Environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives and green purchase intention: an application of the extended theory of planned behavior

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to integrate the perspective of consumer social responsibility with the theory of planned behavior to explore the impact of environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) initiatives on intention to buy environmentally friendly products among Vietnamese consumers. Also, the moderating role of gender on the associations of antecedents and green purchase intention is tested in this study.

Design/methodology/approach

The data of 823 consumers using the tool of the mall-intercept survey recruited from several big cities in Vietnam. Cronbach’s alpha and confirmatory factor analysis has been used to test the reliability and validity of scales; then, structural equation modeling and PROCESS approach was used to test the fitness of the research model, formulated hypotheses and the indirect associations.

Findings

This study presented that ECSR initiatives were strongly and positively correlated with attitude towards green products, subjective norms, perceived behavioral and green purchase intention. Perceived behavioral control was found to be a partial mediator in the link between ECSR initiatives and intention to engage in pro-environmental consumption while the meditating roles of attitude towards green products and subjective norms in this linkage were not statistically significant. Additionally, this study illustrated that the impacts of subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and ECSR initiatives on green purchase intention were stronger for females than males.

Practical implications

This study provides several useful insights for policymakers and administrators to foster pro-environmental behavior of consumers as well as to inspire corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of firms.

Originality/value

Even though there is a growing interest in investigating the impacts of CSR activities on consumers’ purchase behaviors, there is a lack of studies considering the aspect of consumer social responsibility on their sustainable consumption behavior. There is a need to enrich one’s knowledge about the effect of ECSR initiatives on consumer’ green purchase intention.

Citation

Vu, D.M., Ha, N.T., Ngo, T.V.N., Pham, H.T. and Duong, C.D. (2022), "Environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives and green purchase intention: an application of the extended theory of planned behavior", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 18 No. 8, pp. 1627-1645. https://doi.org/10.1108/SRJ-06-2021-0220