Motivation and behaviour in green consumerism: Empirical evidence from China

Jin, Hui (2016) Motivation and behaviour in green consumerism: Empirical evidence from China. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

In light of an increasing demand for environmentally friendly and safe food products and the growing market for green products, there is a need for research that examines how Chinese consumers view and make decisions about buying green food products. Despite the growth in green consumerism, few studies have explored Chinese consumers’ green purchase intentions and real buying behaviour.

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a conceptual model that explains the constructs that influence consumers’ real buying behaviour and intention to purchase green products. The data for this study was gathered via a self-completed questionnaire that sought to capture the perception of 720 Chinese consumers located in Beijing and Xi’an. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling have been used to analyse this primary data.

The findings reveal that consumers’ attitudes towards green purchases, subjective norms, moral obligation, and ecological affects have significant positive influence on their purchase intention for green foods, while only purchase intention and consumers’ subjective knowledge have significant positive impact on their actual purchase behaviour for green food.

This study fills in knowledge gaps to focus on Chinese green consumption through applying goal-framing theory to examine consumer behaviour towards green foods.
This research’s findings emphasize consumers’ subjective knowledge about green consumption which extends goal-framing theory and theory of planned behaviour applying to green food consumerism in the context of China. Meanwhile, this study examined the goal-framing theory’s external validity and testing this theory’s assumptions. This study also provided justification for using the TPB model in explaining the green food buying behaviour. So, the empirical results and findings from this study will be helpful in making a contribution to further expand research in consumers’ behaviour in relation to food consumption. Through better understanding consumer purchase intention and actual buying behaviour toward green food products, the results offered more practical information to policy makers and business leaders to better promote the idea of a green market programme.

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