Managing Green Purchase Intention: A Theoretical Framework

Managing Green Purchase Intention: A Theoretical Framework

Krishn Pal Singh*

*Research scholar, Department of Business Administration,

University of Lucknow, Lucknow, U. P., India.

Abstract- The main purpose of this research paper is to identifying the drivers which create impact on green purchase intention. The three drivers are green brand image, green trust and green perceived risk and they have positive relationship with green purchase intention. Factor analysis is used for identification of the factors and correlation values have used for hypothesis testing. Discriminant analysis is further used for dividing the groups into the respondents who agree with green purchase intention and dont agree with green purchase intention. Questionnaire survey method is employed for data collection. After using the factor analysis hypothesis H1, H2 rejected and hypothesis H3, H4, H5 & H6 are accepted.Results shows that green brand image, green trust and green perceived risk creates impact on green purchase intention.This model of research is further tested in different industries and across different product categories. Hence, investing companies resources on identified drivers are helpful for enhancing green purchase intention of the brand.

Keywords – Green band image, Green trust, Green purchase intention, Green perceived risk, Green marketing, Energy star brand

INTRODUCTION

Due to growing interest of marketing researcher and practitioner, the importance of integrating environmental and marketing issues increases [1]. Exploitation of natural resources by human being increase the responsibility of consumers, governments, institutions,companies, and the media, in the environmental crisis.Last decade introduced a very important word Green Marketing and many companies using this word as a weapon for gaining the competitive advantage. Adoption of green marketing by companies integrated the concepts of environment and marketing [2]. Environment friendly products attract customers attention for satisfying their environmental needs and creating opportunity for companies. Society has given importance to environmental issues and understands industrial manufacturing as a biggest source of environment pollution [3]. Due to society pressure many companies are willing to accept environmental responsibility [4]. The present study wants to explore the factors creating impact on green product purchase intention in India.

Past researches suggest that consumer will compromise on traditional branding attributes like price, reliability over

greenness of brand [5].Due to increased environmental awareness, green products sales increased and consumers are willing to pay higher prices for these products [6]. Green marketing gives opportunity to companies for expanding in new markets, developing trust in consumers, making safe and risk free products and strengthen their brand image. Strong brands creates larger profit margins and greater brand extension opportunities in the market [7, 8]. Previous studies explored on green trust, green brand image, green satisfaction bur none explored the impact of these three on green purchase intention. The present study wants to fill this research gap and main objective of the research is to identifying the determinants and its impact on green purchase behavior. This study undertakes the four construct namely: green brand image, green trust, green satisfaction and green purchase intention for examination. In addition, the study develops a research framework with the help of these four constructs. The contribution of this article is to developing the research framework and explores the relationship between green brand image, green trust, green satisfaction and green purchase intention and test this framework empirically.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT

Green marketing

The concept of green marketing is new in the marketing field. Companies can use the thought of green marketing for satisfying consumers environmental needs and wants [9]. The concept of green marketing is the marketing practice that considers prevention and conservation of natural environment. Due to outrageous environmental disasters consumers are concern about environmental problem [10] and willing to purchase environmental friendly products [11]. Due to consumer pressure regarding the environmental issues, companies develop new business models on the basis of green trends. Green marketing is a broader concept which encloses all marketing activities that are develop and sustain environment friendly attitudes and behaviors of consumers [12]. Due to future relevance of green marketing, this study discusses the importance of green purchase intention and explores the relation of green purchase intention with green trust, green brand image and green satisfaction.

Green brand image

Brand image play a differentiating role of a specific brand in the market based on tangible attribute [13]. Set of perception about a brand reflected in the form of brand associations is defined as brand image [14, 15]. Brand image is combination of functional benefits, symbolic benefits, and experiential benefits [16]. On the basis of above definition Green Brand Image defined as a set of perceptions of a brand in a consumers mind that is linked to environmental commitments and environmental concerns [17].

Green purchase intention

Purchase intention refers to weather a consumer buy a product or service in future or plan to buy in future. Increase in purchase intention simultaneously increases the chances of purchasing[18, 19]. Green purchase intention is defined as, the probability that a consumer would buy a particular product or service due to fulfill his environmental needs [20].

For Brands having good image, consumer shows positive attitude and higher purchase intention towards the brand [21, 22, and 23]. Above argument shows that more the green brand image leads to more green purchase intention and proposes the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1 (H1): Green brand image is positively related with green purchase intention.

Green trust

Trust can be based on three beliefs- integrity, benevolence, and ability [24, 25]. Trust is a readiness to depend on another party expectation which is resulting from the partys ability, reliability, and benevolence [26]. Hence, purchasing decisions can influence by customer trust [27]. Based on the studies of [24, 25 & 26], green trust defined as a disposition to depend on a product, service, or brand on the basis of belief or expectation developing from its credibility, benevolence, and ability about its environmental performance. Previous studies show that customer trust is positively influence by brand image through impacting decision making of consumers [28, 29]. On the basis of above argument more the green brand image, higher the green trust. Hence, the hypothesis is as follows-

Hypothesis 2 (H2): Green brand image is positively related with green trust

Green perceived risk

Green Perceived risk is defined as the possibilities of how much the environment is affected by a purchase. Customer purchase the product which have lower risk associated with it. Whenconsumers perceive that the brand image is getting better, they have a lower perceived risk [30, 31 & 32]. So, higher the green brand image of a product reduces the risk associated with the product. And the proposed hypothesis is as follows:

Hypothesis 3 (H3):Higher the green brand image positively associated higher green perceived risk.

Study by [33], identified that higher the green pereived risk reduces the green purchase intention. So, to increase the purchase of a particular product, there is a necessity of reducing risk associated with it and implies the following hypothesis-

Hypothesis 4 (H4): There is a negative relationship between green perceived risk and green purchase intention.

Previous studies show that purchase intention is a good indicator for understanding the particular consumer behavior. Customer purchase intentions are positively affected by customer trust [34]. When seller develops the trust among consumers, more products purchase by consumers. On the basis of above more the green trust, higher the green purchase intention and proposes the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 5 (H5): Green trust is positively associated with green purchase intention.

Chang and Chen identified a negative relationship between consumer perceived risk and green trust [3]. Consumer behavior is highly affected by perceived risk associated with a product or service [35]. So, higher the green perceived risk lower down the green trust of consumer and hypothesis is as follows:

Hypothesis 6 (H6): There is a negative relation between green perceived risk and green trust.

The antecedent of the research framework in this study is green brand image, green perceived risk, green trust and the consequent is green purchase intention. The research framework is shown in Figure 1.

Methodology and measurement

Data collection and the sample

Unit of analysis in this study is consumer. This study is descriptive in nature. Descriptive research explains the existing situation rather than interpreting and making judgments. The research framework and hypothesis is verified through questionnaire survey. The object of the research is electronic products in Utter Pradesh. Purposive sampling is used for selecting household (consumers) who had experienced the purchase of energy star laptops. Sampling area is three cities of Utter Pradesh- Kanpur, Lucknow and Unnao. The questionnaire items have selected from previous studies. Sample size for the study is

1. There were 91 valid questionnaire used for research. Energy star laptops brand (Lenovo, Dell & HP) are object of research. ENERGY STAR qualified products and practices help you save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by meeting strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy. You can help reduce electricity usage and its environmental impact by power managing or turning off your product when it is not in use for extended periods of time, particularly at night and on weekends.

   Defining measurements of the constructs

   Five-point likert scale from 1 to 5 used for measurement of questionnaire items rating from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Every respondent were asked for his impressive energy star laptop and used as a focal brand for filling the questionnaire.The definitions and measurements of the fourConstructs namely- green brand image, green trust, green perceived risk and green purchase intention, referred from previous studies of brand image, perceived

   risk, trust and purchase intention. Measurement of construct for this study is as follows-

   Green brand image

   Items for measuring green brand image adopted from [36]and are as follows-

   1. Environmental performance of the brand is good.

   2. The brand is Truthful for fulfilling environmental promises.

   3. Environmental concern of the brand is well established.

   4. Environmental reputation of the brand is high.

Green purchase intention

Items for measuring green purchase intention referred to[3]-

1. Due to environmental concern you purchase the particular brand.

2. Due to environmental concern you want to purchase in future.

3. Environmental friendly nature of the brand pleased you.

Green trust

Items for measuring green trust Referred to Chen [36]and are as follows-

1. Environmental performance of the brand is loyal.

2. Environmental commitments of the brand are good in quality.

3. Environmental concern of the brand is fulfilling your expectations.

4. The brands environmental arguments are truthful.

Green perceived risk

Items for measuring green perceived risk has taken from the study of [37, 38] and are as follows-

1. Chance of error with environmental performance of the product.

2. There is an environmental penalty or loss with the use of the product.

3. Using this product negatively affect environment.

Analysis and findings

Table 1

The mean and standard deviation of the variables green perceived risk, green trust, green brand image and green purchase intention are shown in Table 1 and correlation among these variables are shown in Table 2. After performing the factor analysis on the basis of Eigen values greater than one, four factors are identified, which are termed as: Green Brand Image, Green Trust, Green Purchase Intention and Green Perceived Risk and total explained variance shown in Table 3.

Descriptive Statistics

Table 2 Correlations

Table 3

Descriptive statistic of factor analysis of each item are shown in appendix with mean and standard deviation. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy is

0.476 and communalities values shown in appendix. On the basis of correlation values results of hypothesis are as follows:

The hypothesis 1 is rejected with the help of pearson correlation values shown in the correlation table which is (-

.041) between green brand image and green purchase intention.

The hypothesis 2 is rejected with the help of pearson correlation values shown in the correlation table which is (-

.069) between green brand image and green trust.

The hypothesis 3 is accepted with the help of pearson correlation values shown in the correlation table which is (.095) between green brand image and green perceived risk.

Table 4

The hypothesis 4 is accepted with the help of pearson correlation values shown in the correlation table which is (-

.251) between green perceived risk and green purchase intention.

The hypothesis 5 is accepted with the help of pearson correlation values shown in the correlation table which is (.113) between green trust and green purchase intention.

The hypothesis 6 is accepted with the help of pearson correlation values shown in the correlation table which is (-

.071) between green perceived risk and green trust.

After applying factor analysis discriminant analysis has applied for group classification of green purchase intention.

Discriminant Analysis

A study of 91 respondents is conducted to determine the favorable green purchase intention of the respondents on the basis of green brand image, green perceived risk and green trust. The predictor variables are green brand image, green perceived risk and green trust and the dependent variable is respondent degree of green purchase intention. Group statistic of green purchase intention shown in Table 4 and and analysis case processing shown in appendix.

Group Statistics

1. Insufficient data

   Estimation of Discriminant function coefficient with the help Eigen values shown in Table 6 and test of equality of group mea ns are shown in appendix.

   Table 6 Eigenvalues

   Function	Eigenvalue	% of Variance	Cumulative %	Canonical Correlation
   1 2 3	.096a .062a .007a	58.3 37.5 4.2	58.3 95.8 100.0	.296 .241 .083

   1. First 3 canonical discriminant functions were used in the analysis.

The Eigen value associated with the function1 is 0.096 and it accounts for 58.3 percent of the explained variance. The canonical correlation associated with this function is 0.296. The square of this correlation is 0.087616, indicates that near about 9 percent of the variance in the dependent variable is explained by this model.

Significance of the Discriminant function with Wilks' Lambda values shown in Table 7 and classification of group statistic shown in appendix. Fisher linear discriminant values shown in Table 8.

Wilks' Lambda

The null hypothesis is that the mean of all Discriminant functions in all groups are equal. This hypothesis is tested on the bais of Wilks statistics which is 0.853, which

transforms to a chi-square of 13.711 with 9 degree of freedom. This is significant beyond the 0.05 level.

Classification Function Coefficients

Fisher's linear discriminant functions

The result indicated that the variable is discriminated between those who are agree with green purchase intention depends on the factors like green brand image, green perceived risk and green trust and disagree with green purchase intention.

Conclusion and future research

Environmental awareness among consumers increases the purchasing of green product or services in this decade. Hence, idea of green marketing is combined with the study of branding and this article summaries the literature in this direction. After analysis the empirical results shows that green purchase intention is depends on the identified drivers green trust, green brand image and green perceived risk. So, this study suggest that companies should investing on these identified drivers.

This study was undertaken in energy star electronic brands in three cities of Utter Pradesh, so further studies focus on other product categories and different geographical region of India. The hypothesis has tested through empirical data and analysis done with SPSS 20, further different statistical softwares and techniques can be used for analysis of data. Finally, it shows that the research results are helpful to managers, researchers, practitioners, and governments, and provide useful contribution to relevant studies and future researches as reference.

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Descriptive Statistics

Communalities

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

KMO and Bartlett's Test

Analysis Case Processing Summary

Tests of Equality of Group Means

Prior Probabilities for Groups

1.000