A Study of Purchase Intention of Eco-friendly Products: A Cross-Cultural Investigation between Korea and China

Abstract

This study sought to compare the purchase intention of eco-friendly products between Korean and Chinese consumers. For this purpose, it established a conceptual model in which environmental knowledge affects attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control toward eco-friendly products, which in turn are connected to the purchase intention of eco-friendly products. According to the analysis results, in both Korean and Chinese cases, consumers’ environmental knowledge had a positive effect on their attitude to eco-friendly products and subjective norms, and the variable that exerted the strongest influence on purchase intention was the subjective norm. On the other hand, this research found some differences in the results between the two countries: in the Korean case, the path from perceived behavioral control to purchase intention was not statistically supported, whereas in the Chinses case the path from environmental knowledge to perceived behavioral control was rejected. 1