Circular Consumption and Sustainability Transitions: Why Favorable Product Experiences Do Not Always Generate Advocacy

Abstract

ABSTRACT The transition toward Sustainable Development increasingly depends on the ability of circular economy systems to prolong product lifecycles and reduce premature waste generation. However, the success of such systems relies not only on whether consumers adopt circular products, but also on whether they become willing to publicly endorse them after use. Despite satisfactory functional performance, many circular products fail to generate positive advocacy, thereby constraining their broader societal acceptance and limiting the scalability of circular consumption systems. Addressing this issue, the present study examines how circular consumption experience (CCX) influences positive word‐of‐mouth (WOM) through post‐purchase dissonance (PPD) and how this process is conditioned by prior ownership of a brand‐new smartphone. Drawing on the stimulus‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) framework and cognitive dissonance theory, the study conceptualizes CCX as a post‐adoption stimulus, PPD as an internal evaluative mechanism, and positive WOM as a post‐consumption advocacy response. A three‐wave time‐lagged survey was conducted with 304 refurbished smartphone users in Pakistan, capturing circular consumption as a discretionary rather than necessity‐driven behavior. The findings reveal that favorable CCX significantly reduces PPD, which subsequently increases positive WOM. However, prior ownership weakens the reassuring effect of favorable use and intensifies the constraining role of residual doubt on advocacy. By shifting attention from pre‐purchase motives toward post‐adoption interpretation, the study advances circular consumption research by identifying PPD as a key psychological mechanism shaping public advocacy for circular products and their broader societal legitimacy within sustainability transitions.