Landscaping services adoption by organisations in Malaysia: a strategic response to sustainable development

Abstract

The societal marketing concept advocates the conduct of marketing activities at the societal (or environmental) well-being. Among the ways approached by firms, this concept includes landscaping. Adopting the theory of organisational buying behaviour and the innovation diffusion theory, this paper examines the factors that discriminate between organisational adopters and non-adopters of this societal marketing strategy. About 94 organisations provided the data for the study. The results show that environmental factors such as economic outlook, government influence, competitive development and public scrutiny are important dimensions. In addition, organisational factors namely, organisation's size, organisation's people, environmental sensitivity, cost implication and management factors such as attitude and intention are sufficient for discriminating between adopters and non-adopters. Lastly, relative advantage, compatibility and complexity are significant dimensions from the innovation diffusion theory.