Exploring the Consumer Behavior of Intention to Purchase Green Products in Belt and Road Countries: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

This study explored the consumer behavior of intention to purchase green products based on a decision-making model that integrates cognitive attributes, affective attributes, and behavioral intentions in Belt and Road countries. The questionnaires were collected from customers who previously purchased green products; this study distributed the questionnaires at the appliance section of the department stores and collected 227 valid responses. Environmental attitude, product attitude, social influence, and perceived monetary value positively affected purchase intention; among these attributes, product attitude most substantially affected purchase intention. Cognitive values (collective and individual) significantly and positively affected environmental and product attitudes. Regarding individual environmental literacy, objective knowledge did not significantly affect environmental attitude, whereas subjective knowledge positively and significantly affected product attitude. In addition, both environmental awareness and government role (extrinsic motivating attributes) significantly and positively affected environmental and product attitudes for sustainable consumption. Media exposure also exerted a significant positive effect on environmental attitude for reducing, reusing and recycling emissions.This study implied that consumers do not consider green product attributes at all but instead are affected by other attributes, such as cognitive values, individual environmental literacy, price, and brand equity. Thus, the environmental attitude would be overruled by self-efficacy, the importance of product recycling, convenience, and unexpectedness. Therefore, this study explored the influence of environmental and product attitudes and purchase intention regarding green appliances based on the affective domain in the choice behavior model [6]. This study considered the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI) countries. The Chinese government has promoted this initiative in the hopes of developing new market features.Although the literatures argue that consumers do consider green product attributes [7-9], these considerations are often pushed to the background. This study proposed that there is a trade-off in the evaluation of green product attributes that influences purchasing decisions, e.g., consumers tend to focus on product attributes first followed by green product attributes. To examine this assumption, this study focused on the trade-off between green and other product attributes on purchasing intentions. Specifically, cognitive value, individual environmental literacy and extrinsic motivating attribute are likely to be important predictors of consumer purchasing behavior because they steer the focus to specific product attributes. The aim of this study was to examine our assumption that consumers tend to focus on product attributes first followed by green product attributes and how this relationship depends on one's values. In addition, a few studies have discussed the relationships among environmental knowledge, attitud...

Bird's‐eye view of the environmental attitude types in the sustainable consumption context

“…Nine studies that employed different types of attitudes and their effects on green consumption have been explored in depth, and definitions of the attitude types and the results of these articles are summarized in the table in Exhibit . As is abundantly clear in this exhibit, the results of environmental attitudes on green purchasing behavior and intentions have assigned a stronger positive influence on SEA regarding buying green products over the effects of GEA (Chen et al., ; Leonidou et al., ; Sarigöllü, ), and the relationship between GEA and GPB was sometimes revealed as weak or irrelevant (Bamberg, ; Fielding et al., ; McCarty & Shrum, ; Trivedi et al., ).…”

“…Notably, consumer attitude in the green marketing field has been defined as comprising of two categories: general environmental attitudes (GEA) and specific environmental attitudes (SEA). Both categories of attitudes have been described using various terms, such as, “inward attitude” and “outward attitude” (Leonidou, Leonidou, & Kvasova, ; Trivedi, Patel, & Acharya, ), “product attitude” and “environmental attitude” (Chen, Chen, & Tung, ), and others. According to Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera () the GEA represents the attitudes toward the environment as a whole, and the SEA refers to attitudes toward specific behaviors, such as recycling and purchasing green products…”

“…Notably, consumer attitude in the green marketing field has been defined as comprising of two categories: general environmental attitudes (GEA) and specific environmental attitudes (SEA). Both categories of attitudes have been described using various terms, such as, "inward attitude" and "outward attitude" (Leonidou, Leonidou, & Kvasova, 2010;Trivedi, Patel, & Acharya, 2018), "product attitude" and "environmental attitude" (Chen, Chen, & Tung, 2018), and others.…”

Coupling relationship between green production and green consumption: Case of the Yangtze River Delta area

“…The existing literature lacks a unified index system for green production and green consumption subsystems. This study refers to relevant research (Azapagic & Perdan, ; C. Chen, Chen, & Tung, ; Krajnc & Glavič, ; Wei, Yuguo, & Jianping, ; Yin, Wang, An, Yao, & Liang, ) and then selects the indexes pertaining to green production and green consumption according to the principles of availability and scientificity. The index system to evaluate the green production and consumption system in the Yangtze River Delta area is shown in Table .…”

The Environmental Attitudes and Behaviours of European Golf Tourists

“…Currently, researchers are also challenged by the gap between ecological attitudes and corresponding behaviours [68][69][70][71][72]. Hence, the usual findings reveal either a moderate relationship between environmental attitude and behaviour [73][74][75][76][77], or a weak relationship [78][79][80][81]. Moreover, there are several studies that report no such relationship at all [82][83][84][85].…”