects sustainable food consumption. The authors expect that hungry consumers display a lower preference for sustainable food items and that this hunger-induced[…]

KCG Co-hosted the Consumer Social Responsibility Workshop in Kiel, Germany

2nd July 2019
KCG Secretary
KCG was pleased to co-host the successful workshop “Consumer Social Responsibility” on May 23 – 24. At the workshop which took place at the Science Park (Wissenschaftspark) in Kiel, Germany, senior and junior scientists from Germany and abroad presented their ongoing related projects and discussed the scientific, social and political relevance of Consumer Social Responsibility (ConSR) and its relation to the very established concept of Corporate Social Responsibility[…]

KCG will Co-organise a Workshop on Consumer Social Responsibility on May 23-24 in Kiel

25th April 2019
KCG Secretary
KCG Logo
KCG works on an interdisciplinary research agenda that analyses the economic and social consequences of global supply chains, focusing particularly on related ethical issues. One key aspect here is the role of consumers and their social responsibility along the global supply chains. The KCG Project “Cross-cultural differences in the perception of corporate social responsibility and consumer social responsibility along global supply chains” thus aims at analysing, amongst others, how consumers in[…]

KCG Welcomes Prof. Dr. Stephen Arthur LeMay as a KCG External Research Fellow

28th March 2019
KCG Secretary
It is our pleasure to announce that Prof. Dr. Stephen Arthur LeMay recently joined the Kiel Centre for Globalization as a KCG External Research Fellow. LeMay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing, Supply Chain Logistics, and Economics at the University of West Florida. He has extensive expertise and research experience in the fields of supply chain management and logistics, particularly with special emphasis on human resources, supply chain management and ethics, as well as customer and consumer relevant moral issues[…]

KCG External Research Fellow Michael Lee Visits Kiel

29th November 2018
KCG Secretary
Dr. Michael Lee, Senior Lecturer of Marketing at the University of Auckland Business School and KCG External Research Fellow, visits the University of Kiel (CAU) and KCG in the last November week of 2018. His research focusses on brand avoidance, consumer resistance and activism, and, most notably, anti-consumption. He is also Director of the well-known International Centre of Anti-Consumption Research (ICAR) at the University of Auckland. Lee’s research topics are closely[…]

KCG Researchers Joined the 2018 ICAR Symposium “Anti-Consumption – beyond Boundaries” in Spain

15th November 2018
KCG Secretary
The 2018 ICAR Symposium with the overarching theme “Anti-Consumption – beyond boundaries” took place on November 9-10, 2018 in Almería, Spain. ICAR, the International Centre of Anti-Consumption, is a network hosted by the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and led by Dr. Michael Lee, KCG External Research Fellow. It is a network of academics, practitioners, and social scientists from different countries who are interested in investigating and better understanding anti-consumption. Lee did not only co-organise the symposium with colleagues from the University of Almería but also gave a presentation based on his current research concerning choice overload and consumers’ boycott behaviour[…]

Science Jazz in New Orleans! KCG Researchers Joined 2018 AMA Winter Academic Conference in New Orleans, USA

22nd March 2018
KCG Secretary
KCG Researchers, Nils Christian Hoffmann, Prof. Dr. Stefan Hoffmann, and Guli-Sanam Karimova, participated in the 2018 AMA Winter Academic Conference from February 23rd to 25th 2018 in New Orleans, Louisiana (USA). There they presented their first scientific results from the KCG project “Cross-cultural differences in the perception of corporate social responsibility and consumer social responsibility along global supply chains”[…]

Leibniz President Matthias Kleiner visited Kiel Centre for Globalization

1st February 2018
KCG Secretary
Prof. Dr. Matthias Kleiner, President of the Leibniz Association, visited Leibniz ScienceCampi in Kiel on Jan. 31, 2018. His visit started with two morning meetings with Prof. Dr. Sonja Peterson, Scientific Director of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and most of the research members of the Kiel Centre for Globalization led by Prof. Holger Görg, Ph.D., KCG Managing Director. Prof. Kleiner was accompanied by Dr. Bettina Böhm (Secretary-General), Dr. Kristina Hahn (Advisor) and Dr. Felix Kießling (Advisor) for visiting KCG […]

Ethical Products = Less Strong: How Explicit and Implicit Reliance on the Lay Theory Affects Consumption Behaviors

21st December 2017
KCG Secretary
Authors: Robert Mai, Stefan Hoffmann, Wassili Lasarov and Arne Buhs (Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, Vol. 158, 659–677)

Many consumers implicitly associate sustainability with lower product strength. This so-called ethical = less strong intuition (ELSI) poses a major threat for the success of sustainable products. This article explores this pervasive lay theory and examines whether it is a key barrier for sustainable consumption patterns. Even more importantly, little is known about the underlying mechanisms that might operate differently at the implicit[…]

The Tenure-Based Customer Retention Model: A Cross-Cultural Validation

21st December 2017
KCG Secretary
Authors: Carolin Krauts and Stefan Hoffmann (Journal of International Marketing, 2017, Vol. 25(3), 83-106)

International businesses and their marketing managers face complexity in the targeting of different customer groups in multiple countries, with different purchase histories and brand relationship tenures. Thus far, no customer retention model has been suggested to sufficiently reduce such complexity. To fill the gap, this study distinguishes three global customer groups—brand stayers, brand switchers, and category novices[…]

Consumer Response to Unethical Corporate Behavior: A Re-Examination and Extension of the Moral Decoupling Model

21st December 2017
KCG Secretary
Authors: Kristina Haberstroh. Ulrich Orth, Stefan Hoffmann and Berit Brunk (Journal of Business Ethics, 2017, Vol. 140(1), 161-173)

This research replicates Bhattacharjee et al. (J Consum Res 39(4):1167–1184, 2013) moral decoupling model and extends the original along the dimensions of theory, method, and context. Adopting a branding perspective and focusing on the corporate domain rather than the public figures investigated by Bhattacharjee and colleagues, this research examines the proposition that consumers dissociate judgments of morality from judgments of performance to justify purchasing from companies deemed to act immorally[…]

When do Multinational Companies Consider Corporate Social Responsibility? A Multi-Country Study in Sub-Saharan Africa

10th November 2016
KCG Secretary
Authors: Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, Stefan Hoffmann and Adnan Šerić (Business & Society Review, 2017, Vol. 122(2), 191-220)

While African countries are becoming more and more relevant as host countries for suppliers of multinational companies little is known about corporate social responsibility (CSR) in this region. To fill this gap, the present paper explores CSR considerations of foreign affiliates of multinational companies when choosing local African suppliers. The paper suggests a model of three types of determinants, namely firm characteristics, exports[…]


KCG Working Paper No. 1: When Do Multinational Companies Consider Corporate Social Responsibility?

1st November 2016
KCG Secretary
Authors:
Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, Stefan Hoffmann and Adnan Seric

While African countries are becoming more and more relevant as host countries for suppliers of multinational companies little is known about corporate social responsibility (CSR) in this region.To fill this gap, the present paper explores CSR considerations of foreign affiliates of multinational companies when choosing local African suppliers.[…]