Header 2.5cm 6.5cm THE ANTECEDENTS OF GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG VIETNAMESE CONSUMERS In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION In International Business By Mr: Nguyen Thanh Tuan ID: MBA06043 International University - Vietnam National University HCMC August 2014 INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY VIETNAM SCHOOL OF BUSINESS SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF Independence - Freedom - Happiness ASSURANCE QUALIFIED THESIS Student’s Name: NGUYEN THANH TUAN Student ID: MBA06043 Title of Thesis: THE ANTECEDENTS OF GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG VIETNAMESE CONSUMERS Advisor: DR. PHAM HONG HOA I assure that the content of this thesis has been qualified all requirements for a research paper and able to participate in the final thesis defense. Approved by DR. PHAM HONG HOA THE ANTECEDENTS OF GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG VIETNAMESE CONSUMERS In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION In International Business by Mr: Nguyen Thanh Tuan ID: MBA06043 International University - Vietnam National University HCMC August 2014 Under the guidance and approval of the committee, and approved by all its members, this thesis has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree. Approved: ---------------------------------------------Chairperson --------------------------------------Committee member ---------------------------------------------Committee member --------------------------------------Committee member ---------------------------------------------Committee member --------------------------------------Committee member i Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Pham Hong Hoa, my research supervisor, for her patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques of this research work. My grateful thanks are also extended to Management of Company Dunlopillo Vietnam for supporting to keep my progress on schedule by the way they have arranged working and training activities which were best fit to my research work. I wish to acknowledge the help provided by my MBA friends, BA friends and existing peers who took part in data collection procedures, a much important part of one research. I would also like to extend my thanks to office staffs of International University of Ho Chi Minh City for their help in coordinating necessary activities in the MBA program. Finally, I wish to thank my parents for their support and encouragement throughout my study. ii Plagiarism Statements I would like to declare that, apart from the acknowledged references, this thesis either does not use language, ideas, or other original material from anyone; or has not been previously submitted to any other educational and research programs or institutions. I fully understand that any writings in this thesis contradicted to the above statement will automatically lead to the rejection from the MBA program at the International University – Vietnam National University Hochiminh City. iii Copyright Statement This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author‟s prior consent. © Nguyen Thanh Tuan/ MBA06043/2014 iv Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION 1.1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND ...........................................................................1 1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT .................................................................................2 1.3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ...............................................................................2 1.4. RESEARCH SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS ......................................................3 1.5. THESIS STRUCTURE .......................................................................................3 CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. GREEN MARKETING ......................................................................................5 2.2. GREEN PRODUCT ............................................................................................5 2.3. GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION ...................................................................7 2.4. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK .......................................................................8 2.5. HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT .....................................................................13 2.5.1. Environmental Concern ...................................................................................13 2.5.2. Social influences ..............................................................................................14 2.5.3. Willingness to pay ............................................................................................14 2.5.4. Green Corporate Image ....................................................................................15 2.5.5. Packaging .........................................................................................................16 2.5.6. Labels ...............................................................................................................16 2.5.7. Availability.......................................................................................................17 CHAPTER THREE – METHODOLOGY 3.1. LOCATION OF THE STUDY ...........................................................................18 3.2. SAMPLING TECHNIQUES ..............................................................................19 v 3.3. DATA COLLECTION METHOD .....................................................................21 3.4. MEASURES .......................................................................................................22 3.5. DATA ANALYSIS PLAN .................................................................................27 CHAPTER FOUR – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1. SCREENING DATA ..........................................................................................28 4.2. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ............................................................................30 4.3. RELIABILITY STATISTICS .............................................................................36 4.4. FACTOR ANALYSIS ........................................................................................37 4.4.1. Assumptions .....................................................................................................37 4.4.2. Factor Analysis of Dependent Variable ...........................................................37 4.4.3. Factor Analysis of Independent Variable .........................................................39 4.5. REVISED RESEARCH MODEL .......................................................................44 4.6. ASSESSING NORMALITY AFTER FACTOR ANALYSIS ...........................45 4.7. STANDARD MULTIPLE REGRESSION .......................................................48 4.8. MULTIPLE REGRESSION WITH TRANSFOMRED VARIABLES ..............54 4.9. ONE-WAY BETWEEN GROUPS ANOVA .....................................................55 4.9.1. Test of homogeneity of variances ....................................................................56 4.9.2. One-way ANOVA Test ....................................................................................56 CHAPTER FIVE – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1. MAIN FINDINGS ..............................................................................................59 5.2. RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................................62 5.3. CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................65 vi References .................................................................................................................66 Appendix A: English Questionnaire .......................................................................71 Appendix B: Vietnamese Questionnaire ................................................................76 Appendix C: Graphs of frequency distribution ....................................................81 vii List of Tables Table 1 Summary of previous studies .......................................................................9 Table 2: Measurement Scale Development................................................................24 Table 3: Summary of Categorical Variables ..............................................................28 Table 4: Summary of Continuous Variables ..............................................................29 Table 5: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Location ...........................................31 Table 6: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Gender ..............................................31 Table 7: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Age ...................................................32 Table 8: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Marital Status ...................................32 Table 9: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Education .........................................33 Table 10: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Monthly Income .............................33 Table 11: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Occupation .....................................34 Table 12: Reason why people bought green products ...............................................34 Table 13: Reason why people have not bought green products .................................35 Table 14: Some common green products among respondents ...................................36 Table 15: Reliability Statistics ...................................................................................37 Table 16: KMO and Bartlett's Test of Dependent Variable .......................................38 Table 17: Component Matrix of Dependent Variable................................................38 Table 18: KMO and Bartlett's Test of Independent Variables ...................................39 Table 19: Rotated Component Matrix of Independent Variables ..............................39 Table 20: New Six Independent Variables.................................................................43 Table 21: Correlation Testing of Variables ................................................................48 Table 22: Collinearity Diagnostics ............................................................................49 Table 23: Extreme value of Mahalanobis Distance ...................................................50 Table 24: Casewise Diagnostics ................................................................................51 viii Table 25: Model Summary.........................................................................................51 Table 26: ANOVA analysis in Multiple Regression..................................................52 Table 27: Coefficients in Multiple Regression ..........................................................53 Table 28: Results of Hypotheses Testing ...................................................................53 Table 29: Results of Transformation..........................................................................54 Table 30: Model Summary after transformation ........................................................55 Table 31: Levene‟s Test in one-way between groups ANOVA ................................56 Table 32: Welch and Brown-Forsythe Test of Occupation Variable .........................56 Table 33: ANOVA Significant values for independent variables ..............................57 Table 34: Multiple comparisons of Occupation Variable ..........................................57 Table 35: ANOVA result of Occupation Variable .....................................................58 ix List of Figures Figure 1: Characteristics of green products ..............................................................6 Figure 2: Conceptual Model of Clare D‟Souza et al. (2006) .....................................8 Figure 3: Conceptual Framework of Research ..........................................................13 Figure 4: Revised Research Model ............................................................................45 Figure 5: Normal Distribution Plot of Continuous Variables ....................................46 Figure 6: Normal Q-Q Plot of Environmental Awareness and Labelling ..................47 Figure 7: Plotting Regression Standardized Residual of Dependent Variable ..........50 Figure 8: Final Research Model .................................................................................54 x Abstract The rising environmental issues have been contributing to a huge increase in the number of consumers practicing green purchase, and Vietnam is not exception for this trend. The study was conducted from February to August 2014 with purpose of identifying the influence factors of green purchase intention among Vietnamese consumers, particularly in Ho Chi Minh City. Using convenience sampling technique, slightly more than 300 surveys were conducted through both online and direct collecting methods. Then the data was analyzed using test of reliability, factor analysis, one-way between group analysis of variance and multiple regression. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the three predictors Willingness to pay, Social influence and Packaging were significantly impact green purchase intention with positive direction; and there was a slight difference in green purchase intention scores for subgroups of Occupation predictor. Although the major drawback of this research is not investigating green purchase intention on a specific product, it was one of the few which examined green purchase practice in Vietnam, and on the basis of the promising findings presented in this research, future studies of the same issue would be of interest. Keywords: green product, green purchase intention, green consumers. xi This page is intentionally left blank 1 CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION This chapter presents research background, problem statement, research objectives, research scope and limitations as well as thesis structure. 1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND Both consumers and manufacturers have recently put higher priority on green consumption practices in global scale. There have been more attention toward green products that are assumed to be green or environmentally friendly like “low power consuming (energy-efficient) electrical appliances, organic foods, lead free paints, recyclable paper, and phosphate free detergents” (Bhatia and Jain, 2013, p.1). The reason for this concern could be the fact that our environment is endangered in a number of ways including global warming, ozone depletion, drinking water shortage, land degradation, pollution, waste disposal and other causes. Thus implementing green marketing strategy will assist corporations to meet consumer expectations and gain more competitive advantages. However, Green Product is a relatively new concept in Vietnam whereas in the world, consumers tend to buy products with environmentally friendly benefits. Equally important, it must also be noted that all of us at least have done something for green living trends in Vietnam in different ways. In detail, the deputy head of Ho Chi Minh City's Environmental Protection Agency, Ha Van Dung, has encouraged firms to produce green products to contribute to a greener environment (Nguyen, 2011). From 2010, numerous green consumption campaigns or relevant projects have been launched to promote green consumption in Vietnam, namely “Green Talk” project, “Using environmentally friendly bags” campaign or “Coopmart Green consumption” campaign. Some Vietnamese companies now have recently started marketing themselves as green organizations by following certain government regulations and preferences of worldwide consumers. 2 For instance, Vinamilk has been using FSC packaging which is made from trees, carefully managed, sustainable and renewable (Nguyen, 2010) or Tide detergent (P&G Corp), compact bulbs and fluorescent lamps (Dien Quang Lamp Joint Stock Company) successfully applied "Vietnam Green Label" Programme of the Global Ecolabelling Network (Nguyen, 2010). Nevertheless, it is argued that number of businesses involved are relatively small and they are often large organizations in Vietnam context. 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT Hoang and Nguyen (2012) explored that Vietnamese consumers are little aware of environmental issues and friendly behave towards the environmental impacts. However, it is worth noting that there have been very few formal studies with respect to green marketing or consumers‟ green purchase practice in Vietnam (Hoang and Nguyen, 2012) and therefore the intention of Vietnamese consumers towards buying green products is also questionable. To sustain in the competitive business environment, marketers need to know the factors that persuade consumers to purchase green products in Vietnam. This also makes it imperative to conduct this study to identify the factors which have impact on consumer‟s purchase intention towards green products in order to help companies formulating their green marketing strategies. 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES To build conceptual model of green purchase intention. To identify the factors that contribute towards consumer‟s green purchase intention in context of Vietnamese consumers. To investigate level of influence of each factor on green purchase intention. 3 To examine the differences between demographic groups in green purchase intention level. To understand the issues and challenges of green marketing practices. 1.4 RESEARCH SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS The research is conducted under constraints of time, geography, human resource, and financial capacity. Therefore, the scope and limitations of research will be defined as follows: The study is only carried out in Ho Chi Minh City with the expected sample size of approximately 300 green consumers. One respondent who will be selected might be either a consumer or a buyer. A consumer is a person who use a product while a buyer is a person who buy a product for himself (in this case buyer is consumer) or buy a product for others. This research will not investigate green purchasing intention on any specific product category. “Green product” in this study may be any general product like efficient energy products, health and safe products and so on. This is a cross-sectional study, so it does not reflect customers‟ intention overtime. They might not be much aware of green product right now, but they could be willing pay more to buy green product in the future. 1.5 THESIS STRUCTURE The thesis includes 5 chapters: Chapter 1-Introduction: This chapter presents background, statement of problem, research objectives and research scopes. 4 Chapter 2-Literature Review: This chapter explains basic concepts, previous studies which were used to set up a new conceptual model as well as develop hypotheses. Chapter 3-Methodology: This chapter deals with research procedures including sample selection, data collection method, and plan of data analysis. Chapter 4-Findings and Discussions: The chapter covers data processing, analysis results and variety of discussions. Chapter 5-Conclusions and Recommendations: The last section serves as an conclusion including managerial implications for green corporates in Vietnam. 5 CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter aims to give a comprehensive account of related concepts and previous studies that were used as foundation for further analyses in this research. 2.2 GREEN MARKETING As reported by Bhatia and Jain (2013), “Green marketing” or “Ecological marketing” or “Environmental marketing” was defined by American Marketing Association (AMA): “Marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe is called as green marketing”. It has also been suggested that green marketing activities can both satisfy the needs of human and to minimize the controvert influences to natural environment (Azizan and Suki, 2014). There have been a wide range of activities covered under green marketing concept including product modification, changes of manufacturing process, environmental packaging and so on (Bhatia and Jain, 2013). Today, consumers also strongly expressed their concerns toward environmental impact of products, hence it is essential for companies to market themselves as green organizations to sustain in competitive environment. It is also recognized that many companies that now try to pursue green marketing will absolutely face a great deal of challenges such as unfavorable consumer perception and high cost of production, and there is a urgent need to explore green consumers‟ characteristics to help companies to develop a right target and market segmentation strategies (D'Souza, Taghian, Lamb and Peretiatkos, 2006). In another research, Boztepe (2012) concluded that green marketing will target not only making profit in short-term but also for long-term profitability and sustainable development. It seems green marketing have started becoming agenda of worldwide enterprises. 2.3 GREEN PRODUCT 6 Consumers now frequently encounter with terms such as “environmentally friendly”, “eco-friendly” or “green” products in green marketing era. According to Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English, all terms “environmentally friendly”, “eco-friendly”, “nature-friendly”, and “green” are marketing terminologies describing products which have minimal or no harm on eco-system. Another relevant point is that the term green product will be mostly used throughout the study to help readers to follow more easily. Chen and Chai (2010) specified green product as the product which will not overuse natural resources and recyclable at the same time. To put it another way, Chen and Chai (2010) also cited a new definition of green product from research of Elkington and Makower (1998) that green product refers to a product which has more environmentally sound content or suitable packaging in cutting down the environmental effect. In other words, D'Souza et al. (2006) characterized green product based on several features including growing originally, being reusable or recyclable, and creating by natural ingredients. Furthermore, the year 2012 witnessed a broader definition of green product from Bhatia and Jain. That is to say there has been no consensus on what exactly green product be and indicated some common features which are globally accepted as green in the following figure: Figure 1: Characteristics of green products Source: Bhatia and Jain (2013) 7 In 2009, Vietnam Green Label Program of the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN) has been launched, considering green product as product which cause less environmental issues compared to other same type of products from the process of processing materials, producing, distributing, being used as well as after being disposed. This understanding also resembles other literatures. In reality, many enterprises now only take into account profits, and ignore solutions to lessen pollution and save energy. However, in the long term, companies do need to have activities to integrate production with environmental protection to increase competitive advantages as well as enhances the trust of consumers (Nguyen, 2011). 2.4 GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION Governments, organizations, and businesses have been creating some serious changes for awakening consumers‟ green purchase habit in a global scale, thus having many studies conducted to explore consumers‟ green purchase intention over decades is sense of understandable. Initially, with the term “behavioral intention”, Mei, Ling and Piew (2012) stated that behavioral intention is a measure of one‟s relative strength of purpose to have a specific action. In a recent paper by Mei, Ling and Piew (2012), green purchase intention is a person‟s willingness to give preference to green product over traditional products. On another point, Paço and Rosa Reis (2012) conceptualized green purchase intention as a person‟s plan to perform a green behavior in a specific time. According to many previous studies like research studies, green purchase intention is critical predictor of green purchase behavior. In other words, it is claimed that green purchase intention can affect the probability of a customer decision when that one will buy eco-friendly products. 8 2.5 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The conceptual model of this research is associated by some previous relevant models. The key model is the model developed by D'Souza, Taghian, Lamb and Peretiatkos (2006), and the study also adopts some critical findings from other researches. The summary for those previous studies will be presented in Table 1. D‟Souza et al. (2006) aimed to investigate effect of factors to green purchase intention of consumers in Australia and explain its implication on corporate strategy. However, this group of researchers measured the effect of environmental factors on consumers‟ perception towards green products first, and then continued to measure the impact of consumer‟ overall perception about green products on green purchase intention. Environmental factors investigated in that research were corporate perception, corporate regulatory compliance, product perception, product labels, packaging, ingredients, and consumers' past experience. The research model of D‟Souza et al. (2006) will be shown in figure 2. Figure 2: Conceptual Model of D’Souza et al. (2006) Source: D‟Souza et al. (2006) 9 Table 1 Summary of previous studies Sources: D‟Souza et al. (2006), Roberts and Bacon (1997), Boztepe (2012), Mei, Ling and Piew (2012) and Kumar (2012). Topic Year Author Nation Findings Corporate perception, regulatory protection, labels, 1 Green products and corporate strategy: an empirical investigation Clare D'Souza, Mehdi 2006 Taghian, Peter Lamb, and packaging, ingredients negatively influenced Australia Roman Peretiatkos customers' perception formation about green products while only past experience positively contributed to customers' perception. Exploring the subtle relationships between 2 environmental concern and ecologically conscious James A. Roberts and 1997 Donald R. Bacon America consumer behavior Environmental concern has significant impact on ecologically conscious consumer behavior. Environmental awareness, green product features, 3 Green marketing and its impact on consumer buying behavior 2012 Aysel Boztepe Turkey green promotion activities and green price affect green purchasing behaviors of the consumers in positive way 4 The Antecedents of Green Purchase Intention among Malaysian Consumers 2012 Ooi Jen Mei, Kwek Choon Ling, Tan Hoi Piew The most powerful antecedent in affecting the Malaysia green purchase intention of Malaysian consumers is government initiative followed by environmental 10 knowledge, peer pressure and environmental attitude. Availability of environmentally sustainable products Theory of planned behaviour approach to 5 understand the purchasing behaviour for environmentally sustainable products 2012 Bipul Kumar India was found to have a positive relation with the purchase intention for the environmentally sustainable products. 11 The current study will apply model of D‟Souza et al. (2006) with some factors impacting directly on green purchase intention without mediating level “consumer perception”. To be more applicable in context of Vietnam, factors were modified. It is reported by an analyst of Marketervietnam.vn (2013) that Vietnam currently stay in initial stage for green consumption practice, and the number of green corporates is relative small as well as all stakeholders in Vietnam society are putting more efforts to raise customers‟ awareness of green purchase habit. Due to the above reason, Vietnamese consumers do not have many past experiences of buying green products as well as perception of green product. Likewise, environmental regulation system in Vietnam is still being improved to encourage and protect green corporates. Thus, the three factors “past experience”, “product perception” and “regulatory protection” would not be applied in this research. Particularly, factor “ingredients” will not be picked out as well because the current research aims to investigate green products in general, not only cosmetics, food and beverage but also energy-efficient electrical appliances, fuelefficient vehicles, recycled papers, etc. Therefore, the rest of three factors, namely labels, packaging, and corporate perception are selected to investigate their direct impact on green purchase intention. On another note, “corporate perception” will be adjusted to be called “green corporate image” factor in current study. In addition, the study also adopted some findings from other previous literatures. With the research “Exploring the subtle relationships between environmental concern and ecologically conscious consumer behavior”, James A. Roberts and Donald R. Bacon discussed an interesting factor “environmental concern” and its multidimensional impact on ecologically conscious consumer behavior including green purchase behavior through 12 employing a random sample of entire USA. As the result of that research, a person‟s level of environmental concern was found to be correlated with his or her likelihood of performing a variety of ecologically conscious consumer behavior. Vietnamese community has recently had more interest in environment protection activities, and it is quite inspirable to add factor “environmental concern” to the present reseach. Equally important, one Turkish researcher Boztepe (2012) analyzed the impact of Green Marketing on consumer buying behavior. As result of mentioned research, when environment consciousness, green product features, green promotion and green price increase, green purchasing behavior will increase as well. Boztepe also claimed that in most of studies conducted until 2012, a negative relationship between green price and purchasing behavior has been highlighted. On the contrary, a positive result means people will be willing to pay higher price for green products against our urgent environmental issues. Undoubtedly, the factor “price” will be examined in this research to explore its impact on green purchase intention in context of Vietnam with the new name „willingness to pay‟. Furthermore, a group of Malaysian researchers Mei, Ling and Piew (2012) also studied factors influencing green purchase intention. The study found that the most powerful factor in predicting the green purchase intention of Malaysian consumers is government initiative followed by environmental knowledge, peer pressure and environmental attitude. Researchers also emphasized that peer pressure exert a significant impact on green purchase intention where green marketers should putting effort in viral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing to enhance green purchase 13 practice. In fact, peer pressure indicates the psychological pressure which one person had as that person compared his behaviors with those of others (Cohan, 2009). Besides, Lee (2008) called another name “social influence” instead of “peer pressure”, and he also showed social influence was the top predictor of Hong Kong‟s consumers green purchasing behavior. Looking back at the situation of Vietnam, our consumers have been being educated to buy more green products, and they are supposed to share relevant information with relatives, or even encourage their relatives to buy those products. Thus adding factor “social influence” to current study is certainly worthy. Last but not least, an Indian researcher Kumar (2012) examined the purchasing behavior for green products using the framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior. The entire study was done to understand the influence of different determinants like attitude, subjective norm, and availability towards green purchase intention. In particular, availability of green products was found to have a positive and significant relation with the green purchase intention. This researcher also cited some previous studies which had the same observations like researches of Straughan and Roberts (1999) and Webster (1975). With regard to the context of Vietnam, it is claimed by a marketing expert that Vietnam currently stays in initial stage for green consumption practice and the number of green corporates is relative small (marketervietnam.vn, 2013). Therefore, it can probably implied that Vietnam now is not abundant in the number of green products. As a result, the impact of availability of green product leading to green purchase intention needs to be ascertained in current study. From all analyses above, a conceptual framework is developed as in the figure below: 14 Figure 3: Conceptual Framework of Research Sources: D‟Souza et al. (2006), Roberts and Bacon (1997), Boztepe (2012), Mei, Ling and Piew (2012) and Kumar (2012) 2.6 HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT All hypotheses will be formulated according to the above theoretical framework. 2.5.1. Environmental Concern (H1): Meerah and Nadeson (2010) demonstrated environmental concern as a level of concern which one person holding towards the environment. With the same viewpoint, both Chen and Chai (2000) and Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch, Sinkovics, and Bohlen (2003) agreed that environmental concern relates to the emotional degree an individual is attached to environmental matters. Up to now, several researchers have studied the relationship of environmental concern towards green purchase intention. In the first place, Roberts and Bacon (1997) proposed that a person possessing higher level of environmental concern could be more likely to execute green behavior. It was also showed by Chen and Chai (2010) that a strong positive relationship between environmental concern and green 15 purchase intention. Similarly, Kaiser, Wofling, and Further (1999) highlighted that consumer‟s level of environmental concern is connected with the behavior of purchasing green product. However, there is a contradictory finding from Koe, Omar, and Majid (2014), it is stated that although consumers have concern about environment, they could not turn those concerns into real actions. Hence, it is interesting to investigate the relationship of environmental concern and green purchase intention, which makes this current study hypothesizes that: H1: Environmental Concern positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention 2.5.2. Social influences (H2): On the whole, social influence will take place when a person‟s emotions and opinions are affected by surrounding people (Ling, 2012). In social impact theory (Latane, 1981), there will be three critical factors enabling the likelihood of person to respond to social influence including influencing power of group to the individual, the physical communications of the influencing group to the individual once influence attempt is made, and the amount of people in influencing group”. Alternatively, Lee (2008) showed peer network which circulates the norms of environmental concern was found linking to the social impact theory. Furthermore, Mei, Ling, and Piew (2012) added that social influence holds a significant impact on green purchase intention where green marketers should putting effort in viral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing to enhance green purchase practice. Without a doubt, it is believed that social influence can lead to green purchase intention. Thus, it is proposed that: H2: Social Influence positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention 16 2.5.3. WILLINGNESS TO PAY (H3): Environmentally friendly products popularly may be priced higher than traditional non-green products due to higher production cost incurred in terms of processes, materials, and other administrative affairs (Ling, 2012). Equally significant, Laroche, Bergeron, and Forleo (2001) highlighted green consumers have been showing to be happy to pay more for green products. Another relevant point is that consumers will also be encouraged to buy green products even if they are priced higher than non-green ones given that their benefits outweigh the cost. (Kotler and Zaltman, 1971). It has been found by Boztepe (2012) that a positive result of relationship between price and green purchase intention, which means people will be willingness to pay higher price for green products against our urgent environmental issues. On contrast, in another study, D‟Souza et al. (2006) denoted that higher price not positively influences consumer‟s intention to purchase green products, which means that there are some price sensitive consumers will not pay more for environmentally friendly products. To be fit in Vietnam context, it is hypothesized that: H3: Willingness to pay positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention 2.5.4. Green corporate image (H4): The most interesting approach to define green corporations has been proposed by Ali and Ahmad (2012), which clarified a green corporation as an organization performing environmental friendly activities to ensure all manufacturing activities benefit current environmental issue whereas maintaining a profit is obtained at the same time. In addition, Clare D‟Souza et al. (2006) noted most competitive and successful corporations were highly responsive to environmental impacts. Equally important, Carrigan and Attalla (2001) added consumers will increase their purchases based on corporate‟s social responsibility performance. This is 17 considered to be consistent with Pastiu (2013) in the research “Green purchase intentions of Romanian consumers” in which he indicated that green purchase intention is positively influenced by green corporate image. Thus, it is hypothesized in our current study that: H4: Green Corporate Image positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention 2.5.5. Packaging (H5): Kotler and Zaltman (1971) claimed that numerous marketers have called packaging a “fifth P”, along with price, product, place and promotion, which means packaging play an essential role in marketing function. In another research paper, Draskovic, Temperley, and Pavicic (2009) highlighted that packaging is able to communicate company‟s image appealing to the consumer‟s emotions, thus motivating consumer‟s desire for buying product. Equally important, D‟Souza et al. (2006) discussed packaging may be a good element of environmental message to consumer. Nevertheless, used packaging then eventually turn into plastic waste, which will lead to a significant impact to the environment. Thus making green marketers have to think of utilizing recycled packaging material which can reduce the damage to environment (D‟Souza et al., 2006). In a recent research, Agyeman (2014) ascertained that packaging heavily influenced on green purchase intention. Hence, the current study will address the following hypothesis: H5: Packaging positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention 2.5.6. Labels (H6): A label is defined as a piece of paper or any kind of materials attached to a container or product itself, on which information is printed about the product. Interestingly, Agyeman (2014) further argued that labelling has only a few seconds to impress the consumer‟s mind, and he also specified label can lead 18 consumer‟s green purchase intention towards green products. It is noticeable by D‟Souza et al. (2006) that environmental labelling on products is a best way to communicate to the customer all product benefits and features including signs, codes, and symbols. This is also in sync with a research of Azizan and Suki (2014), they denoted it is imperative to provide useful information on green product labelling to attract consumers by helping them understand all benefits of green products over the same type of non-green products. Conversely, Gan, Wee, Ozanne, and Kao (2008) showed that green label did not affect New Zealand consumers‟ decision to purchase green products. To testify this factor in context of Vietnam, it will be hypothesized that: H6: Labels positively influence consumer’s Green Purchase Intention 2.5.7. Availability (H7): It is worth noting that availability is the ease or difficulty level to look for a specific kind of product (Kaufmann, Pannni and Orphanidou, 2012), 2012). Particularly, Vermeir and Verbeke (2006) demonstrated that many customers have difficulty to buy green products because of inadequate availability. Similarly, Ismail et al. (2006) ascertained that the availability of green products is extremely involved in environmentally friendly behavior. The most crucial point made so far regarding availability by Kumar (2012) that there is a positive relationship between availability of environmentally friendly products and purchase intention towards such products. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate the relationship of availability and green purchase intention in Vietnam context, which makes this current study hypothesizes that: H7: Availability positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention 19 CHAPTER THREE – METHODOLOGY This chapter will present the process through which the topic will be narrowed down as well as present main research methodologies and techniques to analyze and resolve the research question. The research will apply quantitative method through survey questionnaire design in order to study the relationship of independent variables (Environmental Concern, Social Influences, Willingness to Pay, Green Corporate Image, Packaging, Labels, and Availability) on dependent variable (Green Purchase Intention). 3.2 LOCATION OF THE STUDY The study will be conducted in Ho Chi Minh City. This place will be chosen as study site because of underlying reasons. According to an interview on Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper issued in May, 2011 with Mr. Quach To Dung, deputy director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade, “Ho Chi Minh is one of the 10 cities in the world suffering the highest impact from climate change” and he also added that in the year 2007 Ho Chi Minh became a member of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group to address climate risks locally and globally. This also means that the city realized protecting environment as a key issue of the city. In addition, in the same interview, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong, vice chairperson of the Ho Chi Minh City People‟s Committee, said that Ho Chi Minh would launch so-called green consumption campaigns to encourage society and enterprises to execute their duty in both national economy and sustainable development, which will help Ho Chi Minh consumers could exercise their green purchasing practice. Equally important, it is revealed in an article issued in September 2013 on Vietnam Investment Review that over sixty percent of consumers in Ho Chi Minh City believed that pollution had worsened over the previous three years. Last but 20 not least, as Mr. Ralf Matthaes (the regional managing director of TNS Indochina, a world leader in market research, global market information, and business analysis) said Vietnamese consumers, particular in Ho Chi Minh City, usually bought energy efficient products, products in recycled packaging, and ethically produced or grown products but they were unaware they were buying so-called green products (Vietnam Investment Review, 2013). On the whole, Ho Chi Minh City is deserving to be selected as a study site in this research, and the target population will be green consumers who are over 18 years old living in Ho Chi Minh City. 3.3 SAMPLING TECHNIQUES Sampling Scheme: As Craig and Douglas (2005) claimed that there is limited availability of sampling lists as well as the cost associated with developing such lists, which recommends that convenience sampling could be more cost effective. Considering the resources and time available, researcher is in a position to recruit convenience sampling method, particularly Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009 added that convenience sampling is inexpensive, easy to run and no frame is required. With this technique, where subjects are selected because of their convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher, the sample selection process will be continued until the required sample size can be reached. However, these researchers at the same time argued that when participants appear in the sample only due to the ease of obtaining them, that selection might introduce some bias to the sample but most importantly, these problems are considered to be less important when respondents are chosen without focusing on a particular demographic characteristics to achieve nearly randomness. Sampling Size: Generally, an adequate sample size can be able to help minimize sampling errors, and improve generalizability of research findings. In the case of non- 21 probability sampling technique like convenience sampling, it is said that the norm of sample size is not clear like probability sampling, thus no rules (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009). However, based on some previous literature, this study will recruit some rationales to have optimal sample size for data testing and analysis. In a research “Heuristics for Sample Size Determination in Multivariate Statistical Techniques” (2013), Siddiqui provided some convincing evidences to have adequate sample size required for a specific statistics test. It is reported that to perform multiple regression, the optimal amount is between 15 to 20 observations for each independent variable, which means in our current research we need at least 20 observations for 7 independent variables or minimum sample size is 140. Furthermore, Siddiqui also cited from previous research of Meyers, Gamst, and Guarino (2006), it is argued that the appropriate sample sizes for factor analysis (equal or less 10 independent variables) should be at least 200 observations, this also in sync with current research situation. Equally important, he also demonstrated more viewpoint of quality of sample size as below illustrations: Figure 4: Sample size classification Source: Siddiqui (2013) 22 Subsequently, along with available time and resources, the adequate sample size for current study is supposed to be 300. 3.4 DATA COLLECTION METHOD Questionnaire Method: Marczyk, Dematteo, and Festinger (2005) claimed that questionnaire is one of the most commonly used data collection method for the survey strategy in which each participant will be asked to respond to the same set of questions, and it provides an effective way to collect responses from a large sample before performing quantitative analysis. The study will employ self –administered questionnaires which are supposed to be completed by the respondents. In particular, “Internet-mediated questionnaires” and “Delivery and collection questionnaires” will be applied. Internet-mediated questionnaires: questionnaires are administered electronically using the Internet, which is believed to be in conjunction with email, offering a greater control for researcher (Andrews, Nonnecke, and Preece, 2003). In details, the questionnaire will be advertised on the Internet (Facebook, Linkedin, and some Vietnamese forums such as Songxanh.vn) and then respondents are invited to access the questionnaire via a hyperlink created on Google Drive application (http://docs.google.com/form s/d/ 1HJC5NCPXb06q UdIMHZsYREm9J5_5kTCAx9 JWXK3Vbp8/viewform). Adopting this web-based approach ensures participants can remain anonymous, equal importance, are unable to modify the questionnaire (Andrews, Nonnecke, and Preece, 2003). Delivery and collection questionnaires: questionnaires are delivered by hand to respondents and collected later. With this method, it is known that researcher can check who has answered the questions at collection (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009). 23 Reliability Testing: Andrews, Nonnecke, and Preece (2003) also indicated that reliability of questionnaires need to be considered at the design stage. In fact, they outlined one of most common approaches to assess reliability-internal consistency which measures the consistency of responses within the whole set of all the questions or a subgroup of the questions. Furthermore, the advised method to calculate internal consistency in this research is based on Cronbach‟s alpha. Questions design: This study employs such questionnaire include a combination of open and closed questions. Open questions may be useful to find out what is uppermost in the respondent‟s mind; however, if the number of open questions is too large, it‟s extremely time consuming to code. As a result, the study will keep the use of open questions at minimum level. Most of all, close questions are utilized to allow respondents quicker and easier to choose from a number of provided alternative answers, particularly five-point Likert scale is most frequently used (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009). Pilot Testing: Pilot test can refine the questionnaire so that respondents will have no problems in answering the questions, and there will be no problems in recording the data. Specifically, Andrews, Nonnecke, and Preece (2003) advised that the minimum number for a pilot is 10 for most questionnaires. This study aims to implement pilot tests from 15 respondents. Some considerations should be made in pilot testing stage for this research including how long the questionnaire took to complete, the clarity of instructions, which questions were unclear or ambiguous, which questions the respondent felt uneasy about answering, whether the layout was clear and attractive, and other comments if any. 3.5 MEASURES 24 The measurement scale for this research is adapted from previous studies and adjusted to be fit in the context of Vietnam. Besides, researcher also developed some new items based on personal knowledge and experiences, as well as based on what have been occurring in reality in Vietnam regarding environment protection and green products. All items are measured by 5-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neutral, 4= agree, 5= strongly agree). This study will examine relationship of Environmental Concern (ENC), Social Influence (SIE), Willingness to pay (WTP), Green Corporate Image (GCI), Packaging (PKG), Labels (LAB) and Availability (AVL) towards Green Purchase Intention (GPI). 25 Table 2: Measurement Scale Development Source: Souza et al. (2006), Roberts and Bacon (1997), Laroche et al. (2001), Pradeep (2012), Mei, Ling, and Piew (2012), Kumar (2012) and Researcher (2014). CONSTRUCT ITEMS SOURCE GPI-1: I will purchase green products even if they are somewhat more expensive than alternatives. D’Souza et al. GREEN PURCHASE GPI-2: I will purchase green products even if they are somewhat lower quality than alternatives. (2006) INTENTION GPI-3: I (GPI) will buy green products if I happen to see them in a store. GPI-4: I will actively seek out green products in a store in order to purchase it. Kumar (2012) GPI-5: I will purposely purchase green products to protect environment in Vietnam Researcher (2014) ENC-1: Natural resources are being used up by humans. Roberts and ENVIRONMENTAL ENC-2: Industrialization process have negative effects on environment. Bacon (1997) CONCERN ENC-3: Products which pollute the environment during manufacturing or consumption should be taxed Pradeep (2012) (ENC) higher. ENC-4: I think our government should put more efforts in protecting environment. Researcher (2014) 26 ENC-5: I think environment protection is human survival problem. SIE-1: I learn so much about environmental issues from my family/friends /peers. SOCIAL INFLUENCE SIE-2: I learn so much about green products from my family/friends /peers. Mei, Ling, and (SIE) SIE-3: I often buy environmental products with my family/friends /peers. Piew (2012) SIE-4: I often share information regarding green products with my family/friends /peers. SIE-5: I will encourage people around me to purchase green products. Researcher (2014) WTP-1: It is acceptable to pay 10 percent more for green products that are produced, processed, and packaged in an environmentally friendly way. WTP-2: I would accept paying 10 percent more taxes to pay for new green technologies. Willingness to pay WTP-3: I would be willing to spend more each month in order to buy less environmentally harmful (WTP) products. Laroche et al. (2001) WTP-4: I think higher price for green products is reasonable because of production cost. WTP-5: I think Vietnamese consumers accept higher price for green product if it functions as manufacturer’s advertisement. Researcher (2014) 27 GCI-1: The company should give priority to reducing pollution even if cost increases D’Souza et al. (2006) GREEN GCI-2: The company informs in a correct and truthful way about the characteristics or properties of its CORPORATE products. IMAGE GCI-3: Its products always maintain good quality and minimum impact on environment. (GCI) Researcher (2014) GCI-4: I think corporates should come up with solutions to reuse or recycle industrial scrap. GCI-5: I think corporates should encourage their employees to take part in environmental activities in our community. PKG-1: It is important to reuse or recycle the packaging after use. D’Souza et al. PKG-2: Biodegradable packaging is an important consideration for green customers (2006) PACKAGING PKG-3: I will buy products packaged economically. (PKG) Roberts and Bacon (1997) PKG-4: I will seek to buy products packaged with environmentally friendly paper. PKG-5: I will put priority on green products which satisfy FSC standards (Forest Stewardship Council) Researcher (2014) 28 with packaging materials not compromising the health of the world’s forests for future generations. LAB-1: Green information on labels are easy to understand. D’Souza et al. LAB-2: Information on labels is accurate for green products. (2006) LAB-3: I am convinced that green products with informative labels are LABELS (LAB) protective to the environment LAB-4: I will buy products which are awarded the certificate of ‚Vietnam Green Label‛ from Vietnam Researcher (2014) Environment Administration. LAB-5: I think label which is legally certified is the prerequisite for green consumers to purchase. AVL-1: I am familiar with the availability of green products in my city. AVL-2: I can easily get green products whenever I need them. AVAILABILITY (AVL) Kumar (2012) AVL-3: I can buy a specific green product type that I need for personal use. AVL-4: I will buy green products in big shopping malls or supermarkets. AVL-5: I will seek to buy green products in green consumption campaigns in my city. Researcher (2014) 29 3.6 DATA ANALYSIS PLAN: Data will be analyzed using SPSS version 20 Descriptive Statistics: Descriptive Statistics will be taken to provide an overview of the constructs under investigation. According to Pallant (2005), Descriptive Statistics will help to provide measures of frequency, central tendency, dispersion, and shaping the data. Reliability Test: A reliability test is conducted on each factors in order to measure the internal consistencies as if the Cronbach‟s Alpha value range is from 0.65 to 0.87 (Marczyk, Dematteo and Festinger, 2005) Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009) showed that the appropriateness of data should be based on the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value and Bartlett‟s Test of Sphericity to implement the EFA. On the other hand, Marczyk, Dematteo and Festinger (2005) noted that EFA is conducted to explain the variation and co-variation among measures as well as reduce a large set of overlapping variables to a smaller number of variables. Correlation Analysis: Correlation analysis will be used to test the association among different constructs (Pallant, 2005). To be more detailed, Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) specified that correlation analysis can help to see whether two different variables are measured relatively distinctive as well as their correlation values should be neither an absolute value of 0 nor 1. Regression Analysis: Multiple regression is conducted to analyze the predictor variables which have impact on green purchase intention. 30 CHAPTER FOUR – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1. SCREENING DATA The accuracy of data file is ensured because researcher has been proofread the original data against the computerized data file in the data window in SPSS program. Totally we have collected 309 surveys in three months from May to July 2014, in which 90 surveys were gained through online survey method, and 219 surveys distributed to respondents in offices, markets, factories and households. However a proportion of 302 cases would have been used in preliminary data analysis due to the fact that 7 cases have been dropped because of missing values or answering the same for all questions. Initially, we checked for errors by inspecting frequencies for each of our variables which will also include all of the individual items that make up the scales. For categorical variables, we would check minimum and maximum values as well as the number of valid cases and missing cases as below: Table 3: Summary of Categorical Variables Knew Bought Green Green Marital Location Sex Age Monthly Education Status Occupation Income Product Product 302 302 302 302 302 302 302 302 302 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Minimum 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Maximum 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 4 Valid N Missing For continuous variables, we checked in different way for the range of responses for each of continuous variables: 31 Table 4: Summary of Continuous Variables N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Green Purchase Intention1 302 1 5 3.86 0.978 Green Purchase Intention2 302 1 5 2.96 1.154 Green Purchase Intention3 302 1 5 3.61 0.929 Green Purchase Intention4 302 1 5 3.79 0.948 Green Purchase Intention5 302 1 5 4.27 0.811 Environmental Concern1 302 1 5 4.48 0.741 Environmental Concern2 302 1 5 4.52 0.704 Environmental Concern3 302 1 5 4.27 0.847 Environmental Concern4 302 1 5 4.45 0.731 Environmental Concern5 302 1 5 4.62 0.602 Social Influence1 302 1 5 3.87 0.814 Social Influence2 302 1 5 3.82 0.840 Social Influence3 302 1 5 3.99 0.672 Social Influence4 302 1 5 4.11 0.717 Social Influence5 302 1 5 4.16 0.761 Willingness to Pay1 302 1 5 3.92 0.839 Willingness to Pay2 302 1 5 3.71 0.916 Willingness to Pay3 302 1 5 3.60 0.868 Willingness to Pay4 302 1 5 3.88 0.806 Willingness to Pay5 302 1 5 3.75 0.901 Green Corporate Image1 302 1 5 4.35 0.761 Green Corporate Image2 302 1 5 4.43 0.715 Green Corporate Image3 302 2 5 4.39 0.676 Green Corporate Image4 302 2 5 4.30 0.685 Green Corporate Image5 302 1 5 4.32 0.772 Packaging1 302 1 5 3.95 0.748 Packaging2 302 1 5 4.13 0.712 32 Packaging3 302 1 5 4.21 0.680 Packaging4 302 1 5 4.13 0.727 Packaging5 302 1 5 4.06 0.821 Label1 302 1 5 4.30 0.687 Label2 302 2 5 4.37 0.605 Label3 302 1 5 4.09 0.760 Label4 302 2 5 4.21 0.690 Label5 302 2 5 4.20 0.715 Availability1 302 1 5 3.72 0.898 Availability2 302 1 5 3.56 0.937 Availability3 302 1 5 3.46 1.007 Availability4 302 1 5 3.82 0.829 Availability5 302 1 5 3.88 0.860 Valid N 302 The good thing is we did not find any „out-of-range‟ responses then we moved to another part, preliminary analyses. 4.2. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS Descriptive statistics were performed to reveal our consumer profile in terms of location, gender, age, monthly income, marital status, education and occupation. Besides, respondents were also asked to answer whether they have heard of green products or not; whether they have bought green products or not; and some open questions such as “Could you please name some kind of green products in Vietnam?”, “Could you state why you have bought or not bought these kinds of product?” Therefore, this descriptive part would provide us some interesting information about green consumers. 33 As previously mentioned, our research was planned to conduct in Ho Chi Minh City. Nevertheless, in a process of approaching respondents, we had some respondents living in other locations apart from Ho Chi Minh City do survey. This ratio is quite small with 29/302 cases occupied slightly under 10% of total cases, and the rest of 90% were Ho Chi Minh Citizens (Table 5). Table 5: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Location Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent HO CHI MINH CITY 273 90.4 90.4 90.4 OTHER 29 9.6 9.6 100.0 Total 302 100.0 100.0 In terms of gender, 116 surveys have reached male participants while 186 surveys were answered by female respondents, which contributed nearly 40% and 60% respectively of total cases. This is also a good ratio to have both sex in one study, because male and female will have different view of consumerism, especially in green purchase in Vietnam (Table 6). Table 6: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Gender Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent MALE 116 38.4 38.4 38.4 FEMALE 186 61.6 61.6 100.0 Total 302 100.0 100.0 Regarding age of respondents, 60% of respondents recorded in age group from 25 to 39 years old, more than 20% of them stated under 25 years old, slightly more 34 than 10% reported as in the group of 40 to 55 years old, and the last group over 55 years old contributing 3% of total cases. This result is considered preferably distributed to every group of age in our society indicating a good collecting data for research. (Table 7). Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 18 to 24 77 25.5 25.5 25.5 25 to 39 183 60.6 60.6 86.1 40 to 54 33 10.9 10.9 97.0 Over 55 9 3.0 3.0 100.0 302 100.0 100.0 Total Table 7: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Age Then we would investigate the marital status of respondents. The result can briefly summarized that slightly more than 50% of consumers are single, and moderately under 50% of them are in married status or other marital status. (Table 8). Table 8: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Marital Status Frequency Percent Valid Cumulative Percent Percent SINGLE 170 56.3 56.3 56.3 MARRIED 70 23.2 23.2 79.5 Valid 35 MARRIED WITH CHILDREN 57 18.9 18.9 98.3 OTHER 5 1.7 1.7 100.0 302 100.0 100.0 Total The research ensured to have reached consumers in different education background including 35 respondents in high school level or lower (11.6%), 69 people in vocational/college level (22.8%), 137 participants in university level (45.4%), and 61 postgraduate ones (20.2%) (Table 9). Table 9: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Education Frequency HIGH SCHOOL/LOWER Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 35 11.6 11.6 11.6 69 22.8 22.8 34.4 UNIVERSITY 137 45.4 45.4 79.8 POST-GRADUATE 61 20.2 20.2 100.0 Total 302 100.0 100.0 VOCATIONAL SCHOOL/COLLEGE Valid The result of descriptive monthly income of consumers slightly responded to the results of descriptive education background. Specifically, nearly 35% can earn 6 to 10 million VND per month, 25% can earn from 1 to 5 million VND a month, and slightly more than 25% would have high income of more than 10 million VND per month while only a bit more than 10% would stay in low income of less than 1 million VND a month (Table 10). 36 Table 10: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Monthly Income Frequency Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 10 MILLION VND 77 25.5 25.5 100.0 Total 302 100.0 100.0 On the last variable, we have investigated the occupation of respondents, and the result showed that more than 50% of participants are nine-to-five employees, almost 16% are students, 3% are unemployed and 29% are in other positions including factory workers, work-in-shift persons, etc. (Table 11). All the frequency distribution graphs of above demographic variables will be illustrated in Appendix C. Table 11: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Occupation Valid Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent HOUSEWORK 10 3.3 3.3 3.3 STUDENT 49 16.2 16.2 19.5 5-9 EMPLOYEE 157 52.0 52.0 71.5 OTHER 86 28.5 28.5 100.0 Total 302 100.0 100.0 Thanks to open questions in survey, we have obtained some useful information in terms of what green products respondents have known or bought, and why they 37 either bought or not bought those kinds of product. Although, these open questions were not answered completely by 302 respondents but they revealed some good ideas for further implications or potential researches in future. All open questions have been recoded into categorical variables to explore the viewpoint of participants. There were 160 respondents (more than 50% of total cases) stated the reasons why they bought green products as illustrated in the following table: Table 12: Reason why people bought green products Frequency Valid Percent Valid Cumulative Percent Percent CONVENIENT 15 5.0 9.4 9.4 DISCOUNTED PRICE 6 2.0 3.8 13.1 SAFE, CLEAN, ECONOMICAL 99 32.8 61.9 75.0 ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION 29 9.6 18.1 93.1 EASY TO BUY 3 1.0 1.9 95.0 OTHER 8 2.6 5.0 100.0 160 53.0 100.0 Total Among people who answer this question, 99 respondents recorded they bought because products are safe, clean or economical, 29 people bought for environment protection, and the rest of 32 people would buy because of convenience of product, discounted price or simply they bought by chance without awareness of green product. Similarly, there were 31 respondents (more than 10% of total cases) reported why they have never bought any green products. Some main reasons will be justified in the table below: Table 13: Reason why people have not bought green products 38 Frequency Valid Percent Valid Cumulative Percent Percent EXPENSIVE 8 2.6 25.8 25.8 LACK OF INFORMATION 11 3.6 35.5 61.3 LOW QUALITY 5 1.7 16.1 77.4 DIFFICULT TO BUY 3 1.0 9.7 87.1 NO DEMAND 3 1.0 9.7 96.8 OTHER 1 .3 3.2 100.0 Total 31 10.3 100.0 Most importantly, 11 respondents showed that they are lack of information regarding Green products. Next, 8 of them argued that green products are supposed to be expensive and they would not spend money for those products. Besides, we also have some other reasons not to buy green products namely low quality, low availability, etc. Last but not least, when being asked to name some green products which respondents have heard or bought in the past, there were 135 participants answered this questions (slightly under 45% of total cases). The frequency statistics revealed some common green product categories to be named as in the following table: Table 14: Some common green products among respondents Frequency Valid Efficient-Energy Products 55 Percent 18.2 Valid Cumulative Percent Percent 40.7 40.7 39 Organic Products 23 7.6 17.0 57.8 Safe and Healthy Products 16 5.3 11.9 69.6 Recyclable Products 11 3.6 8.1 77.8 Biodegradable Products 22 7.3 16.3 94.1 Other 8 2.6 5.9 100.0 Total 135 44.7 100.0 4.3. RELIABILITY STATISTICS The researcher calculated for Cronbach‟s alpha for each individual scales to confirm the internal consistency and reliability of measures. In our case, all scales reported a Cronbach‟s alpha value of more than 0.7, except the scale Green Purchase Intention with value of 0.662. For Pallant (2005), the ideal Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient of a scale should be above 0.7; however it is also argued that with scales fewer than ten items, it is common to record quite low Cronbach alpha value like 0.5 or lower. Additionally, Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) supported that Cronbach‟s alpha value of greater than 0.6 is also considered acceptable. Therefore, we could retain all five items in scale Green Purchase Intention and other scales reported with good alpha values as well. Table 15: Reliability Statistics Scale Green Purchase Intention Cronbach’s Alpha Number Of Items 0.662 5 40 Environmental Concern 0.792 5 Social Influence 0.758 5 Willingness to Pay 0.775 5 Green Corporate Image 0.840 5 Label 0.740 5 Packaging 0.757 5 Availability 0.722 5 4.4. FACTOR ANALYSIS 4.4.1. Assumptions: Before performing factor analysis, some assumptions have been made to ensure the feasibility of conducting factor analysis in this research. Firstly, the sample size is 302, which is supposed to be ideal for factor analysis because the minimum requirement should be more than 150 cases (Pallant, 2005). Next, the factorability of the correlation matrix would be taken into account. To be more specific, the correlation matrix should show at least some correlations of r=0.3 or greater, the Bartlett‟s Test of sphericity should be statistically significant at p10 MILLION OCCUPATION 28.5% 3.3% 16.2% 52% HOUSEWORK STUDENT 5-9 EMPLOYEE OTHER UNIVERSITY POST GRADUATE [...]... buying behavior 2012 Aysel Boztepe Turkey green promotion activities and green price affect green purchasing behaviors of the consumers in positive way 4 The Antecedents of Green Purchase Intention among Malaysian Consumers 2012 Ooi Jen Mei, Kwek Choon Ling, Tan Hoi Piew The most powerful antecedent in affecting the Malaysia green purchase intention of Malaysian consumers is government initiative followed... significantly impact green purchase intention with positive direction; and there was a slight difference in green purchase intention scores for subgroups of Occupation predictor Although the major drawback of this research is not investigating green purchase intention on a specific product, it was one of the few which examined green purchase practice in Vietnam, and on the basis of the promising findings... identify the factors which have impact on consumer‟s purchase intention towards green products in order to help companies formulating their green marketing strategies 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES To build conceptual model of green purchase intention To identify the factors that contribute towards consumer‟s green purchase intention in context of Vietnamese consumers To investigate level of influence of. .. worth noting that there have been very few formal studies with respect to green marketing or consumers green purchase practice in Vietnam (Hoang and Nguyen, 2012) and therefore the intention of Vietnamese consumers towards buying green products is also questionable To sustain in the competitive business environment, marketers need to know the factors that persuade consumers to purchase green products... behavior for green products using the framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior The entire study was done to understand the influence of different determinants like attitude, subjective norm, and availability towards green purchase intention In particular, availability of green products was found to have a positive and significant relation with the green purchase intention This researcher also cited... like research studies, green purchase intention is critical predictor of green purchase behavior In other words, it is claimed that green purchase intention can affect the probability of a customer decision when that one will buy eco-friendly products 8 2.5 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The conceptual model of this research is associated by some previous relevant models The key model is the model developed by... Residual of Dependent Variable 50 Figure 8: Final Research Model 54 x Abstract The rising environmental issues have been contributing to a huge increase in the number of consumers practicing green purchase, and Vietnam is not exception for this trend The study was conducted from February to August 2014 with purpose of identifying the influence factors of green purchase intention among Vietnamese. .. well as enhances the trust of consumers (Nguyen, 2011) 2.4 GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION Governments, organizations, and businesses have been creating some serious changes for awakening consumers green purchase habit in a global scale, thus having many studies conducted to explore consumers green purchase intention over decades is sense of understandable Initially, with the term “behavioral intention , Mei,... studied factors influencing green purchase intention The study found that the most powerful factor in predicting the green purchase intention of Malaysian consumers is government initiative followed by environmental knowledge, peer pressure and environmental attitude Researchers also emphasized that peer pressure exert a significant impact on green purchase intention where green marketers should putting... of each factor on green purchase intention 3 To examine the differences between demographic groups in green purchase intention level To understand the issues and challenges of green marketing practices 1.4 RESEARCH SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS The research is conducted under constraints of time, geography, human resource, and financial capacity Therefore, the scope and limitations of research will be ... participate in the final thesis defense Approved by DR PHAM HONG HOA THE ANTECEDENTS OF GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG VIETNAMESE CONSUMERS In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of MASTER... model of green purchase intention To identify the factors that contribute towards consumer‟s green purchase intention in context of Vietnamese consumers To investigate level of influence of. .. research studies, green purchase intention is critical predictor of green purchase behavior In other words, it is claimed that green purchase intention can affect the probability of a customer decision