Dr Christian Martin co-authored a paper which was presented at the 46th European Marketing Academy Conference (EMAC). The conference, which took place from 23 - 26 May 2017 in Groningen (the Netherlands), EMAC is one of the leading marketing conferences.
Christian’s co-authors are Dr Pia Furchheim and Professor Felicitas Morhart, both of the University of Lausanne.
In their paper ‘Introducing the Green Materialist - A Cluster Analysis of North American and Swiss Consumer Populations’, the authors identify a sizable segment of consumers who value environmental protection (green value orientation) and the acquisition of material possessions (materialistic value orientation) at the same time. This consumer segment is interesting because extant literature has associated green values with sustainable and materialistic values with unsustainable consumer behaviors. Due to this conflict in their value orientations, green materialists are likely to face difficult decisions in at least some consumption situations. The paper is noteworthy as it is among the first to study green values and materialistic values simultaneously. The empirical results suggest that considering both value orientations together can help to better understand sustainable consumer behavior and why consumers who value environmental protection sometimes still behave unsustainably.
Christian is a lecturer in the School of Business; his research interests are in the areas of human values and identities with a specific focus on human-nature interaction, sustainable and materialistic consumption, consumer well-being, and the measurement of psychological constructs.