research proposal factors affect customers green purchase intention in ho chi minh city changed

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PROPOSAL FACTORS AFFECT CUSTOMERS’ GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION IN HO CHI MINH CITY changed Student’s n

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

RESEARCH PROPOSAL FACTORS AFFECT CUSTOMERS’ GREEN

PURCHASE INTENTION IN HO CHI MINH CITY

(changed)

Student’s name: Tir Nguyén Nhat Thy Student ID: BABAIU17080

Course: Business Research Method Lecturer: Dr Le Dinh Minh Tri

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to determine factors affecting customers’ green purchase intention in

Ho Chi Minh City Theory of planned behavior is selected as the basic theoretical model in this research and it has been adapted by adding two variables, namely environmental concern and the availability of green products Moreover, this study also determines the moderating role of gender on the relationship between determinants and green purchase intention Quantitative research will be implemented to test the proposed hypothesizes The survey questionnaires will

be designed in Vietnamese version and delivered to people who are living in Ho Chi Minh city

from the age of above 18 years old Therefore, it is necessary to enhance consumers’ attitudes

toward green products and their environmental concerns in order to promote customers’ green purchase intention and behavior in Ho Chi Minh city Moreover, these findings are helpful for green companies to acquire deep understandings of customers’ purchase intention in relation to environment-friendly products in order to have appropriate strategies in terms of sales, marketing

and R&D

I Introduction:

1 Research background:

In recent years, due to the economic development, many environmental issues, such as

global warming and greenhouse effect, have become an alarming problem for the government and citizens With their awareness of environmental problems, consumers pay more their attentions to negative impacts on environment in their consumption activities Green consumption is considered as a trendy one when the environment becomes a big concern in

many countries Once they have concerned more about environment, consumers will care more

about green purchase behavior and green consumption It is their consciousness about environment that leads to a significant change in green purchase decision making

Nowadays, green consumption plays an important role in protecting environment and society Environmental specialists considered green consumption as a “saving the Earth’ solution

in front of negative ecological changes in a globe Therefore, a worldwide trend that encourages green purchase, producing and using eco-friendly products is expected to surge in the future Green consumption becomes prevalent in developed countries and is launched in developing countries when their personal incomes and knowledge of consumption have increased Most developing countries in Asia have proposed a set of environmental protection Therefore, the number of consumers who are willing to pay more for eco-friendly products are increasing, leading to the growth of green products in the market (Laroche, M., Bergeron, J & Barbaro-Foreo, 2001) Especially Ho Chi Minh city, in Vietnam, the growth of national

economic is closely associated with a dramatic decrease in natural resources and a rise in

pollution Strengthening green consumption and shopping as well as raising people’s awareness

of environment can help resolve these issues Moreover, creating a trend of green purchase in this city needs a support from the government and the decisive innovation of enterprises Hence,

it is essential to conduct researches related to green purchase with the purposes of well

understanding of customers’ behavior toward green products and upgrading the environmental quality

2 Research problem:

In the context of environmental pollution, food contamination is an alarming issue in

Vietnam Many organizations and enterprises have started producing and selling green consumption However, the process of moving from consumers’ green consciousness to green behavior depends on several factors In fact, there is a huge gap between consumers’ green purchase intention and behavior in Ho Chi Minh city Despite consumers’ green purchase intention, there are unknown factors that limit their green buying behavior Therefore, this study

is conducted to identify factors that have impacts on customers’ purchase intention for green products

3 Research objective:

The main purpose of this study is to determine factors affecting customers’ green

intention and behavior in Ho Chi Minh city To be more specific, this study discovers whether

two factors: environmental concern and the availability of green products effect consumers’ green purchase intention or not and the level of significant these factors impact on Secondly, this study will investigate the moderating effects of gender on the relationship between determinants and green purchase intention Finally, the research gives readers better understanding of the situation and habit of consumers in Ho Chi Minh city

4 Significance and implication:

This study will contribute both theoretical and practical implications In academic implication, the findings will extend the knowledge of what extent proposed factors affect consumers’ green intention and behavior The result will contribute to answer question that why many consumers intend to buy green products but do not have any action to purchase them Regarding managerial implications, the research’s findings will help policymakers create effective methods, such as using social networks and environmental education, with the purpose

of raising people’s awareness of ecosystems in Ho Chi Minh city What’s more, it 1s necessary for managers and green companies to have these related researches in order to set up appropriate strategies in terms of sales, marketing, and product development By understanding well about

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consumer behavior on green products, top managers of these companies will be able to make better decisions about product development to gain customers’ satisfaction and about marketing strategies and advertising to attract potential customers in order to increase the profitability of the company

This proposal is organized as follows The second section is Literature review, which describes theoretical background and results of previous studies that are related to this topic Also, the proposed model framework based on theory of planned behavior will be shown in this section And the design and process of research, sampling selection, data collection method as well as measurement scale are explained in the next section, Methodology

II Literature review:

1 Green consumption:

Green consumption is a component of sustainable consumption, in which emphasizes environmental factors Green consumption is the action of buying environmentally friendly products and mitigating the purchase of products that are harmful to ecosystems (Chan, 2001) Chan (2001) assumed that green consumption shows the responsibility for environmental protection through the selections of eco-friendly products, reasonable consumptions and the probably processed garbage Sisira, N (2011) also indicated a comprehensive definition of green consumption, which is a process though social behaviors, such as buying organic foods, recycling, reusing, reducing waste of foods and using eco-friendly traffic systems

In this study, the findings will be found by applying the definition of Lee, K (2010): Green consumption is the behavior of consuming products that are preservable, beneficial for environment and satisfies environmental concerns These products will offer opportunities for long-term goals of ecological protection and conservation Green consumption is not only associated with that consumers do not use goods and services damaging to natural environment,

but also is related to the decisions of buying eco-friendly and recycled products

2 Green products:

Nowadays, there are couples of definitions of green products from many researchers and

these ones are not still unified with each other For instances, Shamdasani, P, Chon-Lin, G.,

Richmond, D (1993) defined that green products are the ones that do not cause any pollution to

the earth or damage natural resources and are recyclable and conservable They are made of eco-

friendly materials and packages in reducing negative effects to ecosystems Nimse, P., Vijayan, A., Kumar, A & Varadarajan, C (2007) supposed that green products are the ones utilizing recyclable materials that help reduce the amount of waste and the usage of water and energy as well as minimize the number of packages and the emissions to the environment In other words, green products refer to products that have the combinations of recycling strategies, or content recycling and package reduction, or using less harmful materials, to mitigate the negative effects

to environment naturally (Irawan, R and Darmayanti, D., 2012)

3 Environmental concern:

The concept of environmental concern is explained as individuals’ awareness of environmental issues and their willing to give their hands to protect ecosystems (Dunlap and

Johns, 2002) Furthermore, environmental concern is also considered as human recognition of

threatened ecosystems and overexploited natural resources (Kalafatis, Pollard, East & Tsogas, 1999) Authors in previous studies supposed that there is a positive correlation between environmental concern and purchase intention for green products The consumer with higher degree of environmental concern may lead to the purchase green For example, the research of green energy of Clarke et al (2013) shows that people consuming renewable energy have

concerned more about the ecosystems

4 The availability of green products:

The availability of green products is considered as one of the most important criteria that affect consumers’ decision making to purchase green products (Aertsens et al., 2009; Zakowska-

Biemans, 2011) Sometimes, the unavailability of eco-friendly products in grocery stores

becomes a barrier for consumers who are willing to buy these kinds of products The reason for this problem could be expected that there is a decline in the number of local food shops and farmers’ markets Furthermore, De-Pelsmacker et al (2003) suggested that in some cases green products usually are limited or located in wrong shops and markets The study of Robinson and Smith (2002) shown that the majority of respondents who are interested in green purchase find difficult to know where to buy green products

Blackwell et al (2006) indicated that the product availability may result in a favorable purchasing behavior because consumers are preferable to buy products that could save their time

In addition, the influence of products availability on purchasing green products is also found in the research of Shahnaei (2012)

5 Theory of planned behavior:

Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is widely used by many researchers in investigating consumers’ behavior, including customers’ green behavior (Ajzen, 1991) In this model, in addition to attitudes defined as the level of being likely to conduct certain behavior (Ajzen, 1991), there are two more factors: subjective norms and perceived behavioral control Subjective norm is the pressure from others to conduct ones’ willingness (Ajzen, 1991) The higher subjective norm, the greater likelihood of conducting behavior (Han and Kim, 2010) Perceived behavioral control refers to individual’s ability of conducting certain behavior, which reflects the level of conducting behavior and whether this behavior is controlled or not (Ajzen, 1991) According to theory of planned behavior, attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control affect directly intention and indirectly behavior Out of these factors, perceived behavioral control is considered as a factor contributing to both intention and behavior

Attitudes

Subjective norm › Intention Behavior

—_—_— TT v

Perceived y- —

behavioral control

Figure 1: Theory of Planned Behavior

6 Related studies and proposed model framework:

There were some previous studies related to customers’ green behavior With access to theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), previous studies indicated factors that affect customers’ green purchase intention and behavior, including beliefs attitudes towards green buying behavior, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control Many authors developed

theory of planned behavior to an extension in the context of green consumption Paul, J., Modi,

A and Patel, J (2016) added a variable of environmental concems and Lee, K (2010) also added

a factor of environmental knowledge to this model Moreover, the research of Wang H.J (2017) supposed that green perceived value made a contribution to positive effects of green behavior

In addition to the access to the theory of planned behavior, Chen Y., Chang., C (2012);

Gleim M., Jeffery S Smith, Demetra Andrews, J Joseph Cronin Jr (2013) investigated customers’ green buying behavior by adding variables relating to green products and marketing aimed at raising people’s awareness of buying eco-friendly products The researches offered insights into the availability and belief of green products as well as the promotion of marketing mix have positive impacts on customers’ green purchase intention and behavior Furthermore, cultural and psychological factors are also accessed to investigate customers’ green purchase

intention (Chan, R.Y.K , 2001) The result of research shown that collectivism affects indirectly

green purchase intention through environmental concern and attitudes towards green buying

behavior

Finally, based on social media marketing (SMM), fundamental factors of social media

affecting consumers’ intention, such as external and internal factors, were analyzed (Maoyan,

Zhujunxuan, and Sangyang, 2014) As a result, social media marketing stimulates external

factors and then affects internal factors Ultimately, social media marketing affects consumers’

purchase intention

On the basic of this discussion and variables developed from an extension of theory of planned behavior such as environmental concern and the availability of green products, there are some proposed hypotheses below:

H1: Attitudes affect positively consumers’ green purchase intention in Ho Chi Minh city H2: Subjective norm affects positively consumers’ green purchase intention in Ho Chi

Minh city

H3: Perceived behavioral control affects positively consumers’ green purchase intention

in Ho Chi Minh city

H4: Environmental concern affects positively consumers’ green purchase intention in Ho Chi Minh city

H5: The availability of green products affects positively consumers’ green purchase

intention in Ho Chi Minh city

Moderating effects of gender:

Previous studies show that females and males tend to think and behave diversely because

there are differences between value orientation and socialization in two genders (Zelezny et al,

2000; Putrevu, 2001) Also, the findings concluded that the correlation between environmental

attitudes and behavior is higher for women than men (Tarrant and Cordell, 1997) The reason

could be that females concern ecosystem much more than males

H6a: The environmental attitude effects strongly green purchase intention for females

more than male consumers

It is found that women were impacted more by peer influence on green purchases (Lee, 2009) Furthermore, Noble et a/ (2006) suggested that female consumers are motivated by social

interaction more than male ones

H6b: The subjective norms effects strongly green purchase intention for females more

than male consumers

Dunlap and Jones (2002) indicated that the level the ecological issues are concerned by people who are willing to pay more money for eco-friendly products, defined as environmental