What did you study?
I studied how unsustainable corporate behaviour, especially greenwashing and environmental and social brand transgressions, affects consumer responses and brand perceptions. The dissertation consists of three studies: an experiment on consumer forgiveness, an analysis of greenwashing discussions on X, formerly Twitter, and a longitudinal study of NGO criticism. The third dataset includes 446 NGO tweets and observations of 70 companies operating in the United States from 2021 to 2023.
What were the results of your study or what is its main finding?
Consumers were less forgiving of environmental violations than social ones. Sustainability consciousness shaped these responses differently: it reduced forgiveness for environmental harms but increased forgiveness for social transgressions. On X, greenwashing triggered widespread scepticism. Fear and sadness were dominant emotions, and users demanded accountability, shared information, and promoted transparency. X, therefore, appears as a space for public learning and digital activism. NGO criticism also significantly reduced consumer evaluations of brands in both the short and long term. The effect depended on message tone, hashtags, links, and publication timing.
How can the results be applied? What new insights did the research contribute?
The results show that sustainability communication is not just a surface-level marketing tool. Weak or misleading sustainability claims can create reputational risks when they are discussed publicly online. For companies, the research highlights the importance of transparent and evidence-based communication. The dissertation contributes new insight into how consumers’ values, emotions, and public advocacy shape brand evaluations.
M.Sc. Mitra Salimi will defend her doctoral dissertation in marketing “Brand Transgressions: How Unsustainability Affects Consumer Responses to Brands” on Friday 14 August 2026 at 12.00–15.00 in Hall C5 in the University of Jyväskylä Main Building. The opponent will be Associate Professor Jenni Sipilä (Hanken School of Economics) and the custos will be Professor Outi Uusitalo (University of Jyväskylä).
The language of the public defence is English.
Read more about Mitra Salimi’s dissertation (the link will be updated later)
Further information:
Mitra Salimi
Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics
Email: moghadsa@jyu.fi
