PAPER
FRAMEWORK & FOUNDATIONS · 20 PAGES
Cosmopolitanism of Consumer (COC): A Conceptual Framework for Consumer Rights, Responsible Consumption and Sustainable Consumer Ecosystems
An integrative framework connecting consumer rights and responsible consumption through five interdependent ecologies: policy, economic, education, cultural and consumption.
Read the abstract
Global consumption is increasingly shaped by cross-border markets, digital commerce, cultural exchange, sustainability concerns, consumer-rights expectations and the growing interdependence of public, private and civil-society actors. Yet consumer-behaviour scholarship often analyses these influences separately. This conceptual paper advances Cosmopolitanism of Consumer (COC) as an integrative framework for examining consumer rights, responsible consumption and sustainable consumer ecosystems. COC is an initiative proposed by Dato’ Paduka Dr. Kevy K. V. Yeo through the Worldwide Consumers’ Association (WCA). Its core premise is reciprocal responsibility: consumers should exercise their rights responsibly, while businesses should consciously safeguard the rights and interests of consumers. The initiative is organised around five interdependent ecologies —policy, economic, education, cultural and consumption ecology—and emphasises inclusivity, borderlessness and equilibrium. Drawing on consumer-behaviour research, sustainable-consumption literature, consumer-rights principles, the Theory of Planned Behaviour and ecosystem thinking, this paper positions COC as a meso-level framework that connects individual consumer choices with institutional, cultural, educational, policy and market conditions. Eight conceptual propositions are advanced to explain how the five ecologies may jointly influence responsible consumption, consumer confidence, trust, perceived fairness, market participation and long-term consumer well-being. Importantly, this paper distinguishes COC from the established academic construct of consumer cosmopolitanism, which primarily concerns openness to foreign cultures and products. COC is broader: it seeks a balanced consumer civilisation supported by interacting social and institutional ecologies. The paper concludes with theoretical contributions, managerial and policy implications, and a research agenda for operationalising COC, developing validated measures and empirically testing relationships among its ecologies and consumer outcomes.