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Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanism of the influence of consumer
innovativeness (CI) on consumer-reasoned green consumption (GC) behavior to understand more about
this behavior and help improve the practice of green marketing.
Design/methodology/approach To understand more about GC behavior and help to improve the
practice of green marketing, this paper tries to explore the mechanism of CI influences on
consumer-reasoned GC behavior.
Findings This study shows that CI has a significant influence on GC behavior. Its mechanism is that
CI directly influences consumer attitude, subjective norm (SN) and perceived behavioral control (PBC)
of GC, and then further influences GC intention and behavior. The direct influence of GC attitude on
intention is not significant, but GC intention is indirectly influenced via SN by attitude. Moreover, male,
young, highly educated and high-income consumers have stronger CI; the influence of CI on GC
behavior is more significant in male, old, less-educated and low-income consumers.
Research limitations/implications This research focuses on consumption behaviors which are
reasoned and environment condition-constrained only, and its findings cannot be generalized to
impulsive consumption behaviors. The influence of CI on impulsive consumption behaviors should be
further researched.
Practical implications Company managers should utilize new technology and design to make
green products more innovative and fashionable to attract more customers.
Social implications Instead of environment protection propaganda and education, society and
market supervisors should lay the key point of GC incentive on the draft and implementation of law and
regulation.
Originality/value This research is an initial attempt to establish the relationship between CI and GC
behaviors and generate a news research area in green marketing.
Keywords Consumer behavior, Consumer innovativeness, Structural equation modeling, Green
marketing, Green consumption
Paper type Research paper
1. Literature review
GC (GC) indicates consumers endeavor to protect ecoenvironment during purchase, use
and disposal and minimize the negative effects exerted on the environment. It is of great Nankai Business Review
International
Vol. 5 No. 2, 2014
Originally published in Chinese in the Nankai Business Review, Lao et al. (2013), Research on pp. 211-224
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
mechanism of consumer innovativeness influencing green consumption behavior, NBR, Vol. 16 2040-8749
No. 4, pp.106-113. DOI 10.1108/NBRI-11-2013-0041
NBRI significance to the practice of enterprises green marketing, whose influencing factors
have been an important topic in green marketing studies. Previous research shows that
5,2 GC behavior is affected by demographic factors, such as age, gender, income and
education background, and it focuses on the young (Lee, 2008) people with high income
and academic credentials (Si, 2002) and female, especially those who are married and are
mothers (Lee, 2009; Laroche and Bergeron, 2001). However, the statistic shows no
212 obvious significance, and sometimes even reaches opposite conclusions (Balderjahn,
1988; Mainiery and Barnett, 1997; Samdahl and Robertson, 1989). Other studies discuss
the influencing factors from the aspects of psychology as attitude, perception and
responsibility. According to Balderjahn (1988) and Lee (2008), consumers attitude
toward environmental protection and green products greatly influences GC behavior,
which, however, meets different opinions from the research of Vlosky (1999), Yam-Tang
and Chan (1998) and Paco and Raposo (2009). Zhang (2010) points out that consumers
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Reinders (2010) discuss the relations between CI and consumer social status.
Therefore, as to the reasoned and environment-constrained GC behavior, the
mechanism of the influence of CI should be that CI influences consumers GC attitude,
SN and PBC, and then further influences their green consumption intention and
behavior (Figure 1). This theoretical model covers those hypothesizes as follows:
H1. CI positively influences consumer attitude of GC.
Consumer green consumption attitude means how much consumers like or hate GC
behavior. The reason why green products are easily loved by consumer is that they are
newly designed with fashionable style and new technologies are applied into, which
conform to the consumers need to seek change and innovation. The more modern they
become, the more the consumers will be keen on it. Moreover, consumers with stronger
innovativeness are likely to be fond of green products. Therefore, CI is positively related
to consumer attitude of GC.
H2. CI positively influences consumer SN of GC.
Consumer SN means the perception of various social rules and relations on GC. It is the
pressure that consumers feel when they are thinking whether and how to consume. This
pressure comes from the eco-pollution and damage caused by consumers using
outdated products and technology, which also leads to peoples censure. Consumers
with stronger innovativeness can sensitively and easily realize this pressure. The
stronger the CI is, the easier they will perceive the censure. Therefore, CI is positively
related to consumer SN of GC.
H3. CI positively influences consumer PBC of GC.
GC Attitude
H1 H5
H4
H H6 H8 Figure 1.
CI GC SN GC Intention GC Behavior Theoretical model of
consumer innovativeness
influencing green
H3 GC PBC H7 consumption behavior
NBRI Consumer GC PBC indicate the possibilities, difficulties and promotive and obstructive
factors that consumers perceive in conducting GC. Because of CI, consumers will pay close
5,2 attention to novel green products and prepare for GC in the aspects of knowledge, capability
and economic condition. Generally speaking, stronger CI and better preparation will lead to
stronger PBC. Therefore, CI is positively related to PBC of GC.
H4. Consumer attitude positively influences consumer SN of GC.
214
According to the theory of planned behavior of Ajzen (1991), peoples attitude influences
their SN in terms of a specific behavior. Consumer attitude also influences SN, as GC is a
reasoned and condition-constrained behavior. The more active the consumers are in
conducting GC, the heavier environmental protection pressure they will suffer. GC attitude is
positively related to consumer SN of GC.
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also the information collection and acquisition of new products; thus, three questions
(variables), X1, X2 and X3, are set to test CI. To be specific, they are set to test consumers
acceptability (X1), information collection (X2) and information acquisition (X3).
According to the social psychology of Taylor (2006), X11, X12 and X13 are set to test
consumers preference (X11), importance (X12) and support (X13) to GC behavior. Cialdini
and Kallgren (1991) point out that SN comprises personal norms (including moral rules
and self-identification), descriptive norms and prescriptive norms; X21 and X22 are set to
test moral rules and self-identification, respectively, while X23 and X24 are set to test
descriptive norms and prescriptive norms, respectively. Furthermore, as far as Ajzen
and Feshbein (2005) are concerned, PBC should consist of an internal control belief
(including personal weakness, technique, ability and emotion, etc.) and an external
control belief (including information, opportunity, obstacle and dependence on others,
etc.); in this questionnaire, X31 and X34 are set to test consumer economic capability on
Variables Questions
accordant with me (9.5). Sixteen questions (variables) from GC behavior (X11, X12 and
X13), SN (X21, X22, X23 and X24), PBC (X31, X32, X33 and X34) and behavioral intention
(X41, X42, X43 and X44) meet choices and evaluations, namely, strongly disagree (0.5),
quite disagree (2), disagree (3.5), undecided (5), agree (6.5), quite agree (8) and
strongly agree (9.5). The question (variables) X51, which belongs to a part of GC
behavior, is a multiple-choice one, and scores are in line with the highest one. The
corresponding choices and evaluation are: not notice whether it is a green
air-conditioner (0.5), pay attention to the green air-conditioner at times (2), once read
materials on the green air-conditioner (3.5), once recommended a green
air-conditioner to relatives and friends (5), once bought one green air-conditioner
(6.5), once bought two green air-conditioners (8) and once bought three and more
green air-conditioners (9.5).
GC attitude (X11, X12 and X13), SN (X21, X22, X23 and X24), PBC (X31, X32, X33 and X34) and
GC intention (X41, X42, X43 and X44), reach or surpass the high reliability value of 0.7
(Rong, 2009) with 0.737, 0.826, 0.838, 0.696 and 0.867 as the respective values (Table II).
The data above indicate relatively high reliability of this research.
AMOS17.0 is used for the confirmatory factor analysis of 909 samples, whose results
show good convergent validity of latent variables with all standard estimates of
variables relevant to CI, GC attitude, SN, PBC, intention and behavior, surpassing the
fiducial value of 0.5, and all significant indices 0.001, namely, p 0.001 (***)
(Table II). According to the comparison of square root of average variance extracted
(AVE) and the correlation index of latent variables, the square root of AVE relevant
to CI is greater than other correlation indices and shows good discriminant validity.
In line with the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), there exists a high
CI 0.677
GC attitude 0.607 0.788
GC SN 0.599 0.859 0.751
GC PBC 0.474 0.583 0.667 0.608
GC intention 0.568 0.704 0.783 0.702 0.789
GC Behavior 0.304 0.190 0.230 0.298 0.317 0.414 Table III.
Discriminant validity test
Note: In the matrix, data on diagonal are square roots of AVE; others are relevant correlation indexes of latent variables
NBRI relevancy among GC attitude, SN, PBC and intention. However, it can be deduced
that the discriminant validity is not ideal because some of the correlation indices are
5,2 greater than the square root of AVE (Table III). Therefore, based on the
aforementioned results, conclusions can be drawn that the questionnaires are
qualified for the validity test but not so ideal.
also hold the point that the 2 value grows as the sample number augments. Therefore,
besides 2 statistics, other indices are needed for reference in testing structural equation
model fit (Rong, 2009). The sample numbers of this research are far greater than the
most suitable number (100 and above), so it is improper to judge the model fit merely by
the 2/df ratio.
As far as Wu (2009) is concerned, root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) is the most important index for the model fit test. The RMSEA value of
this research is 0.061, nicely staying in a suitable range from 0.05 to 0.08. Values of
other major model fit indices, normed fit index (NFI), goodness of fit index (GFI),
comparative fit index (CFI), relative fit index (RFI), IFI, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI)
and adjust goodness of fit index (AGFI), are greater than 0.9, a satisfactory result of
the model fit (Rong, 2009). Moreover, some indices also get relatively good results,
such as root mean square residual (RMR) (index value: 0.223), non-centrality
parameter (NCP) (index value: 490.826), minimum value of discrepancy function
(FMIN) (index value: 0.700), Akaikes information criterion (AIC) (index value:
725.826) and expected cross validation index (ECVI) (index value: 0.799). Hence, the
hypothesized model and survey data get a good fitting.
Table IV. Model fit 2/df RMSEA NFI GFI CFI RFI IFI TLI AGFI
Main indices of the model
fit test Index 4.385 0.061 0.919 0.932 0.936 0.905 0.937 0.925 0.911
5. Statistical characteristics of CI
To explore the statistical characteristics of CI influence on GC behavior, 909 samples are
grouped by gender, age, education background and family income of subjects; 501
samples are males and 408 are females when classified by gender; 773 come are young,
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while 136 are old when grouped by the age of 43; 331 with a bachelor degree and above
are classified as people with high education, while 598 without bachelor degree as
less-educated people; 125 people are in the high-income group, while 784 are in the
low-income group when family monthly income of 7,000 Yuan is taken as standard. On
this basis, the research first calculates and compares the average level of CI in different
groups, and then conducts the fitting test with grouped data and theoretical model and
finally compares coefficients and significances of CI influencing GC attitude, SN and
PBC by pairs (Table VII). As a result, statistical characteristics of CI influencing GC
behavior are summarized as follows:
(1) Male, young, highly educated and high-income consumers enjoy stronger CI.
First, it takes on higher average values of CI in males. The average values of X1,
X2 and X3 are 5.8743, 5.9880 and 5.9940, respectively, in males, obviously greater
than 5.6912, 5.5412 and 5.5846, respectively, in females. Second, young people
show more significant CI. The average values of three variables, X1, X2 and X3,
in young consumers are 5.8014, 5.8154 and 5.8286, respectively, greater than,
5.7390, 5.6287 and 5.7059, respectively, in older consumers. Furthermore, the
measured values of CI in people with high education are relatively higher; in this
research, average values of their variables, X1, X2 and X3, are 5.8392, 6.0177 and
6.0273, respectively, obviously greater than 5.7676, 5.6677 and 5.6973,
respectively, in less educated people. Last but not the least, CI is more distinct in
high-income consumers. In this group, three variables for CI measuring, X1, X2
and X3 are 6.0080, 5.8520 and 6.0800, respectively, more outstanding than 5.7577,
5.7772 and 5.7672, respectively, for the low-income consumers. The statistical
results (Table VI) are in accordance with the studies of Venkatraman (1991),
Goldsmith et al. (1995) and Midgley and Dowling (1993). The reasonable
n 501 408 773 136 598 311 784 125 Table VI.
X1 5.8743 5.6912 5.8014 5.7390 5.7676 5.8392 5.7577 6.0080 Average values of
X2 5.9880 5.5412 5.8154 5.6287 5.6677 6.0177 5.7772 5.8520 consumer innovativeness
X3 5.9940 5.5846 5.8286 5.7059 5.6973 6.0273 5.7672 6.0800 variables
NBRI explanation on these statistical characteristics is that males have a higher
risk preference than females and they are more eager to become opinion
5,2 leaders; thus, they are more likely to buy new products. Young consumers
often have a stronger desire for knowledge than the older ones, and they are
more eager to change their status; thus, they bear a stronger CI. It costs
money to purchase new products and it also takes time and energy to get to
220 know the use of new products, so high-income and high-education
backgrounds provide necessary financial support and intellectual support
for consumers; in a word, consumers with relatively high-income and
high-education backgrounds enjoy stronger CI.
(2) Influence of CI on GC is more outstanding in males, old, less-educated and
low-income consumers. First, males CI exerts greater influence on
determinants of GC behavior. GC attitude, SN and PBC are three major
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and Law in 2008. His interests lie in the research of consumer behavior. Kefu Lao can
be contacted at: laokefu@gxu.edu.cn