Toward Sustainable Livelihoods: Investigating the Drivers of Purchase Behavior for Green Products

Abstract

Green consumption involves comprehensive concerns that address the broad scope of sustainability, ecosystem balance, profit‐generation and people. Identifying the factors that influence consumers' purchase behavior enables manufacturers to understand consumers' decision‐making processes and can help them develop more environmentally beneficial products. However, scholars have recently found that a gap exists between environmental concern and consumers' actual purchase behavior. The purpose of this paper is to use cognitive behavior theory to investigate the drivers of green consumption behavior and the missing link in the concern–behavior gap. After collecting 375 valid questionnaires, this study validated the proposed conceptual model using structural equation modeling. The revised model indicates that environmental involvement, informational utility, green advertising skepticism and green trust are antecedent variables of consumer attitudes toward green products. Additionally, this study also provides a possible explanation of and remedies for the concern–behavior gap. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Toward sustainable consumption: Investigating the determinants of green buying behaviour of Indian consumers

“…The study also validates that AGP has a significant and direct relationship with GPI, and further GPI is the fundamental predictor of GPB which is consistent with the findings of scholars in emerging economies (Chan, 2001;Kumar et al, 2017;Wei et al, 2017).…”

“…Thus, it can be argued that the standardized models of TRA and TPB are not effective measures to capture GPB unanimously in a wide range of cultural settings. So there is need to address the "attitude-behaviour gap using with some other cognitive and psychological factors in 'attitude-intention-behaviour'" model to elucidate the GPB (Akehurst et al, 2012;Chan, 2001;Chan & Lau, 2002;Kumar et al, 2017;Mostafa, 2007b;Tan, 2011;Wei et al, 2017). Hence, this study approached the proposed model of green buying behaviour based on attitude-intention behaviour consists of environmental concern, perceived environmental knowledge (PEK), and PCE as the determinants of attitude for green products which in turn influences on consumers' GPI and thus further effects on their purchase behaviour for such products.…”

“…In the literature of green consumer psychology, researchers have found unanimously that intention is a fundamental predictor of purchase behaviour (Akehurst et al, 2012;Mostafa, 2007a;Wei et al, 2017). The scholars such as Lai and Cheng (2016) and Joshi and Rahman (2015) observed that expressed willingness for sustainable products is more effective than other cognitive measures in understanding consumers' purchase decision for such products.…”

“…The 21st century of the business landscape has witnessed that the consumers and stakeholders have become more aware and conscious towards ecological issues, namely, pollution, waste generation, and global warming, and now they are shifting towards sustainable consumption practices for future generations' well-being (Laroche, Bergeron, & Barbaro-Forleo, 2001;Ottman, 2011;Wei, Chiang, Kou, & Lee, 2017). Therefore, the issue of sustainable or green consumption has been emerged as a focal point for academic researchers and policymakers in the present arena of green consumerism.…”

“…Therefore, the issue of "value-action gap" is still uncovered in the literature of green consumer behaviour. Few scholars stressed on this literature gap in order to unveil attitude-intention-behaviour relationship of green consumption both in developed and developing contexts (Akehurst, Afonso, & Martins Gonçalves, 2012;Chan, 2001;Kumar, Manrai, & Manrai, 2017;Mostafa, 2007a;Wei et al, 2017).…”