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Sustainability and Product Differentiation
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Sustainability and Product Differentiation

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2019) | Viewed by 34650

Special Issue Editor

Dr. L. Emilio Morales

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Interests: consumer preferences and willingness to pay for differentiated products; agricultural markets and value chain modelling; marketing systems and trade policy analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Consumers are increasingly influenced by ethical aspects of food production and are more concerned about the economic, environmental and social potential impacts of production techniques, consumption and disposal of products after use (Bougherara and Combris, 2009; Zander and Hamm, 2010). These perceptions have influenced preferences and purchase behaviors in favor of products meeting specific ethical standards (Peloza, White and Shang, 2013).

Sustainable, environmentally-friendly, green and eco-labeled attributes have been highlighted by retailers to differentiate products that appeal to ethically-concerned consumers and to receive price premiums based on these additional ethical attributes (Wong, Turner and Stoneman, 1996; Vermeir and Verbeke, 2008; Bougherara and Combris, 2009; Rousseau and Vranken, 2013; Grunert, Hieke and Wills, 2014; Blomquist, Bartolino and Waldo, 2015). The premiums received by these differentiated products are voluntary contributions to reward these products and represent incentives to implement measures to produce, consume and dispose products in an environmentally-friendly manner (Ferraro, Uchida and Conrad, 2005).

According to Grankvist and Biel (2007), the perceived importance of environmental consequences and beliefs about characteristics of eco-labelled food products, the most relevant factors influencing the decision to purchase environmentally friendly differentiated products. In addition, other previous studies have investigated consumer’s preferences for sustainable products, including Moon et al. (2002), Marette, Messéan and Millet (2012), Vlaeminck, Jiang and Vranken (2014), and Blomquist, Bartolino and Waldo (2015), and confirmed that consumers are willing to pay premiums for these products, varying depending on the product, labeling and market. Research that presents more insights on these topics could provide key information for the industry and allow consumers to express their support of environmentally-friendly products.

The main goal of this Special Issue is to collect theoretical and empirical contributions on the analysis of product differentiation based on sustainability attributes of production techniques, consumption or product disposal. Contributions can add to the existing literature, focusing on national or global case studies related to specific value chains. Articles in this Special Issue are expected to provide key recommendations for industry and policymakers regarding alternatives of differentiation, development of new products, consumer preferences for alternative products, willingness to pay premiums for these products, required regulation and other relevant topics.

References:

  1. Blomquist, J., Bartolino, V., and Waldo, S. (2015). Price premiums for providing eco-labelled seafood: Evidence from MSC-certified cod in Sweden. Journal of Agricultural Economics 66(3), 690–704.
  2. Bougherara, D., and Combris, P. (2009). Eco-labelled food products: What are consumers paying for? European Review of Agricultural Economics 36(3), 321–341.
  3. Ferraro, P. J., Uchida, T., and Conrad, J. M. (2005). Price premiums for eco-friendly commodities: Are ‘green’ markets the best way to protect endangered ecosystems? Environmental & Resource Economics 32, 419–438.
  4. Grankvist, G., and Biel, A. (2007). Predictors of purchase of eco-labelled food products: A panel study. Food Quality and Preference 18, 701–708.
  5. Grunert, K. G., Hieke, S., and Wills, J. (2014). Sustainability labels on food products: Consumer motivation, understanding and use. Food Policy 44, 177–189.
  6. Marette, S., Messéan, A., and Millet, G. (2012). Consumers’ willingness to pay for eco-friendly apples under different labels: Evidences from a lab experiment. Food Policy 37, 151–161.
  7. Moon, W., Flokowski, W.J., Brückner, B., and Schonhof, I. (2002). Willingness to pay for environmental practices: Implications for eco-labeling. Land Economics 78, 88–102.
  8. Peloza, J., White, K., and Shang, J. (2013). Good and guilt-free: The role of self-accountability in influencing preferences for products with ethical attributes. Journal of Marketing 77, 104–119.
  9. Rousseau, S., and Vranken, L. (2013). Green market expansion by reducing information asymmetries: Evidence for labeled organic food products. Food Policy 40, 31–43.
  10. Vermeir, I., and Verbeke, W. (2008). Sustainable food consumption among young adults in Belgium: Theory of planned behavior and the role of confidence and values. Ecological Economics 64, 542–553.
  11. Vlaeminck, P., Jiang, T., and Vranken, L. (2014). Food labeling and eco-friendly consumption: Experimental evidence from a Belgian supermarket. Ecological Economics 108, 180–190.
  12. Wong, V., Turner, W., and Stoneman, P. (1996). Marketing strategies and market prospects for environmentally-friendly consumer products. British Journal of Management 7, 263–281.
  13. Zander, K., and Hamm, U. (2010). Consumer preferences for additional ethical attributes of organic food. Food Quality and Preference 21, 495–503.

Dr. L. Emilio Morales
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Product differentiation
  • Sustainable products
  • Eco-labelled
  • Environmentally-friendly
  • Consumer preferences
  • Willingness to pay
  • Premiums

Published Papers (5 papers)

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23 pages, 3036 KiB  
Article
A Study on Consumers’ Preferences for the Palace Museum’s Cultural and Creative Products from the Perspective of Cultural Sustainability
by Jui-Che Tu, Li-Xia Liu and Yang Cui
Sustainability 2019, 11(13), 3502; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11133502 - 26 Jun 2019
Cited by 30 | Viewed by 10650
Abstract
In recent years, the development and design of the cultural and creative products of the Palace Museum in Beijing have become a hot topic in the product design field. Many critics have pointed out that cultural and creative products have failed to faithfully [...] Read more.
In recent years, the development and design of the cultural and creative products of the Palace Museum in Beijing have become a hot topic in the product design field. Many critics have pointed out that cultural and creative products have failed to faithfully convey the implied meanings of the cultural stories of the Palace Museum. To effectively narrow the cognitive gap between designers and consumers, designers must urgently clarify the relationship between different design attributes and consumer preferences. The questionnaires were used to obtain data from 297 subjects. Through SPSS statistical software, the results were analyzed by descriptive statistics, explore factor analysis (EFA), independent sample t-test, and ANOVA to explore consumers’ attitudes and preferences on the Palace Museum’s cultural and creative products. The results showed that consumers attach great importance to factors such as “cultural connotation” and “unique creativity” when choosing the Palace Museum’s cultural and creative products. The consumer in different genders had significant differences in the design factors of the Palace Museum’s cultural and creative products. There were significant differences in the factors of “Forbidden City culture”, “cultural sustainability” and “traditional culture” to different educational backgrounds. There were significant differences in the factor of “Forbidden City culture” to different ages. There were significant differences in the factors of “cultural traits” and “cultural identity” between the with and without a design background groups. The results of this study will identify the key factors for the design of the Palace’s Museum cultural and creative products and provide references for designers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Product Differentiation)
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16 pages, 7796 KiB  
Article
Perception and Preference Analysis of Fashion Colors: Solid Color Shirts
by Qianling Jiang, Li-Chieh Chen and Jie Zhang
Sustainability 2019, 11(8), 2405; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11082405 - 23 Apr 2019
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 7193 | Correction
Abstract
When it comes to pollution, we do not usually think about the clothes we wear, but the clothing industry is really endangering our planet. The market economy has transferred the decision-making power of the garment industry from enterprises to consumers. To make the [...] Read more.
When it comes to pollution, we do not usually think about the clothes we wear, but the clothing industry is really endangering our planet. The market economy has transferred the decision-making power of the garment industry from enterprises to consumers. To make the fashion industry sustainable, in addition to technological innovation, it is also necessary to conduct research on the service objects of the industry. Consumer clothing preference research is an important part of the sustainable development of the clothing industry, and it will also have an impact on environmental and design sustainability. Hence, a psychophysical experiment based on solid color shirts is carried out to analyze people’s perceptions and preferences concerning fashion colors, including the aesthetic differences and similarities between males and females, and establish a hierarchical feed-forward model of color preferences relating to solid color shirts. Firstly, 480 colors of solid shirts from different clothing brands were collected, and the mean shift clustering algorithm was used to classify them into 19 clusters in the CIELAB color space. Secondly, another 22 solid colors, combined with the 19 colors of the cluster centers, formed a solid color scheme. Thirdly, 41 solid male and female shirts and fabrics were simulated as stimuli in three dimensions, and they were presented on a calibrated computer display. The simulations were assessed by 34 observers (consisting of 17 males and 17 females) in terms of 11 semantic scales, including cold/warm, heavy/light, passive/active, dirty/clean, tense/relaxed, plain/gaudy, traditional/modern, masculine/feminine, slim-look/fat-look, hard-to-match/easy-to-match, and dislike/tike. The experimental results demonstrated that the hard-to-match/easy-to-match response was found to be highly correlated with dislike/like. Furthermore, the response of the females concerning hard-to-match/easy-to-match had a strong correlation with two adjective pairs (plain/gaudy and slim-look/fat-look), while that of the males also had a strong correlation with two adjective pairs (plain/ gaudy and masculine/feminine). Finally, a hierarchical feed-forward model of aesthetic perception for solid color shirts was established to predict the shirt preference degree. These findings could be used to develop a more robust and comprehensive theory of fashion color preferences and provide a reference for the design of solid color shirts. A more comprehensive color preference theory is not only an effective tool to solve the problem of pollution in the clothing industry, but also an important theoretical basis for the “sustainable design” of clothing, which is of great significance to the sustainable development of the clothing industry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Product Differentiation)
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41 pages, 14078 KiB  
Article
Value Perception of Green Products: An Exploratory Study Combining Conscious Answers and Unconscious Behavioral Aspects
by Lorenzo Maccioni, Yuri Borgianni and Demis Basso
Sustainability 2019, 11(5), 1226; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051226 - 26 Feb 2019
Cited by 29 | Viewed by 7089
Abstract
Previous studies have failed to provide a comprehensive view on the value perception of green products. The present research takes up this challenge through an experiment in which 43 participants have interacted with and evaluated 40 products—20 baseline products and 20 green products [...] Read more.
Previous studies have failed to provide a comprehensive view on the value perception of green products. The present research takes up this challenge through an experiment in which 43 participants have interacted with and evaluated 40 products—20 baseline products and 20 green products of the same categories. The experiment included both self-assessments to monitor conscious evaluations of the products and biometric measurements (Eye-Tracking and Galvanic Skin Response) to capture unconscious aspects. The results show that different forms of perceived value emerge clearly. Green products, for which participants required greater efforts in the search for relevant information, boost the value attributed to creative solutions still believed of high quality. This effect is significantly more evident for participants showing remarkable interest for sustainability issues. Conversely, alternative products feature greater value perception because they are acknowledged to be functional and reliable. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Product Differentiation)
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18 pages, 10482 KiB  
Article
Pattern Preference Analysis of Black-and-White Plaid Shirts
by Qianling Jiang, Li-Chieh Chen, Chun Yang and Jie Zhang
Sustainability 2018, 10(10), 3739; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103739 - 17 Oct 2018
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4376
Abstract
The market economy has shifted the decision-making power of the garment industry from the enterprise to the consumer. Research on consumer clothing preferences is an essential part of sustainable development of the garment industry. Based on data statistics from eight fast fashion brands, [...] Read more.
The market economy has shifted the decision-making power of the garment industry from the enterprise to the consumer. Research on consumer clothing preferences is an essential part of sustainable development of the garment industry. Based on data statistics from eight fast fashion brands, black and white are most commonly used in two-color plaid shirts. This paper carried out a psychophysical experiment to investigate factors affecting pattern preferences for black-and-white shirts and the differences and similarities between male and female pattern preferences. Twenty-eight different representative patterns of plaid shirts were selected by five fashion designers together from 190 different black-and-white plaid shirts from eight fast fashion brands, which were then classified into three categories: gingham, tartans, and windowpane. Based on these patterns, 28 male and female shirts were simulated in three dimensions and presented on a calibrated computer display. The simulations were assessed by 42 observers (consisting of 21 males and 21 females) in terms of four semantic scales, including light–dark, delicate–rough, simple–complex, and like–dislike. The experimental results revealed that there was no significant difference of pattern preference between females and males for 89.29% of the black-and-white plaid shirts, and also described features of the patterns that the females and males liked or disliked. Furthermore, the study also demonstrated the formulation between the four semantic scales and three pattern features (including the percentage of black region, the size of the minimum repeat unit, and the descriptor of the pattern complexity). The findings could be used to develop a more robust and comprehensive theory of pattern preferences and provide a reference for pattern design for black-and-white plaid shirts. More comprehensive pattern preference theory is not only an effective tool to solve the problem of plaid shirt inventory in the garment industry but also an important theoretical basis for the “sustainable design” of clothing, which is of great significance to the sustainable development of the garment industry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Product Differentiation)
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15 pages, 234 KiB  
Case Report
Producer’s Self-Declared Wind Energy ECO-Labeling Consequences on the Market: A Canadian Case Study
by Clare D’Souza and Emmanuel K. Yiridoe
Sustainability 2019, 11(5), 1218; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051218 - 26 Feb 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2990
Abstract
The demand for environmental labels is increasingly becoming important for consumers to differentiate products and to make an informed choice. This study reports the findings of a business case study in Nova Scotia (Canada) that demonstrates how renewable wind energy and wind labeling [...] Read more.
The demand for environmental labels is increasingly becoming important for consumers to differentiate products and to make an informed choice. This study reports the findings of a business case study in Nova Scotia (Canada) that demonstrates how renewable wind energy and wind labeling can extend the competitive advantage of a producer. By using qualitative case study techniques, the study generates evidence which suggests on the firm level that wind energy and labelling influences competitive advantage of firms, can dictate a premium price, can differentiate products, yet achieve a low-cost advantage. Wind labels also have the potential to drive the supply chain’s environmental value to the consumer as the end user by requiring the distribution chain to follow good environmental practices. On the consumer level, in terms of label information, whereby product qualities cannot be evaluated by a search prior to purchase or by experience after purchase, eco-friendliness of the product can take predominance. Not all consumers will buy eco-friendly eggs; instead, there are other factors that drive consumers, such as their opinions towards wind technology, consumer psychographics, personality, and other behavioural determinants and, hence, attract a strong niche market. Finally, for the trust in labels, though the producer does not have third party accreditation, the labels work for them, through the means-end chain analysis where egoistic and altruistic intentions persuade environmental behaviour. As such, this study highlights the probability that in principle, there appears to be an opportunity for wind labelling to be successful; in practice, wind labelling is bound to attract a particular niche market through differentiation strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Product Differentiation)
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