Antecedents of Pro-Environmental Behaviors: A Study on Green Consumption in an Emerging Market

Abstract

Green consumption such as buying green food, purchasing eco-label products, purchasing recycled products, or zero-wasted shopping is becoming more common in developing countries. The paper, using value theory, identity theory and self-regulation theory, aims to develop and validate an integrative theoretical model that explain consumer willingness to pay and purchase behavior. A cross-sectional survey with PLS-SEM analysis of 279 individual consumers in green consumption in Dalat, Vietnam, reports that 14 of 15 hypotheses are empirically supported. The findings affirm the influence of value orientation (egoistic, altruistic and biospheric value), on self-regulation (self-efficacy and outcome expectation) through environmental identity. This is also one of the first, with the mediating role of self-regulation between identity and behavior, to provide a new lens of value–identity-self-regulation as an insightful alternative to both the traditional perspective of value–belief-norm and the emerging perspective of value-identity-norm in determining pro-environmental behavior.