The Theory of Reasoned Action Applied to Green Smartphones: Moderating Effect of Government Subsidies

Abstract

Smartphones have become indispensable for human beings today. However, with mobile phone manufacturers updating existing models or launching new models every year, consumers tend to keep replacing their phones with the latest versions, resulting in an excessive waste of resources. These days, most governments worldwide emphasize energy conservation and carbon reduction. If pre-owned smartphones are refurbished or repaired, the excessive waste of resources can be reduced. Such recycling can positively enhance corporate image, while ensuring that consumer needs are met. Thus, to explore consumers’ willingness to purchase such “green” smartphones, this study uses the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to explore consumers’ purchase intentions and understand how brand equity, green marketing, as well as consumer’s green awareness and attitude influence this intention. This research also investigates the role of government subsidies as a moderator affecting consumers’ willingness to purchase green smartphones. The results indicate that, in general, consumers are willing to purchase green smartphones, the direct effect of brand equity on purchase intention is significant, and government subsidies have significant moderating effects. Therefore, it is recommended that the government cooperate with enterprises. The cooperation can be aimed at promoting green products as well as subsidizing consumers, to increase their willingness to purchase green smartphones.

Green Brand Equity—Empirical Experience from a Systematic Literature Review

“…We included 33 studies published between 2006 and 2021 in the SLR, with the largest number of studies from: 2020-6 studies [24,25,77,[105][106][107], 2019-6 studies [28,29,78,79,108,109], and 2017-5 studies [31][32][33]110,111] The research was conducted in Taiwan-7 studies [24,29,76,106,109,112,113], Pakistan-5 studies [32,77,[114][115][116], Turkey-4 studies [30,31,107,110], China-3 studies [25,79,114], India-3 studies [28,108,111], and Iran-3 studies [110,117,118]. One study each was related to research conducted in the United States [119], Germany [34], Finland [115], Egypt [7], Malaysia [120], Indonesia…”

“…The GBE studies included in SLR analyzed single product categories or entire manufacturing or service industries. For example, smartphones [106], clothing [25], cosmetics [29,107], mineral water [78], personal care products [107], tissues [30,109], and flooring products [79]. Coffee has been studied both as a product and as a coffee shop chain [24,112].…”

“…Some articles examined green brands [32,114] and green products [32,111,115,117], in general without specifying the product category or service type. Others examined single product categories, for example, smartphones [106], clothing [25], cosmetics [29,107], mineral water [78], personal care products [107], tissues [30,109], flooring products [79], electric [118,120], and electronic products [76,113,116,118,[120][121][122]. Studies also focus on coffee and coffee shop chains [24,112], the telecom industry [7], services [34], activities of SMEs [26], and green restaurants [119].…”

“…Additionally, when surveyed among mall's consumers [28] and SMEs [26], loyalty was found to be key in determining GBE. Brand awareness appeared in 7 studies as 'green brand awareness' (3 studies), 'green brand awareness' (2 studies), and once as 'green brand awareness' for information and electronic products [113], smartphones [106], and SMEs [26]. Brand associations were studied 3 times as 'brand associations' and 'green brand associations' for gas stations [30], telecommunication and home appliances [77], and SMEs [26].…”

Table_1.docx

“…Referring to Hong et al (2019), Tsaur (2020), andYu et al (2020), this paper adds the interaction between government subsidies and technology innovation to construct the regression model ( 4) to test the moderating effect of government subsidies:…”