When Sustainability Creates Rarity: A Configuration‐Based Account of Legitimacy and Differentiation in Consumer Choice

ABSTRACT Sustainability initiatives often generate heterogeneous consumer responses, particularly in markets where environmental responsibility intersects with symbolic differentiation and competitive positioning. This research develops a configuration‐based account of sustainability strategy to explain when and how sustainability‐driven initiatives translate into consumer choice. Specifically, sustainability‐driven rarity is conceptualized as a strategic configuration comprising two functionally differentiated elements: production rarity, which primarily activates legitimacy‐based value through perceptions of embedded commitment and normative appropriateness, and aesthetic rarity, which primarily activates differentiation‐based value through perceptions of distinctiveness and inimitability. Across three studies, the findings demonstrate that these rarity strategies are asymmetrically diagnostic rather than interchangeable scarcity cues, operating through distinct evaluative pathways. More importantly, when deployed jointly, production rarity and aesthetic rarity interact to broaden perceived value by simultaneously activating legitimacy‐based and differentiation‐based evaluations. This nonadditive complementarity effect increases choice likelihood beyond the independent contribution of either strategy alone. Further analyses reveal that differentiation‐based value becomes increasingly diagnostic in higher price tiers characterized by intensified symbolic competition, whereas legitimacy‐based value grounded in sustainability remains robust across price contexts. Together, these findings advance a configuration‐based understanding of sustainability strategy, reconceptualize rarity as a source‐based rather than magnitude‐based evaluative signal, and offer actionable guidance for designing sustainability initiatives that are both credible and competitively distinctive.