Environmental Sensitivity and Awareness as Differentiating Factors in the Purchase Decision-Making Process in the Smartphone Industry—Case of Polish Consumers

Lukasz Skowron,Monika Sak-Skowron

doi:10.3390/su13010348

Lukasz Skowron, Monika Sak-Skowron

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010348

Copy DOI

Abstract

The first of the research objectives discussed in this article was to analyze the differences related to the valuation of particular factors influencing the purchase process in the smartphone industry, expressed by respondents with different sensitivity and environmental awareness, as well as the assessment of their knowledge about the impact of smartphones on the natural environment. The second objective of the research was to determine whether the level of environmental sensitivity, awareness and knowledge about the impact of smartphones on the environment has a statistically significant influence on the respondents’ choice of smartphone brand. The survey was conducted using an on-line questionnaire, distributed by a specialized research agency on a representative sample of over 1000 Polish residents. In order to identify the various customers clusters, the expectation-maximization algorithm and the v-fold cross-validation were used. Additionally, in order to analyze the significance level of differences between clusters the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-test was carried out. The results show unequivocally that people with a different approach to ecological issues demonstrate statistically significant differences in their purchasing behaviors in the smartphone industry. Furthermore, it was noticed that in the case of comparing some smartphones brands, there is a statistically confirmed difference in the environmental sensitivity and awareness of the customers who use them. Moreover, the research has shown that in Polish customers’ consciousness smartphones are mistakenly considered to be relatively safe and environmentally friendly products.

Highlights

Natural resource security and environmental sustainability are today at stake amid growing material flow through trade and domestic material consumption to meet population demand [1]
Do the individual clusters identified in the research differ statistically significantly in the assessment of the importance of the analyzed factors influencing the purchase process in the smartphone industry?
All questions were divided into 4 problem areas: economic, image, technical and environmental parameters); three questions about the product environmental performance, the respondents’ environmental sensitivity and its impact on the purchase process

Summary

Introduction

Natural resource security and environmental sustainability are today at stake amid growing material flow through trade and domestic material consumption to meet population demand [1]. How can the impact of different products or services on natural environment be calculated?. How important is the level of impact of different products or services on natural environment for customers and to what extent it is determining their purchasing behaviors on the market?. The “carbon footprint” term was first developed in the 1990s, deriving from the concept of “ecological footprint” [7], but referring to the measurement of the climate change impacts. The concept since 2005 has begun to be publicized independently, and refers to the impact of human activities on the environment and especially on the climatic conditions, in terms of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions (or briefly called “carbon emissions”) [8]. In most cases the total carbon footprint cannot be calculated exactly and directly because of both inadequate knowledge and data about the complex interactions occurring between contributing processes engaged in production and usage of the analyzed product [10]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion