Regular to sustainable products: an account of environmentally concerned consumers in a developing economy

Abstract

ABSTRACT The rising threat of environmental degradation and global warming has made countries realize the importance to adopt and promote sustainable practices. Therefore, the study aims to identify the contributing factors to the purchase intention for energy-smart household appliances (ESHA) in a developing country. Partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique enabled to analyze 291 useful responses that were gathered from household energy consumers. Findings reveal that perceived behavioral control, attitude, moral norms, and environmental concern affect the intention to purchase ESHA. In contrast, subjective norms and environmental knowledge failed to affect purchase intention. The results also exhibit that moral norms and environmental knowledge help in defining the core constructs of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Importantly, environmental concern emerged as a moderator between attitude and purchase intention and between subjective norms and purchase intention but failed to moderate the association between perceived behavioral control and purchase intention. This study offers valuable implications for TPB theory and contextual knowledge of consumer behavior related to sustainable products. This is arguably among the first studies to explore environmental concern as a moderator for identifying ESHA’s purchase intention and testing the moral norm’s relationship with the central principles of the theory of planned behavior (TPB).