Illustrating the Power of fsQCA in Explaining Paradoxical Consumer Environmental Orientations

Prior research on proenvironmental and prosocial behavior focuses primarily on explaining consistent rather than paradoxical tendencies. Even though this field receives wide attention from different scientific disciplines, findings for many causal factors of such proenvironmental orientation are contradictory. Nevertheless, knowing who those individuals are who think and behave in a pro-/antienvironmental way or show a paradoxical behavior in this regard becomes useful for many different parties in human societies including public policy makers, governmental and nongovernmental environmental protection organizations, and for-profit firms. Therefore, this study identifies those individuals who show neither consistent proenvironmental nor consistent antienvironmental tendencies as the “walkers-only” and “talkers-only” (i.e., for short, “walkers” and “talkers”). The former are defined as persons who put much effort into the recycling of waste materials but do not support pollution standards, whereas the latter term describes individuals who have a strong opinion with regard to the support of pollution standards yet do not engage in recycling efforts. The present study reports evidence of the existence of walkers and talkers. Further, this research is the first study to employ “fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis” to identify the complex antecedent conditions for some individuals’ paradoxical belief–behaviors in the field of socially and environmentally directed behaviors and orientations. The findings yield valuable insights both into the applicability and benefits of configural analysis and for public policy makers and managers in waste management and recycling industries.

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