Consumption coping strategies and well‐being among refugee consumers

• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Author: Haithem Zourrig,Kamel El Hedhli
• Date: 01 January 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12494

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Consumption coping strategies and well-being

among refugee consumers

Haithem Zourrig

1

| Kamel El Hedhli

2

1

Department of Marketing and

Entrepreneurship, Ambassador Crawford

College of Business and

Entrepreneurship, Kent State University,

Kent, Ohio, USA

2

Department of Management and

Marketing, College of Business &

Economics, Qatar University, Doha,

Qatar

Correspondence

Haithem Zourrig, Department of

Marketing and Entrepreneurship, College

of Business Administration, Kent State

University, Stark Campus, Kent, OH

44720, USA.

Email: hzourrig@kent.edu

Funding information

Transformative Consumer Research

(TCR); Sheth Foundation

Abstract

This paper aims to provide new insight into refugee

consumers' adaptation to stress with a particular

emphasis on consumption coping strategies and well-

being. Drawing on the appraisal-coping theory, this

paper proposes a theoretical framework relating stress

to coping responses and refugee well-being. Social sup-

port is also introduced in the framework as a modera-

tor. Examining the interplays between these concepts

provides a comprehensive view of how changes in con-

sumption patterns occur and how they affect refugee

well-being. Insights from this paper suggest that con-

sumption activities could be viewed as responses of

adaptation to chronic and acute stress. To adapt to new

circumstances and reduce their stress, refugee con-

sumers could engage in adaptive consumption coping

or maladaptive consumption coping (i.e., compulsive

and impulsive consumption), which in turn affect their

psychological and physical, family, and economic well-

being. The paper contends that service support moder-

ates the relationships between stress, coping responses,

and refugee well-being.

KEYWORDS

adaptive consumption, consumers well-being, maladaptive

consumption, refugee consumers, social support

Received: 19 February 2021 Revised: 28 July 2022 Accepted: 13 October 2022

DOI: 10.1111/joca.12494

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,

distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Consumer Affairs published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Council on Consumer

Interests.

140 J Consum Aff. 2023;57:140–170.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joca

1|INTRODUCTION

Over the last decade, headlines around the world have reported on humanitarian crises caused

by wars (e.g., the war in Ukraine), ethnic cleansing (e.g., Rohingya persecution in Myanmar),

and violence as a result of political and economic instability (e.g., violence in Venezuela). War,

genocide, and conflicts, among other life-threatening events, force 37,000 individuals every day

to leave their homes in search of a safe place and better living conditions (UNHCR, 2018).

While refugees already struggle with the trauma of fleeing war, violence, and persecution,

they have been harshly affected by COVID-19 (Finsterwalder et al., 2021). The stress and fear of

contracting COVID-19 and the isolation and loneliness experienced during lockdowns have

exacerbated their living conditions. As many refugees live in densely populated camps with

inadequate health infrastructure, implementing preventive measures such as physical distanc-

ing became challenging (UNHCR, 2020a). COVID-19 has also slowed the provision of support

programs, as measures to contain the pandemic have directly impacted the functioning of asy-

lum systems. For instance, refugees who settled in countries like Djibouti have experienced a

significant reduction in supplies during the pandemic. More strikingly, in Kenya, half of the

adults in refugee households have reduced food consumption that their children can eat

(UNHCR, 2020b).

Besides the COVID-19 stressor, refugees already undergo stressful experiences throughout

different phases of their journey. In the context of services, Boenigk et al. (2021) distinguish

between three phases of the refugee journey namely the entry phase (i.e., planning to flee or

sudden escape), the transition phase (i.e., waiting in camps for uncertain and lengthy periods,

arduous journey across countries to find a host country), and the exit phase (i.e., arriving at a

destination country and engaging in activities to facilitate integration and resettlement in the

host country). All these phases are mapped with a focus on refugee needs for services. For

instance, during the entry phase, refugees have an urgent need for kits, legal, and routing ser-

vices, while during the transition phase they have a higher need for health services, and finally,

at the exit stage, services entailing legal, social, education services, and work permits are much

needed. The focus of the current paper is on the exit phase after refugees settle in a host country

and their consumption patterns. During this grand transformation phase, refugees must deal

with transforming their everyday lives while consumption is happening (Hokkinen, 2019).

Compared to consumers from host countries, refugee consumers often have less access to a

variety of products, either because they are unfamiliar with most local items or cannot afford

many. In many cases, refugee consumers lack familiarity with the local marketplace offering

and have limited knowledge about healthy food (Willis & Buck, 2007). While refugees are typi-

cally confronted with long periods of reduced food availability during the transition phase they

could experience forcefully changed dietary habits and might have little knowledge of how to

use available resources during the exit stage, which often affects their well-being (Al-Sayed &

Bieling, 2022). From this perspective, refugees as consumers and the implications of the refugee

status for relations with the locals (i.e., citizens of the host country) still deserve more attention

(Hokkinen, 2019).

In fact, refugees as a vulnerable group of consumers remain understudied in the marketing

field, as consumer research scholars have deployed few attempts to investigate their consump-

tion patterns (Kriechbaum-Vitellozzi & Kreuzbauer, 2006). While previous work has focused on

vulnerable groups of consumers such as those with disabilities, elderly consumers, children,

and stigmatized groups of consumers (see Rosenbaum et al., 2017 for review), little attention

ZOURRIG AND EL HEDHLI 141