Consumers’ intentions to purchase smart home objects: Do environmental issues matter?

Abstract

The literature that investigates consumers' motivations to adopt smart home objects has focused on the ego-centric, utilitarian, and functional benefits that smart home objects may provide to consumers. Although smart home objects have also been acknowledged to promote environmental sustainability, investigation of the influence of altruistic and ecological motivational variables on consumers' willingness to purchase these products has been limited. This study presents a conceptual model that considers three relevant altruistic, ecological antecedents of eco-friendly product adoption (environmental beliefs, environmental concern, and smart home objects' perceived usefulness for the environment) and assesses their influence on the intention to purchase smart home objects. Furthermore, it uncovers the moderating role of the two dimensions of materialism (success and happiness) and hypothesizes that they moderate the relationship between environmental concern and intentions to purchase smart home objects. Structural equation modeling is applied to data from a sample of 641 French respondents. The results confirm that altruistic, ecological variables do matter in developing intentions to purchase smart home objects. Environmental concern and perceived usefulness positively affect consumers' intentions to purchase smart home objects. Furthermore, both happiness and success negatively moderate the effect of environmental concern on consumers' intentions to purchase smart home objects.