Analysing the Influence of Companies’ Green Communication in College Students’ Green Purchase Behaviour: An Application of the Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour Model

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing concern about the environmental impacts of consumers’ behaviour. As this environmental awareness increases, consumers tend to focus more on green products and how purchasing these products represents an effective way to protect the environment. Through the application of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), in this research, we studied the influence of some key variables on college students’ green purchasing behaviour, namely perceived behavioural control, subjective norms, green attitudes, and green purchase intentions. The TPB model was extended to the analysis of the influence of the companies’ green communication on students’ green purchase behaviour. To achieve the proposed goal, from March to April of 2021, a survey was conducted among the students of a higher education institution (HEI) in Portugal, allowing us to gather 432 valid responses. The findings suggested that all the variables, except the subjective norms, had a positive influence on the students’ green purchase intentions. Moreover, it was observed that students’ intentions had a positive influence on their green purchase behaviour. This research provides important results not only for policymakers to promote more sustainable behaviours among consumers but also for companies to be more aware of the importance of green communication.

The influence of skepticism on the university Millennials’ organic food product purchase intention

“…This result shows that the presence of barriers slows the intention to purchase organic products (Liobikiene and Bernatoniene, 2017;Yadav and Pathak, 2017;Ricci et al, 2018;Carri on et al, 2023). In addition, the study supports the idea that PBC is a determining factor that encourages or restricts PI for products with ecological characteristics (Liobikiene and Bernatoniene, 2017;Yadav and Pathak, 2017;Ricci et al, 2018;Sousa et al, 2022).…”

Consumer purchase intention of social enterprise products: mediating role of emotional value

“…Many scholars found a non-significant interaction between SN and intention in the TPB model (La Barbera and Ajzen, 2020). This finding is similar to the conclusions of Vermeir and Verbeke (2008), Jamil and Mat (2011), Kumar (2012), Kothe and Mullan (2015), Shin and Hancer (2016), Chen and Hung (2016), Earle et al (2020) and Sousa et al (2022). This may be because the collective self depends on social links to others gained from shared and metaphorical affinity with a particular group (Sedikides, 1993).…”

“…Consumer preference and overall evaluation of a product will be greatly influenced by their attitude towards the product. Past research showed that attitude is significantly associated to PI (Abbasi et al, 2021;Qi and Ploeger, 2021;Dionysis et al, 2022;Lim et al, 2022;Sousa et al, 2022;Roh et al, 2022). Specific to the context of SE, the study by Lee et al (2021) on consumer PI on Malaysian SE products revealed a positive correlation between attitude and PI.…”

“…Many researchers have reported an association between PBC and PI (Abbasi et al, 2021;Qi and Ploeger, 2021;Dionysis et al, 2022;Lim et al, 2022;Sousa et al, 2022). Thus, it is proposed that H3.…”

Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior toward Green Products: A Systematic Literature Review

“…The reviewed papers that addressed this topic also highlighted that a company’s perceived green image is built around several concepts such as eco-certification origin [ 43 ], brand image [ 40 , 48 ], brand love [ 48 ], brand loyalty [ 48 ], brand trust [ 66 ], green brand associations [ 5 ], green brand attitude [ 5 ], green brand knowledge [ 66 ], green communication [ 39 ], social media [ 42 ], and product innovation and segmentation [ 50 ].…”