No abstract

Personal values, green self-identity and ethical motives have been widely studied as important, but mostly separate, predictors of pro-environmental behaviors. Scholars call for more research on the combined effects of these variables, to explain pro-environmental behavior. In this regard, this study presents a model of electric car adoption intention, in which personal values determine green self-identity, which in turn influences consumer intention to adopt electric cars directly and also indirectly via ethical motives of ecological care and moral obligation. Second, this work explores how personal values moderate the relationships between green self-identity, ecological care, moral obligation and electric car adoption intention.Data were collected through a survey in a sample of 2,005 car drivers residing in Belgium, Denmark and Italy. Results confirm that four value domains (i.e., selftranscendence, self-enhancement, openness-to-change and conservation) influence green selfidentity, which in turn determines consumer intention to adopt electric cars both directly and indirectly via ecological care and moral obligation motivations. Furthermore, consumers who find self-transcendent and openness-to-change values important tend to express their green self-identity directly into intentions and through moral obligation evaluations. Conversely, individuals who find self-enhancement values important express their green self-identity directly into intentions, while they take the ecological and moral considerations to behave green less into account. Finally, consumers who find conservation values important translate their green self-identity less into intentions to adopt electric cars, and tend to consider less the ecological and moral aspects of consumption choices.

a b s t r a c tThis study proposes a self-identity based eco-friendly intention formation model to assess the effects of green self-identity, care for the environmental consequences of consumption, and green moral obligation, on the attitude toward and the intention to adopt electric cars. The model is empirically validated in three European countries: Denmark, Belgium and Italy. A total of 2005 respondents with a driver's license participate in the study. Structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis are performed to measure the significance of the hypothesized model paths and to assess differences between the countries. Results show that the independent variables influence consumer attitude toward the adoption of electric cars, which, in turn, determines the intention to adopt them. Significant differences emerge concerning the influence of the antecedents of consumer attitude toward electric car adoption between Denmark, Belgium and Italy, which are discussed in light of Hofstede's national cultural differences between these countries.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate "how" and "when" the stereotypes of competence and warmth, that are evoked by a foreign company's country-of-origin (COO), affect blame attributions and/or attitudes toward a company's products when a company is involved in a product-harm crisis. Design/methodology/approach -Study 1 (n ¼ 883) analyzes the psychological mechanisms through which perceived COO competence and warmth differently affect blame attributions and evaluative responses. Study 2 (n ¼ 1,640) replicates Study 1's findings, and it also investigates how consumer ethnocentrism, animosity toward a country, and product category characteristics moderate the hypothesized COO's effects. Findings -COO competence leads to more favorable attitudes toward the involved company's products. This effect increases when the company sells high-involvement or utilitarian products. COO warmth leads to more favorable attitudes toward the involved company's products directly as well as indirectly by diminishing blame attributions. These effects increase when consumers are highly ethnocentric, or the animosity toward a foreign country is high. Originality/value -This paper frames the investigation of COO stereotypes in a new theoretical and empirical setting, specifically, a product-harm crisis. It demonstrates that consumers differently evaluate a potential wrongdoing company and its harmful products in a product-harm crisis based on their perceptions of a company's COO competence and warmth. Finally, it defines the moderating effects of individual, consumer-country-related and product characteristics on the hypothesized COO effects.

a b s t r a c tFood safety scandals are recurring events in the food industry worldwide and companies are not immune to these incidents. However, there is a paucity of studies that examine how consumers evaluate and respond to brands involved in food crises and how consumers' prejudicial views about brands may bias these responses. Following attribution theory, the current study analyzes the psychological mechanisms through which consumers form judgments about a brand's culpability in the aftermath of a food safety scandal. Furthermore, this study assesses how the dimensions of a brand's country-of-origin (perceived competence and perceived warmth) affect the mechanism of blame attribution.A real food crisis, the 2013 European horsemeat adulteration scandal, provides the framework for an experimental study with 816 Italian consumers. The results show that perceived country-of-origin warmth diminishes consumers' perceptions of internal locus, stability, and controllability of the food incident, thus decreasing consumers' attributions of blame toward the faulty brand. Perceived competence increases consumers' perceptions of the controllability of the harmful behavior which leads to higher attributions of blame. Higher blame attribution leads to lower intentions to buy the brand in the future. Furthermore, when consumers perceive the food scandal as highly severe and when they are highly ethnocentric, perceived competence diminishes consumers' perceptions of internal locus and stability of the food incident.The theoretical contribution of the study and practical implications for food brand managers are addressed.

An Extended Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) is developed that integrates emotions towards car driving and electric cars as well as car driving habits of the DTPB, and is empirically validated in a Belgian sample (n = 1023). Multi-group comparisons explore how the determinants of usage intention are different between groups of consumers differing in environmentally-friendly behaviour, environmental concern, innovativeness and personal values. Besides attitudes, media, perceived complexity, compatibility and relative advantage, emotions towards the electric car and reflective emotions towards car driving have a strong effect on usage intention. Car driving habits and perceived behavioural control (facilitators and constraints) do not substantially affect usage intention. Only people differing in personal values show a different motivational structure for a number of important drivers of usage intention.

No abstract

No abstract