Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to observe consumers’ attitudes toward and intentions to purchase green products on social media and to explore the relationships among social media marketing, ...perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE), product knowledge, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, price consciousness and attitudes toward and intentions to purchase green products. In addition, this research attempts to further understand these relationships in different consumer groups.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey method was used to collect data from consumers in China. The Amos 22.0 software package was used to conduct the data analysis.
Findings
The empirical results suggest that attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control positively affect purchase intentions, while price consciousness negatively affects purchase intentions. Product knowledge positively affects consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions, and PCE positively affects consumers’ attitudes. As expected, social media marketing positively affects subjective norms, product knowledge and PCE and negatively affects price consciousness. However, there is no significant relationship between PCE and purchase intentions. According to the results of multigroup structural equation modeling analysis, the effects differ significantly among different consumer groups.
Originality/value
This study enriches the research about the factors that influence consumers’ purchases of green products in emerging countries in the social media marketing context.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore if e-commerce customers change their preferred last-mile delivery, when they are provided with additional information on the environmental and social ...sustainability impact of the available last-mile delivery options.Design/methodology/approachWe conduct a stated-preference survey and apply McNemar test on the collected data.FindingsThe results show that displaying the environmental and social impacts of last-mile deliveries influences E-commerce customers, and generally makes them more likely to choose a more sustainable last-mile delivery.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitations are (1) the possible inconsistency between participants' intentions stated in the survey and their actual behaviour in real life and (2) the possibility of participants denying socially undesirable behaviours. Further research can study e-commerce customers' real behaviour.Practical implicationsE-retailers and logistics companies could implement transparent information sharing on the delivery sustainability impact on all three sustainability pillars.Social implicationsThe suggested transparent information sharing has the potential to change customers' behaviours towards more sustainable deliveries.Originality/valueWe provide a new approach in investigating customers' preferences on last-mile deliveries, by giving E-customers the chance of making choices between different deliveries, not only based on the economic factors (as in common practice nowadays) but also based on the environmental and social factors.
Agricultural non-point source (NPS) pollution in water source protection areas poses serious challenges for governments in developing countries. It is important to consider the environmental behavior ...of farmers when exploring the causes of NPS pollution as well as when establishing scientific controls and management measures. However, the poor understanding of factors influencing the environmental behavior of farmers and the lack of a suitable environmental socio-psychological model limit the application of the environmental behavior of farmers in NPS pollution management. In this study, we therefore integrated the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the protection motivation theory (PMT) to identify the main determinants of the NPS pollution-related environmental behavior and intention of farmers in the Water Source Area of the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in China. Results indicated that the integrated model provided a better understanding of the environmental behavior and intention of farmers than that provided by each component when used individually, and revealed that farmers perceived that the susceptibility and severity of threats caused by water deterioration influenced environmental intention through the mediating effects of subjective norm and attitude toward adopting pro-environmental behavior. At the same time, the perceived vulnerability of farmers was relatively high and their perceived severity was relatively low. Furthermore, the subjective norm, attitude, self-efficacy (i.e., the perceived behavioral control), and response efficacy positively and significantly influenced intention. However, response cost had a significantly negative effect on intention. Among them, subjective norm had the largest effect on intention. Intention was the key determinant for the actual environmental behavior of farmers, while self-efficacy also had a significantly positive effect on behavior. Managing and controlling agricultural NPS pollution requires a multi-disciplinary and comprehensive approach. Therefore, an integrated theoretical framework was developed in this study by integrating TPB and PMT to gain insight into the environmental behaviors and intention of farmers. The results provided a theoretical basis for NPS pollution control.
•Integrated TPB and PMT to study farmers' environmental behavior.•Subjective norm had the greatest effect on farmers' environmental intention.•Attitude and subjective norm mediate the effects of threat appraisal on intention.•Pro-environmental behavior should be facilitated through comprehensive measures.
The tourism industry has been seriously suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis ever since its outbreak. Given this pandemic situation, the major aim of this study is to develop a ...conceptual framework that clearly explains the US international tourists' post-pandemic travel behaviors by expanding the theory of planned behavior (TPB). By utilizing a quantitative process, the TPB was successfully broadened by incorporating the travelers' perceived knowledge of COVID-19, and it has been deepened by integrating the psychological risk. Our theoretical framework sufficiently accounted for the US tourists' post-pandemic travel intentions for safer international destinations. In addition, the perceived knowledge of COVID-19 contributed to boosting the prediction power for the intentions. The associations among the subjective norm, the attitude, and the intentions are under the significant influence of the tourists' psychological risks regarding international traveling. The comparative criticality of the subjective norm is found. Overall, the findings of this study considerably enhanced our understanding of US overseas tourists' post-pandemic travel decision-making processes and behaviors.
In many countries farmers face pressure to adopt practices to promote sustainability and resilience while ensuring efficient business management to produce food and other agricultural products at ...reasonable cost. Given a policy context in which voluntary action is preferred over government regulation, understanding farmers’ motivation to embrace recommended practices has become a major subject for research. Increasingly, this endeavour is guided by the theory of planned behaviour, a reasoned action approach (Fishbein and Ajzen, 2010). We provide a brief overview of the theory of planned behaviour and an elaboration of good practices in the assessment of the theory’s constructs. We systematically review 124 applications of the theory to farmer behaviour on a number of specific review criteria. Based on observations of improper use, we consider theoretical and methodological issues and provide recommendations for research design and data analysis.
Green purchase behaviour is receiving a growing attention in the academic community, as understanding it is crucial for the growing number of companies developing and marketing green products. In ...order to provide a broader and novel picture of the phenomenon, this study extends the widely used Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model in several ways, through a large survey of Italian consumers. First, three dimensions of green purchase behaviour are considered, namely, the willingness to pay a premium price, the green purchase frequency and the green purchase satisfaction. Second, several antecedents are considered simultaneously. Third, new (consumer creativity) or so far marginally studied (materialism and green practices) antecedents are included. Fourth, the mediating roles of green purchase satisfaction and willingness to pay a premium price in the link between the considered antecedents and the frequency of green purchase are investigated.
Results show that the three dimensions of green purchase behaviour have different antecedents, so highlighting that green purchase behaviour is a multi‐faceted phenomenon that should not be studied as a single general concept. Personal norms and value for money emerged to be very relevant predictors. The significant effects of creativity, materialism and green practices provide evidence that extending the TPB model with these three antecedents is useful to more deeply understand green purchase behaviour. Green purchase satisfaction is the strongest predictor of purchase frequency and mediates the effects of personal norms and value for money.
It is increasingly obvious that for safeguarding environmental sustainability, eco-efficiency measures will need to be complemented by sufficiency, in particular by strong sustainable consumption. ...The Theory of Planned Behaviour TPB and Social Practice Theory SPT offer different views on consumer behaviour, and on ways to change it. This paper briefly describes the challenges, discusses the applicability of both theories and their meaningfulness for policy recommendations.
We suggest an approach combining results of both bodies of theory, complemented by ideas from political economy, to substantiate the Prism of Sustainable Consumption we introduce as a heuristic sufficiency policy tool. It is useful to identify affordability criteria for change in each dimension, as the basis for deriving suggestions for effective policy interventions. We conclude that (i) effective interventions are possible, (ii) they have to address several dimensions of affordability simultaneously, and (iii) the sufficiency policy space prism can be a useful tool in structuring planned interventions.
•Reducing energy consumption to limit climate change is a policy imperative.•Different bodies of theory make different suggestions how to achieve that.•Comparing them, we suggest not merging but combining complementary results.•The Prism of Sustainable Consumption offers a heuristic tool for doing so.•It allows defining four kinds of affordability as conditions for change.
•The TPB was used to explore numerous conservation behaviors.•Scholars tend to overlook mediating variables when predicting green behaviors.•Additional variables consistently increase the predictive ...power of the theory.•A roadmap provides useful guidance to scholars that intend to apply the TPB.
The theory of planned behavior (TPB) allows researchers to identify the determinants of environmental behavior and subsequently target these factors in interventions. Multiple studies on conservation behaviors have recently applied this theoretical framework in both organizational and domestic settings. To shed more light on how the TPB was used in these studies, we conducted a literature review with the following objectives: 1) explore which individual green behaviors were studied though the lens of the TPB, 2) understand how scholars have used the theory and what variance the theory has helped to explain, and 3) formulate recommendations, if necessary, for improving the use of the theory. The review of the results from 126 publications demonstrated that the majority of scholars tend to overlook the importance of identifying and evaluating indirect variables (beliefs) that affect behaviors. More than half of the analyzed articles did not report the amount of explained variance, which undermines the principal strength of the theory. Scholars could obtain more substantial and consistent results if the guidelines regarding the application of the theory are consistently respected. More specifically, four aspects should be considered in the application of the theory: choice of framework, decision to extend the original model, methodology, and results. To help scholars overcome these commonly encountered problems, this article suggests a roadmap with several guiding questions and possible answers.
The Sustainability Editorial Office retracts the article “Prediction of Consumption of Local Wine in Italian Consumers Based on Theory of Planned Behavior” ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend the existing literature on entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) by employing the integrated model of personality traits and the theory of planned behavior ...(TPB). It further examines the mediating role of TPB’s dimensions between personality traits and EIs of final-year university students in two diverse economies: China and Pakistan.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a survey method for data collection, administered both in electronic and paper form. The authors use structural equation modeling and the partial least square (PLS) method on a sample of 1,016 students and present PLS path modeling, mediation analysis and multigroup analysis.
Findings
Results reveal several differences regarding personality traits and TPB on EIs across the two countries. The impact of TPB was positive and significant in both countries; however, TPB demonstrated more explaining power in China’s student sample. Using three personality traits (risk-taking propensity, proactive personality and internal locus of control) as antecedents to TPB, the results reveal a stronger influence of personality traits among Chinese students. The mediation of three dimensions of TPB also revealed differences between country samples.
Originality/value
This is the first study of its kind to compare and contrast the differences between EIs in terms of personality and the determinants of planned behavior among university students in two diverse economies. The integrated model is original, supports both TPB and personality factors and provides a valuable perspective through its findings on two culturally diverse Asian countries. By applying the model in two different cultures, this study distinguishes the results for the two economies from those conducted in other economies.
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