Why and when do consumers perform green behaviors? An examination of regulatory focus and ethical ideology
Introduction
Environmentally friendly or green behavior is a topic of growing importance for governments, firms, and societies around the world (Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008; Kronrod, Grinstein, & Wathieu, 2012; Sheth, Sethia, & Srinivas, 2011). Engaging consumers in green behaviors (e.g., bringing one's own shopping bags, waste sorting, and recycling) is a formidable challenge for policy makers and managers who strive for sustainable national or corporate development amidst continued ecological deterioration (Chan, Leung, & Wong, 2006; Kotler, 2011; Kronrod et al., 2012). To address this challenge, the public and private sectors must understand the forces behind consumers' performance of green behaviors. This need has guided previous researchers to examine factors such as demographics (Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch, Sinkovics, & Bohlen, 2003; Roberts, 1996), environmental attitudes/concerns (Chan, 2001; Pagiaslis & Krontalis, 2014), personal ecological knowledge (Mostafa, 2007; Tanner & Wölfing Kast, 2003), and social norms (e.g., Goldstein et al., 2008; Welsch & Kühling, 2009) that affect consumers' engagement in green behaviors. Recently, some studies have explored the effects of ethics-related factors on consumers' green behaviors (e.g., Chan, Wong, & Leung, 2008). Indeed, because factors for driving green behaviors are often ethically laden (Luchs, Naylor, Irwin, & Raghunathan, 2010), incorporating ethical concepts into the analysis of the performance of these behaviors would enrich the comprehensiveness of the investigation (Black, Stern, & Elworth, 1985).
In addition to this emerging and potentially promising research direction, this study draws on a comprehensive ethical decision-making framework by Hunt and Vitell, 1986, Hunt and Vitell, 1993 (hereafter called “the H-V model”) to examine why and when consumers perform green behaviors. The H-V model is one of the most influential models on consumer ethical decision-making; indeed, most of the subsequent models on consumer ethics are built upon it (e.g., Jones, 1991). According to the model, ethical ideology is a key factor in explaining the individual differences in ethical judgment on a moral issue and consequently the corresponding ethical intention and behavior (Schlenker & Forsyth, 1977). Despite prior extensive research on this model (e.g., Barnett, Bass, & Brown, 1996; Chan et al., 2008), two major research gaps remain unfilled.
First, with a few exceptions (Singhapakdi, Vitell, & Franke, 1999; Steenhaut & Van Kenhove, 2006), previous empirical investigation into the H-V model has focused predominantly on the impact of ethical ideology on ethical judgment and the subsequent ethical decision-making, thus leaving its antecedents largely unexplored. To fill this void, this study examines a potential significant antecedent of ethical ideology: regulatory focus. Regulatory focus refers to an individual motivation system that explains how people adopt different strategies in goal pursuit to meet their distinct self-regulatory needs (Higgins, 1997, Higgins, 1998). This system can, in turn, be manifested by two regulatory foci: promotion focus and prevention focus (Higgins, 1997, Higgins, 1998). Research on regulatory focus further advocates the idea of regulatory fit and asserts that an individual's regulatory focus often leads to certain attitudes, behaviors, and preferences for certain types of goal pursuit approaches (Aaker & Lee, 2006; Higgins, 2000; Wang & Lee, 2006). Within the context of ethical decision-making, the notion of regulatory fit seems to suggest that the two regulatory foci would lead to different approaches in judging a moral issue. Hence, as ethical ideology is concerned with an individual's variation in approaches (i.e., idealism and relativism) to derive his/her ethical judgment (Forsyth, 1980; Schlenker & Forsyth, 1977), this notion may further suggest a direct effect of regulatory focus on ethical ideology. Indeed, this suggested direct effect is also consistent with an important proposition of the H-V model, namely that individual motivation could serve as a significant antecedent of ethical ideology (Hunt and Vitell, 1986, Hunt and Vitell, 1993). On this basis, the first objective of this study is to empirically investigate whether regulatory focus would indeed influence the performance of green behaviors via its impact on ethical ideology.
Second, despite the comprehensiveness of the H-V model in delineating the variables involved in the ethical decision-making process (Hunt and Vitell, 1986, Hunt and Vitell, 1993), it has neglected the boundary conditions of this process. Subsequent research shows that this process could be contingent on the moral intensity and subjective norms of the focal issue (Dubinsky & Loken, 1989; Jones, 1991). In suggesting ways to fine-tune their original H-V model, Hunt and Vitell (2006), among others, have also proposed individual sensitivity to the ethical components of the focal issue as a possible moderator of this process. Moreover, although prior research has extensively examined the H-V model, empirical results regarding the relationship between ethical ideology and ethical judgment as postulated therein remain inconclusive (Marques & Azevedo-Pereira, 2009; Steenhaut & Van Kenhove, 2006). Specifically, while some previous studies have demonstrated the positive (negative) effect of idealism (relativism) on ethical judgment (e.g., Forsyth, 1992; Singhapakdi et al., 1999), others have revealed a nonsignificant or even opposite effect (e.g., Chan et al., 2008; Singh, Vitell, Al-Khatib, & Clark III, 2007; Steenhaut & Van Kenhove, 2006). Review of these previous works suggests that these mixed findings could be attributed to the neglect of the boundary conditions within their analyses. To shed further light on the issue, this research examines the boundary conditions of the ethical decision-making process underlying the performance of green behaviors. With reference to the aforementioned recent research, which asserts that consumers' ethical decision-making process could be contingent on the moral intensity and subjective norms of a focal issue as well as consumers' ethical sensitivity (e.g., Dubinsky & Loken, 1989; Hunt & Vitell, 2006; Jones, 1991), this study specifically proposes the moral intensity of the focal issue and individual attention to social comparison information (ATSCI) as the possible moderators for the relationship between ethical ideology and ethical judgment. The analysis of their possible moderating effects constitutes the second objective of this research.
This research contributes to the literature in several ways. First, as opposed to prior studies, which have predominately examined consumers' green behaviors from the general socio-psychological perspective, this research draws on ethical concepts synthesized within the H-V model (Hunt and Vitell, 1986, Hunt and Vitell, 1993) to examine consumers' eco-friendly activities. In addition to offering a new perspective to study green behaviors, this research enriches the extant literature on the H-V model by empirically validating its applicability to a green consumption-related context. Second, by examining the influence of regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention focus) on ethical ideology (ethical relativism vs. idealism) and the subsequent ethical decision-making, this paper contributes to the cross-fertilization between the regulatory focus and consumer ethics literature to explain individual green behaviors. It also enhances the H-V model by empirically demonstrating the antecedent role of regulatory focus on ethical ideology. Third, by examining the possible moderating role of moral intensity and attention to social comparison information (ATSCI), this research advances the existing understanding of the H-V model's boundary conditions that would facilitate or hinder the translation of a consumer's ethical ideology into green decision-making. It is hoped that this approach could further help reconcile the previous mixed findings regarding the relationship between ethical ideology and judgment. The following sections provide a literature review of the key concepts and the hypotheses development. The methodology adopted to test these hypotheses and the empirical results of two studies are then described. The last section discusses the theoretical and practical implications, the limitations of the study, and avenues for future research.
Section snippets
Conceptual model
The conceptual model of this research (Fig. 1) first posits how a consumer's prevention focus and promotion focus positively affect his/her idealism and relativism, respectively. It further posits that, while a consumer's idealism positively influences his/her ethical judgment, his/her relativism exerts a negative effect on the same judgment. This ethical judgment, in turn, positively translates into the corresponding ethical intention and, consequently, ethical behavior. Lastly, the model also
Study context
In Study 1, we used consumers' behavior regarding the bring-your-own-shopping-bags (BYOB) movement as the study context to validate the hypotheses. BYOB is an environmental behavior that has received growing attention in marketing research (Chan et al., 2008; Karmarkar & Bollinger, 2015). The excessive use of plastic shopping bags has caused serious environmental problems worldwide (Hawkins, 2010). Therefore, persuading consumers to engage in BYOB is a formidable challenge for policy makers and
Study context
To test the robustness and generalizability of the results found in Study 1, we conducted Study 2 to replicate the results of Study 1 regarding consumers' waste sorting and recycling (WSR) behavior using a sample from the United States. WSR behavior is essential for the sustainable development of the environment and society, because it helps reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and conserve useful materials (e.g., Biswas, Licata, McKee, Pullig, & Daughtridge, 2000; Zikmund & Stanton,
Conclusion
Green behavior has received increasing attention in marketing research (Goldstein et al., 2008; Kronrod et al., 2012; Sheth et al., 2011). However, why and when consumers engage in such environmental behaviors is still unclear. Building upon the ethical decision-making model by Hunt and Vitell, 1986, Hunt and Vitell, 1993 and regulatory focus theory and using the survey data from these two studies regarding consumers' BYOB practice in Hong Kong and consumers' WSR behavior in the United States,
Acknowledgement
The work described in this paper was supported by Hong Kong Government's RGC General Research Fund (Project A/C: 15500514).
Lili Wenli Zou is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the School of Management and Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. She received her Ph.D. degree in Marketing from School of Business, Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Hong Kong. Her research interests focus on service marketing and green marketing, including customer experience management, green consumption, customer relationship management, and anthropomorphism, etc.
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Lili Wenli Zou is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the School of Management and Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. She received her Ph.D. degree in Marketing from School of Business, Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Hong Kong. Her research interests focus on service marketing and green marketing, including customer experience management, green consumption, customer relationship management, and anthropomorphism, etc.
Ricky Y. K. Chan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Management and Marketing of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests lie in environmental and ethical issues relating to Chinese enterprises and consumers. His research has been published in the Journal of Management Studies, Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Ethics, Industrial Marketing Management, Psychology & Marketing, and European Journal of Marketing, among others. Dr. Chan currently sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Management Studies.