Extending the Theory of Planned Behavior to Explain the Effects of Cognitive Factors across Different Kinds of Green Products

Abstract

Sustainable development is a powerful impetus to achieve the coordination between economic advancement and environmental protection. Therefore, the promotion and adoption of green consumption has attracted increasing attention from academics. As an important tool for multivariate data analyses, structural equation modelling has been extensively used in purchase intention for green products. However, most previous research has recognized green products as a general class when studying their purchase intention, which focused little attention on comparing purchase intention for different kinds of green products. This study extends and tests the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and includes another cognitive construct, that is, environmental concern, to explore purchase intention for different kinds of green products. First, the effect of TPB constructs was examined on purchase intention for utilitarian green products and hedonic green products. Second, a cognitive factor, that is, environmental concern, was used to test its different effects on these two kinds of green products. Third, the indirect effect of environmental concern on purchase intention was measured for these two kinds of green products. The study showed that extended TPB constructs, that is, attitude, perceived behavior control, and environmental concern positively and significantly affected purchase intention for both utilitarian green products and hedonic green products, while subjective norm only significantly and positively affected purchase intention for utilitarian green products. Moreover, the cognitive factor, that is, environmental concern, had a higher effect on purchase intention for utilitarian green products than purchase intention for hedonic green products, and it also had a similar indirect effect on both kinds of green products. This study provides an insight to policymakers, entrepreneurs, and marketers into how to increase purchase intention for different kinds of green products.Sustainability 2019, 11, 4222 2 of 17 environment and caused nearly 40% of environmental degradation [2]. Therefore, promotion and adoption of green consumption has an imperative effect on solving environmental problems.Green products are the products that can be recycled or reused, and they will not pollute the earth or waste natural resources [3]. Green consumption has gradually become a consumption trend with the improvement of living standards. Meanwhile, the research on green consumption has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers. Many previous studies have explored purchase intention for green products and further studied purchase behavior for green products [4][5][6]. Various conceptual frameworks such as the construal level theory (CLT) [7], the theory of reasoned action (TRA) [8], and the social cognitive theory (SCT) [9] have been studied in the field of green consumption and achieved good results. Moreover, another conceptual framework, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) [10], has been extensively used and extended in green consump...

Impact of Consumer Environmental Responsibility on Green Consumption Behavior in China: The Role of Environmental Concern and Price Sensitivity

“…Previous studies show that there are significant differences in the green consumption behavior of different consumers, such as sex, age, education, family size and family income [22,32,33], but some scholars believe that a simple analysis of the relationship between the demographic variables and the green consumption behavior is not enough to reach a meaningful valuable conclusion [30,31]. The second branch explores the psychological mechanism of consumers' green consumption behavior based on the classic theory in consumer behavior [34][35][36][37][38]. For example, researchers have introduced new psychological variables, such as "perceived green value", "environmental knowledge" and "perceived self-identification" to expand the theory of planned behavior in order to effectively predict green consumption behavior [36][37][38].…”

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