Sustainable Purchase Behavior Through Religious Orientation, Psychological Contract & Intention-evidence From Pakistani Retail Industry

Abstract

The purchase patterns have been shifted from tangibles to societal orientations, where religious orientation is the way forward for sustainable purchase behavior in expanding urban areas of a middle-income country. The ethical and responsiveness considerations through the connection between Islamic religious orientation (IsRO), purchase intention (PI), and total psychological contract (TPsC) is a research gap projected to be filled from multiple dimensions. Captivating the purchase intention and total psychological contract as mediating variables and analytical approach for religious orientation on purchase behavior constructed in the present research. The empirical assessment was executed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach based on the cross-sectional research design. There were 669 participants selected from large superstores, with ages ranging from 16 to 55 (M=3.38, SD=1.06), from Islamabad and Rawalpindi in Pakistan, from September 2018 to March 2019. The findings revealed that religious orientation level positively enhanced customer purchase behavior, purchase intention and psychological contract in organized retail stores and psychological contract played a mediating role in the influencing on the purchase behavior; whereas, the purchase intention also played a mediating role between religious orientation and customer purchase behavior. Therefore, the religious orientation stimulated a higher level of purchase behavior since it favored of the higher level of psychological contract and purchase intention in organized retail store customer. The study highlighted the value of cognitive and moral processes and psychological needs could be one of the crucial factors for improvement of perceptual change in terms of purchase behavior of retail consumers that connect psychological dimension with suitability indicators of being responsiveness and ethical consideration sourced from religious orientation. The implications pave the way forward for product development, purchase strategies, and retail market sensing for corporate retail chains and government utility stores for ethical business processes. Meanwhile, the government and enterprises need to strengthen the popularization and dissemination of environmental protection and food safety knowledge to enhance consumers’ environmental and food safety awareness, improving the social environment of the cultivation of the organic food market.