The cross-cultural challenges of integrating personal norms into the Theory of Planned Behavior: A meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) approach

Abstract

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is a highly influential framework for studying human action. Research applying the TPB often follows the assumption that the framework – originally developed in the U.S. – is universal and can be effectively applied across geographical and cultural boundaries. With the power of meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM), we test the above assumption across Hofstede's and GLOBE's individualism-collectivism cultural dimensions. Specifically, we compare 3 variations of the TPB model that are evident in the literature. Our findings focus on the context of environmental behavior, and are based on 255 samples with 130,354 respondents from 50 countries. We show that adding personal norms to the TPB model in addition to subjective norms, the typically included dimension of the norm construct, moderately improves understanding of cross-cultural differences in environmental behavior.