Double-edged circularity: Comparative assessment of circular and non-circular consumers

Abstract

Circular consumption and disposal practices by consumers are increasingly viewed as more than just a current necessity. Nonetheless, the impacts of the marketing mix perception on perceived value, purchase intention, and circular purchase behavior and the impact of perceived risk on purchase intention and circular purchase behavior remain underexplored separately for circular and non-circular consumers. Similarly, few empirical studies have examined factors that affect circular disposal. Therefore, this study seeks to bridge these research voids and proposes a conceptual model with ten related research hypotheses. We collected data from 558 circular and 595 non-circular consumers in India. The structural equation modeling approach was employed to assess the strength of the proposed hypotheses separately for both consumer groups. The results confirm the positive impact of the marketing mix perception on purchase intention and self-reported purchase behavior for both consumer groups. Notably, the positive impact of the marketing mix perception on self-reported purchase behavior was found significant only for circular consumers. Moreover, the impact of purchase intention on self-reported purchase behavior was found insignificant for non-circular consumers. The results support the negative impact of perceived risks on both consumer groups' perceived value and purchase intentions. Lastly, the results reveal that circular disposal is positively impacted by self-reported purchase behavior and disposal convenience, and negatively impacted by disposal costs. However, the extent of these impacts varies significantly between circular and non-circular consumers. These results have important managerial implications for aligning non-circular consumers' perceptions, purchase intentions, and purchase and disposal behaviors toward circular products with those of circular consumers.