Consumer Citizenship Outside the  Consumption Domain: Conceptualizing Motivation from a Self-Determination Perspective

Consumer citizenship has attracted significant attention from researchers over time. Recent discussions in this domain indicate that some of the citizenship behaviors that consumers engage in have spilled over to non-consumption arenas as well (i.e., outside the spheres of choice, purchase and use, and behaviors closely related to them). Such behaviors are evident in consumer involvement in organized movements related to an organic farming and consumption, such as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS). Though consumer citizenship has been studied from many perspectives, theorizing what motivates consumers to engage in such behavior has received scant attention. Such theorization is particularly important in the context of consumer citizenship behavior outside the domain of consumption because such behaviors require relatively greater effort and commitment compared to citizenship behaviors executed within consumption. Guided by concepts of the Self-Determination Theory and current literature on consumer citizenship, this paper presents three propositions on how consumers may be motivated to engage in citizenship behaviors outside the domain of consumption, such as volunteering to act as evaluators in PGS.