A firm in the lap of war – firm reactions to armed conflict in the opinions of consumers

The article aims to analyse the importance of corporate strategy, in the face of armed conflict from the perspective of consumers. Decathlon's strategy in the face of pressure on the company to leave the Russian market was taken as the empirical context. The results of the study conducted using the method of individual in-depth interviews lead to interesting conclusions. They show that the company's decisions to exit the aggressor market have different effects on the opinions of Polish and Ukrainian customers. The opinions of respondents from Ukraine were more negative, while consumers from Poland showed more varied attitudes. Interestingly, it appears that exiting the aggressor market under consumer pressure may be perceived as an insincere move on the part of the company, especially among Ukrainian consumers. This means that the company's fulfilment of expectations should not be treated as the final stage of crisis management. This observation leads to important research implications and recommendations for practitioners.

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