Title and Author(s) 1. Green Advertising and Environmentally Responsible Consumer Behaviors: Linkages Examined Diana L.

Haytko Missouri State University Erika Matulich The University of Tampa

Problem Statement/Research Question The purpose of this research is to provide a modern, reliable scale academic researchers and business practitioners can use to assess their "green" advertising strategies in conjunction with the environmental makeup of their customers. The paper utilizes Churchill's (1979) model for developing improved measures of marketing constructs. Based on individual and partially culturally informed characteristics, the expectation is that consumers will respond differently depending on the degree to which the perceived benefits of a certain product ally with their own preferences and inclinations. One such assumption is that individuals that are collectivist in nature will be especially prone to focus on messages relating to a green products benefit to society as a whole. It is the goal of this study to establish whether such a relationship exists and, if so, to define its impact on consumers decisions to buy green products. To better understand the environmental movement of a particular nation, an examination of how its consumers view and feel about ecological issues, and how they behave accordingly, serves as a good starting point.

Objectives Formulate purified, multidimensional scales that provide a broader perspective of the attitude toward green advertising and environmental behavior constructs than previous research. This perspective is necessary to study the influence of attitude toward green advertising in general on specific advertisements, especially in light of advertising's changing role in society. The proposed study will provide insights into the potential influence of psychological collectivism on the intent of consumers to purchase a variety of green products depending on the products perceived benefit to society versus to the individual.

Framework Attitude Toward Green Advertising - motivations for a firm to produce green advertising - consumer responses to green advertising and products in terms of loyalty, willingness to pay higher prices, and perceptions of product safety or harm to the environment - positive and negative impact of green advertising on society Environmental Behaviors

2. Consumer Responses to Green Products: The Influence of Psychological Collectivism Anna Helm, Ph.D. 2009 Post-Doctoral Bridge Program

3. Determinants of Chinese Consumers Green Purchase Behavior Ricky Y. K. Chan Hong Kong Polytechnic University

This study aims to grasp a better understanding of how various psychological factors might affect Chinese consumers green purchasing. As will be elaborated later, the major factors under investigation include the consumers affective responses toward (ecological affect) and knowledge of (ecological knowledge) ecological issues in general, and their specific attitudes toward green purchases. Moreover, given the profound impact of cultural values on the beliefs and behavior of the

Chinese, their possible influence on the green purchase behavior of Chinese consumers is also analyzed in this study.

4. Intention to Buy Organic Food among Consumers in the Czech Republic Kristna Olivov

Which determinants do influence the intention to buy organic food among Czech consumers? The main research question is divided into seven sub-research questions: 1) How do consumers attitudes toward buying organic food influence their intention to buy organic food of Czech consumers? 2) How do subjective norms of consumers influence the intention to buy organic food of Czech consumers? 3) How does perceived price of organic food influence the intention to buy organic food of Czech consumers? 4) How does perceived availability of organic food influence the intention to buy organic food of Czech consumers? 5) How does consumers product knowledge influence the intention to buy organic food of Czech consumers? 6) How do consumer demographic characteristics influence the intention to buy organic food? 7) Which variable does influence the intention to buy organic food of Czech consumers the most? In particular, the project focused on: monitoring the practice of green market research as a way to collect green signals from the market. This was carried out through seeking to answer the

The purpose of the thesis is to investigate intention to buy organic food. The aim is to examine which determinants influence the intention to buy organic food among consumers in the Czech Republic. Moreover, the study focuses to find out which determinant influences consumers intention the most.

5. Green Market Research anyone? A study on Green Market Research practice among companies Giorgia Nervi

Chalmers University Of Technology Gteborg, Sweden 2008

6. Gaining Competitive Advantage through Customer Satisfaction, Trust and Confidence in Consideration of the Influence of Green Marketing Ina Landua University of Gavle, May 2008

following: How common is green market research? How is it carried out? Which companies do carry out green market research? Why/Why not? How is the data collected used within companies? The following questions will be the underlying basis for this research: 1. Have companies taken their ecological responsibility seriously, or is it just a market adaptation to environmental principles and legislations, fulfilling only the minimum standards of being green? 2. Is it cynical to make consumers feel falsely confident when buying ecolabeled products? 3. Do green marketing efforts hurt the environment, as many people believe they are doing well when buying green products and buy even more because they purchase environmentally friendly products? 4. Are eco labels just feel-good slogans that offer no guarantee of real environmental protection? 5. Why should consumers buy products from one company when more and more companies produce eco-friendly and eco-label their products and how companies then, differentiate from others? environmental motivation on purchasing ecological food? And how about their Eco- knowledge as well as awareness on Eco-label? Swedish university students environmental

This thesis aims at identifying issues that determine the long-term efficiency of green marketing and how confidence and trust plays a role in order to gain competitive advantage through customer satisfaction and customer retention. Therefore, focus is laid on measures that lend credibility to companies green marketing by interviewing experts and observing their opinions about: - Eco-labeling as an illusion that might actually increase consumption - The advantage of first mover in ecolabeling and green marketing - Marginal effects of eco measures when an entire market goes green - Effects on consumer trust and confidence when eco labels are driven by a political agenda rather than concern for the environment.

7. Effectiveness of Eco-label? A study of Swedish University Students' Choice on Ecological Food Lien Quynh Nguyen Qian Du

This research aims to understand the effectiveness of Eco-label on Swedish students product choice towards ecological food. Furthermore, the results could be used to explore opportunities for food firms to enable Eco-labels effectiveness.

motivation, Eco-knowledge and awareness towards purchasing ecological food? knowledge, and awareness together with Ecoavailability influence to the effectiveness of Ecolabel? 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13 14.

Model/Methods 1. The paper utilizes Churchill's (1979) model for developing improved measures of marketing constructs. First, overall reliabilities were assessed. Second, principal components factor analysis was performed to ascertain the dimensionality of each scale. Then reliabilities were assessed for subdimensions. We looked at gender differences across all scale items, and finally assessed the relationship between environmentally responsible behaviors and attitudes toward green advertising. 2. Employing a scenario methodology, this study will include 10-14 distinctly green products with brief descriptions, which will have been pre-tested pertaining to their emphasis on societal versus individual benefit.

Scope and Limitations The survey was delivered to 565 undergraduate and graduate business students who are attending private and public universities in Florida. The current study utilized students as the sample, with a relatively homogeneous age group and income level. This was the first study to specifically investigate gender differences with regard to attitude toward green advertising and environmentally responsible behaviors. 10-14 distinctly green products The survey instrument will be distributed at one Swedish university (most likely the University of Lund) and at the George Washington University in Washington DC.

Results The findings of this study show that females tend to be more environmentally responsible and have more positive attitudes toward both the advertising and the products viewed as being green. This study also found that consumers are willing to pay more for these types of products

Recommendations Future research should further explore the reasons underlying these gender differences and the implications for marketers. Additionally, future research should use a sample containing a wide range of ages, educational levels, or incomes. Clearly, further research is needed to provide a better understanding of the conceptual foundations of attitude toward green advertising and corresponding environmental behaviors. In a future follow-up study an increased level of specificity in regards to green products could be infused in order to provide insights into how consumers respond to different categories of green product, varying price levels and so forth. There is surely the potential to investigate food-products, electronics, or personal hygiene products separately.

3. The survey was carried out through door-to-door personal interviews in Beijing and Guangzhou, China, which are respectively the major northern and southern cities of the country.

300 households in each of the two cities were randomly selected.

Consumers seem to use price to punish unethical companies to a greater extent than they use price to reward ethical companies. The results also indicate that for consumers with high initial expectations on companies ethical behavior, the magnitude of this price differential increases. This implies that in a new world of well-informed and demanding consumers, it will become increasingly important for managers to behave in accordance with these high CSR expectations. Results indicate that certain cultural and psychological variables significantly influence the behavior under investigation. Culturally, traditional Chinese mannature orientation and collectivism are found to exert significant bearing on Chinese consumers attitudes toward green purchases, which in turn, affect their green purchase intention, and ultimately, their green purchase behavior. Psychologically, attitudes toward green purchases are found to be determined

Two observations call for further exploration. The first concerns the asymmetric influence of ecological affect and ecological knowledge on attitudes toward green purchases. As noted earlier, ecological affect exerts much stronger influence on the attitudinal construct than ecological knowledge does. The second concerns Chinese consumers low degree of actual commitment to green purchases. Such observations may be attributed to some underlying factors that have not

by ecological knowledge and ecological affect, albeit at different degrees.

4. A survey of 263 consumers was carried out. Several techniques were used to analyse the model, such as descriptive statistics, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, multiple regression analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Naturally, this study has some potential limitations related to generalization of the results. First, the study was conducted in one country, Czech Republic. Second, the collected data are associated mainly with consumers living inside or near of the city Pardubice. Third, the data were collected in one supermarket.

With respect to the results, subjective norms and attitudes toward buying organic food are important predictors of intention to buy organic products. Moreover, gender was found to be a significant factor of intention to buy organic products. It was found that women have higher intention to buy organic food than men. Moreover, women more often purchase organic food.

5. Survey and phone interview to professionals

The study considered a sample composed by eight firms. The sample comprehended: - ABB AB, Power Technology and Industrial Automation company - AstraZeneca AB, Pharmaceutical company - DEM Collective AB, Clothing company - Ericsson AB, Telecommunication company - ICA AB, Food Retailer company - Saab Automobiles AB, Automotive company - Sackeus AB, Food Importer and Retailer company - Schenker AB, Logistics company The companies were not chosen randomly, but in a way to create a diverse sample and to cover most of the industrial panorama available on the

Overall, it turns out that the preferred ways for environmental communication among the companies interviewed are the sustainability report and green marketing; indeed, half of the companies use both tools simultaneously. Half of the companies included in the sample carry out green market research (Ericsson, ICA, Saab Automobiles and Schenker). These four companies belong to different industries; they have different sizes and characteristics, but it seems that all companies do or want to do market research.

been dealt with thoroughly in this study. In view of this, more in-depth follow-up investigation is considered necessary to further advance understanding of the proenvironmental behavioral process of the Chinese. Additionally, Chinese consumers strong emotional attachment to ecological issues warrants further discussion. Since various types of grocery stores have different characteristics such as price levels, availability of organic food, or range of organic food, it might be possible that consumer behaviour may differ between different types of stores. Finally, more factors influencing the intention to buy organic food may be involved into the studied model. The additional factors might raise explanatory power of the model. Thus, further research is needed to validate the thesis findings under different conditions. As for future research, it would be interesting to get to know more in details about GMR practice in some other specific sectors that were not included in this study. Just as an example, investigating the use of GMR in the restoration, tourism, energy and in the transportation sector to cite just a few, would be extremely interesting. Alternatively, it would be attractive to investigate further the reason why companies do not carry out GMR unless they perceive a green interest from consumers.

6. Interviews conducted with company professionals from IKEA and Konsum Gvleborg and a member of the municipality in Gvle, as well as findings from secondary sources of the company Nestl were used to investigate the companies ways to respond to environmental concern and how they deal with green issues and ecological responsibility. The interviews provide valuable insights of the success of green marketing depending on the confidence between company and customer.

market. - Literature on CRM is obtainable extensively, literature on green marketing only limited, and the connection of both marketing concepts is not covered in literature together; the common denominator therefore, is the creation of confidence, trust and value for customers. - Seldom eco labels are discussed in a marketing context. The literature on eco labels seems to have developed to a large extent separately from marketing research. - In the literature review, the focus is only on value creating concepts of CRM, such as satisfaction, trust and loyalty to create confidence. Customer retention programs or investments in employees, services etc. are not elaborated, as these concepts are not in the focus of observation. - As covered in the literature review, also green standards were described. As, for example, Nestl is joining the Global Reporting Initiative Program to develop global reporting standards on sustainability in the food industry, the theoretical framework could also have been covered the Global Reporting Initiative. It was chosen not to cover this aspect in detail in the literature review as the focus is placed mainly on ecolabeling and the creation of trust and confidence. - In order to acquire experts opinions about the topic in research and to add critical aspects, qualitative interviews

The study indicates a relationship between eco-orientation and company performance and implicates, on the basis of the theoretical and empirical findings without considering any financial aspects, that integrating ecological features and good performance in a company is possible. Trust and confidence are as important concepts in green marketing as in CRM as competitive advantage, through for example product differentiation, could not merely be achieved with technical solutions.

A future study could take a longitudinal perspective, for example focusing on companys adaptation and improvements to achieve further goals and standards in their eco-orientation. For further research it could be a possibility to research consumer behavior and their trust and confidence when a company adapts only to a political agenda and how this affects their perception towards a company and its products or brands. In addition, the relationship between ecological orientation and sales of ecological products could be observed to cover an overall company performance. Moreover, future studies could probably grasp ecological orientation from a broader basis and include employees as well as customers to contribute to a better understanding of the eco-orientation as well as a cross-national study, comparing ecological orientation in different countries.

have been conducted. The interviews are limited on 2 interviews with company professionals and one with an expert offering a non-business view. - The thesis aims not to evaluate the correctness of the experts opinions, as interviews are conducted with business experts from various companies, acting on a multinational basis and having a positive view about the questions in research. The non-business view is only presented by one person, as it was not possible to obtain more interviews with politicians or company-independent persons. - The number of interviews is limited, providing insight into the thinking of business persons opinions on green marketing. More interviews could have been conducted, in order to gain a holistic overview of all various aspects and more valuable insights from nonbusiness experts dealing with green marketing. Further research would be necessary to get a more detailed picture on a positive, controversial and independent basis of the topic and more interviews need to be conducted. But this was not the aim of this thesis, as only insights of some experts should be included. - First movers are generally thought to gather fairly advantages over later entrants; however, the degree to which these advantages prevail in green marketing is not elaborated. - Environmental labeling schemes and governmental action should not be

evaluated to problems and procedures and the standards and cooperation, the companies are involved in will not be assessed as the aim is to identify opportunities to gain competitive advantages; only difficulties that might occur in this regard will be outlined. - Financial aspects are not considered by observing the relationship of ecoorientation and business performance This research aims on Swedish university students, who might be the potential market segment for ecological products firms. In respect to this target group, we give attention to the impact of demographic characters of the target group: gender, education background, income, and age. We want to test if these factors affect students environmental motivation on Eco-buying behavior, their awareness about Ecolabel and their Eco-knowledge. Even though there are many ways to understand knowledge and availability, in the scope of this research we define Eco-knowledge and Eco-availability as: Eco-Knowledge refers to respondents knowledge on both ecological food and Eco-label. Regards to Eco-Availability, it means the availability of both ecological food and information towards Eco-label. Consumer behavior field, that is going to discourse in further parts, is constrained in ecological related consumer behavior.

7. Causal Path model of Thgersen (2000) is the central model for this research

The results of our study show that the higher of students awareness on Ecolabel, students environment motivation, and their Eco-knowledge, the more they give attention to Eco-label.

A future study could take a longitudinal perspective, for example focusing on companys adaptation and improvements to achieve further goals and standards in their eco-orientation. For further research it could be a possibility to research consumer behavior and their trust and confidence when a company adapts only to a political agenda and how this affects their perception towards a company and its products or brands. In addition, the relationship between ecological orientation and sales of ecological products could be observed to cover an overall company performance. Moreover, future studies could probably grasp ecological orientation from a broader basis and include employees as well as customers to contribute to a better understanding of the eco-orientation as well as a cross-national study, comparing ecological orientation in different countries.