The antecedents of green purchase intention among vietnamese consumers

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM SCHOOL OF BUSINESS Independence - Freedom - Happiness ASSURANCE QUALIFIED THESIS Student’s Name: NGUYEN THANH TUAN Title of

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THE ANTECEDENTS OF GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG

VIETNAMESE CONSUMERS

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS Independence - Freedom - Happiness

ASSURANCE QUALIFIED THESIS

Student’s Name: NGUYEN THANH TUAN

Title of Thesis: THE ANTECEDENTS OF GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION

AMONG VIETNAMESE CONSUMERS

Advisor: DR PHAM HONG HOA

I assure that the content of this thesis has been qualified all requirements for a research paper and able to participate in the final thesis defense

Approved by

DR PHAM HONG HOA

THE ANTECEDENTS OF GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG

VIETNAMESE CONSUMERS

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Under the guidance and approval of the committee, and approved by all its members,

this thesis has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr Pham Hong Hoa, my research

supervisor, for her patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques

of this research work

My grateful thanks are also extended to Management of Company Dunlopillo

Vietnam for supporting to keep my progress on schedule by the way they have

arranged working and training activities which were best fit to my research work

I wish to acknowledge the help provided by my MBA friends, BA friends and

existing peers who took part in data collection procedures, a much important part of

one research

I would also like to extend my thanks to office staffs of International University of

Ho Chi Minh City for their help in coordinating necessary activities in the MBA

program

Finally, I wish to thank my parents for their support and encouragement throughout

my study

Plagiarism Statements

I would like to declare that, apart from the acknowledged references, this

thesis either does not use language, ideas, or other original material from anyone; or

has not been previously submitted to any other educational and research programs or

institutions I fully understand that any writings in this thesis contradicted to the

above statement will automatically lead to the rejection from the MBA program at

the International University – Vietnam National University Hochiminh City

Copyright Statement

This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who

consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that

no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published

without the author‟s prior consent

© Nguyen Thanh Tuan/ MBA06043/2014

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION

1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND 1

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT 2

1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 2

1.4 RESEARCH SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS 3

1.5 THESIS STRUCTURE 3

CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 GREEN MARKETING 5

2.2 GREEN PRODUCT 5

2.3 GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION 7

2.4 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 8

2.5 HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT 13

2.5.1 Environmental Concern 13

2.5.2 Social influences 14

2.5.3 Willingness to pay 14

2.5.4 Green Corporate Image 15

2.5.5 Packaging 16

2.5.6 Labels 16

2.5.7 Availability 17

CHAPTER THREE – METHODOLOGY 3.1 LOCATION OF THE STUDY 18

3.2 SAMPLING TECHNIQUES 19

3.3 DATA COLLECTION METHOD 21

3.4 MEASURES 22

3.5 DATA ANALYSIS PLAN 27

CHAPTER FOUR – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 SCREENING DATA 28

4.2 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS 30

4.3 RELIABILITY STATISTICS 36

4.4 FACTOR ANALYSIS 37

4.4.1 Assumptions 37

4.4.2 Factor Analysis of Dependent Variable 37

4.4.3 Factor Analysis of Independent Variable 39

4.5 REVISED RESEARCH MODEL 44

4.6 ASSESSING NORMALITY AFTER FACTOR ANALYSIS 45

4.7 STANDARD MULTIPLE REGRESSION 48

4.8 MULTIPLE REGRESSION WITH TRANSFOMRED VARIABLES 54

4.9 ONE-WAY BETWEEN GROUPS ANOVA 55

4.9.1 Test of homogeneity of variances 56

4.9.2 One-way ANOVA Test 56

CHAPTER FIVE – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 MAIN FINDINGS 59

5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS 62

5.3 CONCLUSIONS 65

References 66

Appendix A: English Questionnaire 71

Appendix B: Vietnamese Questionnaire 76

Appendix C: Graphs of frequency distribution 81

List of Tables

Table 1 Summary of previous studies 9

Table 2: Measurement Scale Development 24

Table 3: Summary of Categorical Variables 28

Table 4: Summary of Continuous Variables 29

Table 5: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Location 31

Table 6: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Gender 31

Table 7: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Age 32

Table 8: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Marital Status 32

Table 9: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Education 33

Table 10: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Monthly Income 33

Table 11: Frequency Distribution of Consumer Occupation 34

Table 12: Reason why people bought green products 34

Table 13: Reason why people have not bought green products 35

Table 14: Some common green products among respondents 36

Table 15: Reliability Statistics 37

Table 16: KMO and Bartlett's Test of Dependent Variable 38

Table 17: Component Matrix of Dependent Variable 38

Table 18: KMO and Bartlett's Test of Independent Variables 39

Table 19: Rotated Component Matrix of Independent Variables 39

Table 20: New Six Independent Variables 43

Table 21: Correlation Testing of Variables 48

Table 22: Collinearity Diagnostics 49

Table 23: Extreme value of Mahalanobis Distance 50

Table 24: Casewise Diagnostics 51

Table 25: Model Summary 51

Table 26: ANOVA analysis in Multiple Regression 52

Table 27: Coefficients in Multiple Regression 53

Table 28: Results of Hypotheses Testing 53

Table 29: Results of Transformation 54

Table 30: Model Summary after transformation 55

Table 31: Levene‟s Test in one-way between groups ANOVA 56

Table 32: Welch and Brown-Forsythe Test of Occupation Variable 56

Table 33: ANOVA Significant values for independent variables 57

Table 34: Multiple comparisons of Occupation Variable 57

Table 35: ANOVA result of Occupation Variable 58

List of Figures

Figure 1: Characteristics of green products 6

Figure 2: Conceptual Model of Clare D‟Souza et al (2006) 8

Figure 3: Conceptual Framework of Research 13

Figure 4: Revised Research Model 45

Figure 5: Normal Distribution Plot of Continuous Variables 46

Figure 6: Normal Q-Q Plot of Environmental Awareness and Labelling 47

Figure 7: Plotting Regression Standardized Residual of Dependent Variable 50

Figure 8: Final Research Model 54

Abstract

The rising environmental issues have been contributing to a huge increase in

the number of consumers practicing green purchase, and Vietnam is not exception

for this trend The study was conducted from February to August 2014 with purpose

of identifying the influence factors of green purchase intention among Vietnamese

consumers, particularly in Ho Chi Minh City Using convenience sampling

technique, slightly more than 300 surveys were conducted through both online and

direct collecting methods Then the data was analyzed using test of reliability, factor

analysis, one-way between group analysis of variance and multiple regression Based

on the results, it can be concluded that the three predictors Willingness to pay, Social

influence and Packaging were significantly impact green purchase intention with

positive direction; and there was a slight difference in green purchase intention

scores for subgroups of Occupation predictor Although the major drawback of this

research is not investigating green purchase intention on a specific product, it was

one of the few which examined green purchase practice in Vietnam, and on the basis

of the promising findings presented in this research, future studies of the same issue

would be of interest

Keywords: green product, green purchase intention, green consumers

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CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents research background, problem statement, research

objectives, research scope and limitations as well as thesis structure

Both consumers and manufacturers have recently put higher priority on green

consumption practices in global scale There have been more attention toward green

products that are assumed to be green or environmentally friendly like “low power

consuming (energy-efficient) electrical appliances, organic foods, lead free paints,

recyclable paper, and phosphate free detergents” (Bhatia and Jain, 2013, p.1) The

reason for this concern could be the fact that our environment is endangered in a

number of ways including global warming, ozone depletion, drinking water shortage,

land degradation, pollution, waste disposal and other causes Thus implementing

green marketing strategy will assist corporations to meet consumer expectations and

gain more competitive advantages However, Green Product is a relatively new

concept in Vietnam whereas in the world, consumers tend to buy products with

environmentally friendly benefits Equally important, it must also be noted that all of

us at least have done something for green living trends in Vietnam in different ways

In detail, the deputy head of Ho Chi Minh City's Environmental Protection Agency,

Ha Van Dung, has encouraged firms to produce green products to contribute to a

greener environment (Nguyen, 2011) From 2010, numerous green consumption

campaigns or relevant projects have been launched to promote green consumption in

Vietnam, namely “Green Talk” project, “Using environmentally friendly bags”

campaign or “Coopmart Green consumption” campaign Some Vietnamese

companies now have recently started marketing themselves as green organizations by

following certain government regulations and preferences of worldwide consumers

For instance, Vinamilk has been using FSC packaging which is made from trees,

carefully managed, sustainable and renewable (Nguyen, 2010) or Tide detergent

(P&G Corp), compact bulbs and fluorescent lamps (Dien Quang Lamp Joint Stock

Company) successfully applied "Vietnam Green Label" Programme of the Global

Ecolabelling Network (Nguyen, 2010) Nevertheless, it is argued that number of

businesses involved are relatively small and they are often large organizations in

Vietnam context

Hoang and Nguyen (2012) explored that Vietnamese consumers are little aware

of environmental issues and friendly behave towards the environmental impacts

However, it is worth noting that there have been very few formal studies with respect

to green marketing or consumers‟ green purchase practice in Vietnam (Hoang and Nguyen, 2012) and therefore the intention of Vietnamese consumers towards buying

green products is also questionable To sustain in the competitive business

environment, marketers need to know the factors that persuade consumers to

purchase green products in Vietnam This also makes it imperative to conduct this

study to identify the factors which have impact on consumer‟s purchase intention towards green products in order to help companies formulating their green marketing

strategies

1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

 To build conceptual model of green purchase intention

 To identify the factors that contribute towards consumer‟s green purchase

intention in context of Vietnamese consumers

 To investigate level of influence of each factor on green purchase

intention

 To examine the differences between demographic groups in green purchase intention level

 To understand the issues and challenges of green marketing practices

1.4 RESEARCH SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

The research is conducted under constraints of time, geography, human resource,

and financial capacity Therefore, the scope and limitations of research will be

defined as follows:

 The study is only carried out in Ho Chi Minh City with the expected sample size of approximately 300 green consumers

 One respondent who will be selected might be either a consumer or a buyer

A consumer is a person who use a product while a buyer is a person who

buy a product for himself (in this case buyer is consumer) or buy a product

for others

 This research will not investigate green purchasing intention on any specific product category “Green product” in this study may be any general product like efficient energy products, health and safe products and so on

 This is a cross-sectional study, so it does not reflect customers‟ intention overtime They might not be much aware of green product right now, but

they could be willing pay more to buy green product in the future

1.5 THESIS STRUCTURE

The thesis includes 5 chapters:

Chapter 1-Introduction: This chapter presents background, statement of

problem, research objectives and research scopes

Chapter 2-Literature Review: This chapter explains basic concepts, previous

studies which were used to set up a new conceptual model as well as develop

hypotheses

Chapter 3-Methodology: This chapter deals with research procedures including

sample selection, data collection method, and plan of data analysis

Chapter 4-Findings and Discussions: The chapter covers data processing,

analysis results and variety of discussions

Chapter 5-Conclusions and Recommendations: The last section serves as an

conclusion including managerial implications for green corporates in Vietnam

CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter aims to give a comprehensive account of related concepts and

previous studies that were used as foundation for further analyses in this research

2.2 GREEN MARKETING

As reported by Bhatia and Jain (2013), “Green marketing” or “Ecological

marketing” or “Environmental marketing” was defined by American Marketing Association (AMA): “Marketing of products that are presumed to be

environmentally safe is called as green marketing” It has also been suggested that green marketing activities can both satisfy the needs of human and to minimize the

controvert influences to natural environment (Azizan and Suki, 2014) There have

been a wide range of activities covered under green marketing concept including

product modification, changes of manufacturing process, environmental packaging

and so on (Bhatia and Jain, 2013) Today, consumers also strongly expressed their

concerns toward environmental impact of products, hence it is essential for

companies to market themselves as green organizations to sustain in competitive

environment It is also recognized that many companies that now try to pursue green

marketing will absolutely face a great deal of challenges such as unfavorable

consumer perception and high cost of production, and there is a urgent need to

explore green consumers‟ characteristics to help companies to develop a right target and market segmentation strategies (D'Souza, Taghian, Lamb and Peretiatkos, 2006)

In another research, Boztepe (2012) concluded that green marketing will target not

only making profit in short-term but also for long-term profitability and sustainable

development It seems green marketing have started becoming agenda of worldwide

enterprises

2.3 GREEN PRODUCT

Consumers now frequently encounter with terms such as “environmentally

friendly”, “eco-friendly” or “green” products in green marketing era According to Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English, all terms “environmentally

friendly”, “eco-friendly”, “nature-friendly”, and “green” are marketing terminologies describing products which have minimal or no harm on eco-system Another relevant

point is that the term green product will be mostly used throughout the study to help

readers to follow more easily Chen and Chai (2010) specified green product as the

product which will not overuse natural resources and recyclable at the same time To

put it another way, Chen and Chai (2010) also cited a new definition of green

product from research of Elkington and Makower (1998) that green product refers to

a product which has more environmentally sound content or suitable packaging in

cutting down the environmental effect In other words, D'Souza et al (2006)

characterized green product based on several features including growing originally,

being reusable or recyclable, and creating by natural ingredients Furthermore, the

year 2012 witnessed a broader definition of green product from Bhatia and Jain That

is to say there has been no consensus on what exactly green product be and indicated

some common features which are globally accepted as green in the following figure:

Figure 1: Characteristics of green products

Source: Bhatia and Jain (2013)

In 2009, Vietnam Green Label Program of the Global Ecolabelling Network

(GEN) has been launched, considering green product as product which cause less

environmental issues compared to other same type of products from the process of

processing materials, producing, distributing, being used as well as after being

disposed This understanding also resembles other literatures In reality, many

enterprises now only take into account profits, and ignore solutions to lessen

pollution and save energy However, in the long term, companies do need to have

activities to integrate production with environmental protection to increase

competitive advantages as well as enhances the trust of consumers (Nguyen, 2011)

2.4 GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION

Governments, organizations, and businesses have been creating some serious

changes for awakening consumers‟ green purchase habit in a global scale, thus having many studies conducted to explore consumers‟ green purchase intention over decades is sense of understandable Initially, with the term “behavioral intention”,

Mei, Ling and Piew (2012) stated that behavioral intention is a measure of one‟s

relative strength of purpose to have a specific action In a recent paper by Mei, Ling

and Piew (2012), green purchase intention is a person‟s willingness to give

preference to green product over traditional products On another point, Paço and

Rosa Reis (2012) conceptualized green purchase intention as a person‟s plan to

perform a green behavior in a specific time According to many previous studies like

research studies, green purchase intention is critical predictor of green purchase

behavior In other words, it is claimed that green purchase intention can affect the

probability of a customer decision when that one will buy eco-friendly products

2.5 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The conceptual model of this research is associated by some previous relevant

models The key model is the model developed by D'Souza, Taghian, Lamb and

Peretiatkos (2006), and the study also adopts some critical findings from other

researches The summary for those previous studies will be presented in Table 1

D‟Souza et al (2006) aimed to investigate effect of factors to green purchase intention of consumers in Australia and explain its implication on corporate strategy

However, this group of researchers measured the effect of environmental factors on

consumers‟ perception towards green products first, and then continued to measure the impact of consumer‟ overall perception about green products on green purchase intention Environmental factors investigated in that research were corporate

perception, corporate regulatory compliance, product perception, product labels,

packaging, ingredients, and consumers' past experience The research model of

D‟Souza et al (2006) will be shown in figure 2

Figure 2: Conceptual Model of D’Souza et al (2006)

Source: D‟Souza et al (2006)

Table 1

Summary of previous studies

Sources: D‟Souza et al (2006), Roberts and Bacon (1997), Boztepe (2012), Mei, Ling and Piew (2012) and Kumar (2012)

1 Green products and corporate strategy:

an empirical investigation 2006

Clare D'Souza, Mehdi Taghian, Peter Lamb, and Roman Peretiatkos

Australia

Corporate perception, regulatory protection, labels,

packaging, ingredients negatively influenced customers' perception formation about green products while only past experience positively contributed to customers' perception

2

Exploring the subtle relationships between

environmental concern and ecologically conscious

consumer behavior

1997

James A Roberts and Donald R Bacon America Environmental concern has significant impact on

ecologically conscious consumer behavior

3 Green marketing and its impact on consumer

Environmental awareness, green product features, green promotion activities

and green price affect green purchasing behaviors of the consumers in positive way

4 The Antecedents of Green Purchase Intention

among Malaysian Consumers 2012

Ooi Jen Mei, Kwek Choon Ling, Tan Hoi Piew Malaysia

The most powerful antecedent in affecting the green purchase intention of Malaysian consumers

is government initiative followed by environmental

knowledge, peer pressure and environmental attitude

5

Theory of planned behaviour approach to

understand the purchasing behaviour for

environmentally sustainable products

2012 Bipul Kumar India

Availability of environmentally sustainable products was found to have a positive relation with the purchase intention for the environmentally sustainable products

The current study will apply model of D‟Souza et al (2006) with some factors impacting directly on green purchase intention without mediating level “consumer perception” To be more applicable in context of Vietnam, factors were modified It is reported by an analyst of Marketervietnam.vn (2013) that Vietnam currently stay in

initial stage for green consumption practice, and the number of green corporates is

relative small as well as all stakeholders in Vietnam society are putting more efforts to raise customers‟ awareness of green purchase habit Due to the above reason,

Vietnamese consumers do not have many past experiences of buying green products as

well as perception of green product Likewise, environmental regulation system in

Vietnam is still being improved to encourage and protect green corporates Thus, the

three factors “past experience”, “product perception” and “regulatory protection” would

not be applied in this research Particularly, factor “ingredients” will not be picked out as

well because the current research aims to investigate green products in general, not only

cosmetics, food and beverage but also energy-efficient electrical appliances,

fuel-efficient vehicles, recycled papers, etc Therefore, the rest of three factors, namely

labels, packaging, and corporate perception are selected to investigate their direct impact

on green purchase intention On another note, “corporate perception” will be adjusted to

be called “green corporate image” factor in current study

In addition, the study also adopted some findings from other previous literatures

With the research “Exploring the subtle relationships between environmental concern

and ecologically conscious consumer behavior”, James A Roberts and Donald R Bacon discussed an interesting factor “environmental concern” and its multidimensional impact

on ecologically conscious consumer behavior including green purchase behavior through

employing a random sample of entire USA As the result of that research, a person‟s

level of environmental concern was found to be correlated with his or her likelihood of

performing a variety of ecologically conscious consumer behavior Vietnamese

community has recently had more interest in environment protection activities, and it is quite inspirable to add factor “environmental concern” to the present reseach

Equally important, one Turkish researcher Boztepe (2012) analyzed the impact of

Green Marketing on consumer buying behavior As result of mentioned research, when

environment consciousness, green product features, green promotion and green price

increase, green purchasing behavior will increase as well Boztepe also claimed that in

most of studies conducted until 2012, a negative relationship between green price and

purchasing behavior has been highlighted On the contrary, a positive result means

people will be willing to pay higher price for green products against our urgent

environmental issues Undoubtedly, the factor “price” will be examined in this research

to explore its impact on green purchase intention in context of Vietnam with the new

name „willingness to pay‟

Furthermore, a group of Malaysian researchers Mei, Ling and Piew (2012) also

studied factors influencing green purchase intention The study found that the most

powerful factor in predicting the green purchase intention of Malaysian consumers is

government initiative followed by environmental knowledge, peer pressure and

environmental attitude Researchers also emphasized that peer pressure exert a

significant impact on green purchase intention where green marketers should putting

effort in viral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing to enhance green purchase

practice In fact, peer pressure indicates the psychological pressure which one person

had as that person compared his behaviors with those of others (Cohan, 2009) Besides, Lee (2008) called another name “social influence” instead of “peer pressure”, and he also showed social influence was the top predictor of Hong Kong‟s consumers green

purchasing behavior Looking back at the situation of Vietnam, our consumers have

been being educated to buy more green products, and they are supposed to share relevant

information with relatives, or even encourage their relatives to buy those products Thus adding factor “social influence” to current study is certainly worthy

Last but not least, an Indian researcher Kumar (2012) examined the purchasing

behavior for green products using the framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior

The entire study was done to understand the influence of different determinants like

attitude, subjective norm, and availability towards green purchase intention In

particular, availability of green products was found to have a positive and significant

relation with the green purchase intention This researcher also cited some previous

studies which had the same observations like researches of Straughan and Roberts

(1999) and Webster (1975) With regard to the context of Vietnam, it is claimed by a

marketing expert that Vietnam currently stays in initial stage for green consumption

practice and the number of green corporates is relative small (marketervietnam.vn,

2013) Therefore, it can probably implied that Vietnam now is not abundant in the

number of green products As a result, the impact of availability of green product

leading to green purchase intention needs to be ascertained in current study From all

analyses above, a conceptual framework is developed as in the figure below:

Figure 3: Conceptual Framework of Research

Sources: D‟Souza et al (2006), Roberts and Bacon (1997), Boztepe (2012), Mei, Ling

and Piew (2012) and Kumar (2012)

All hypotheses will be formulated according to the above theoretical framework

2.5.1 Environmental Concern (H1): Meerah and Nadeson (2010) demonstrated

environmental concern as a level of concern which one person holding towards the

environment With the same viewpoint, both Chen and Chai (2000) and

Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch, Sinkovics, and Bohlen (2003) agreed that

environmental concern relates to the emotional degree an individual is attached to

environmental matters Up to now, several researchers have studied the relationship of

environmental concern towards green purchase intention In the first place, Roberts and

Bacon (1997) proposed that a person possessing higher level of environmental concern

could be more likely to execute green behavior It was also showed by Chen and Chai

(2010) that a strong positive relationship between environmental concern and green

purchase intention Similarly, Kaiser, Wofling, and Further (1999) highlighted that

consumer‟s level of environmental concern is connected with the behavior of purchasing green product However, there is a contradictory finding from Koe, Omar, and Majid

(2014), it is stated that although consumers have concern about environment, they could

not turn those concerns into real actions Hence, it is interesting to investigate the

relationship of environmental concern and green purchase intention, which makes this

current study hypothesizes that:

H1: Environmental Concern positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention

2.5.2 Social influences (H2): On the whole, social influence will take place when a

person‟s emotions and opinions are affected by surrounding people (Ling, 2012) In social impact theory (Latane, 1981), there will be three critical factors enabling the

likelihood of person to respond to social influence including influencing power of group

to the individual, the physical communications of the influencing group to the individual

once influence attempt is made, and the amount of people in influencing group”

Alternatively, Lee (2008) showed peer network which circulates the norms of

environmental concern was found linking to the social impact theory Furthermore, Mei,

Ling, and Piew (2012) added that social influence holds a significant impact on green

purchase intention where green marketers should putting effort in viral marketing or

word-of-mouth marketing to enhance green purchase practice Without a doubt, it is

believed that social influence can lead to green purchase intention Thus, it is proposed

that:

H2: Social Influence positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention

2.5.3 WILLINGNESS TO PAY (H3): Environmentally friendly products popularly

may be priced higher than traditional non-green products due to higher production cost

incurred in terms of processes, materials, and other administrative affairs (Ling, 2012)

Equally significant, Laroche, Bergeron, and Forleo (2001) highlighted green consumers

have been showing to be happy to pay more for green products Another relevant point

is that consumers will also be encouraged to buy green products even if they are priced

higher than non-green ones given that their benefits outweigh the cost (Kotler and

Zaltman, 1971) It has been found by Boztepe (2012) that a positive result of

relationship between price and green purchase intention, which means people will be

willingness to pay higher price for green products against our urgent environmental

issues On contrast, in another study, D‟Souza et al (2006) denoted that higher price not

positively influences consumer‟s intention to purchase green products, which means that there are some price sensitive consumers will not pay more for environmentally friendly

products To be fit in Vietnam context, it is hypothesized that:

H3: Willingness to pay positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention

2.5.4 Green corporate image (H4): The most interesting approach to define green

corporations has been proposed by Ali and Ahmad (2012), which clarified a green

corporation as an organization performing environmental friendly activities to ensure all

manufacturing activities benefit current environmental issue whereas maintaining a

profit is obtained at the same time In addition, Clare D‟Souza et al (2006) noted most

competitive and successful corporations were highly responsive to environmental

impacts Equally important, Carrigan and Attalla (2001) added consumers will increase

their purchases based on corporate‟s social responsibility performance This is

considered to be consistent with Pastiu (2013) in the research “Green purchase

intentions of Romanian consumers” in which he indicated that green purchase intention

is positively influenced by green corporate image Thus, it is hypothesized in our current

study that:

H4: Green Corporate Image positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention

2.5.5 Packaging (H5): Kotler and Zaltman (1971) claimed that numerous marketers

have called packaging a “fifth P”, along with price, product, place and promotion, which means packaging play an essential role in marketing function In another research paper,

Draskovic, Temperley, and Pavicic (2009) highlighted that packaging is able to

communicate company‟s image appealing to the consumer‟s emotions, thus motivating

consumer‟s desire for buying product Equally important, D‟Souza et al (2006)

discussed packaging may be a good element of environmental message to consumer

Nevertheless, used packaging then eventually turn into plastic waste, which will lead to

a significant impact to the environment Thus making green marketers have to think of

utilizing recycled packaging material which can reduce the damage to environment

(D‟Souza et al., 2006) In a recent research, Agyeman (2014) ascertained that packaging heavily influenced on green purchase intention Hence, the current study will address the

following hypothesis:

H5: Packaging positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention

2.5.6 Labels (H6): A label is defined as a piece of paper or any kind of materials

attached to a container or product itself, on which information is printed about the

product Interestingly, Agyeman (2014) further argued that labelling has only a few

seconds to impress the consumer‟s mind, and he also specified label can lead

consumer‟s green purchase intention towards green products It is noticeable by

D‟Souza et al (2006) that environmental labelling on products is a best way to

communicate to the customer all product benefits and features including signs, codes,

and symbols This is also in sync with a research of Azizan and Suki (2014), they

denoted it is imperative to provide useful information on green product labelling to

attract consumers by helping them understand all benefits of green products over the

same type of non-green products Conversely, Gan, Wee, Ozanne, and Kao (2008)

showed that green label did not affect New Zealand consumers‟ decision to purchase

green products To testify this factor in context of Vietnam, it will be hypothesized that:

H6: Labels positively influence consumer’s Green Purchase Intention

2.5.7 Availability (H7): It is worth noting that availability is the ease or difficulty

level to look for a specific kind of product (Kaufmann, Pannni and Orphanidou, 2012),

2012) Particularly, Vermeir and Verbeke (2006) demonstrated that many customers

have difficulty to buy green products because of inadequate availability Similarly,

Ismail et al (2006) ascertained that the availability of green products is extremely

involved in environmentally friendly behavior The most crucial point made so far

regarding availability by Kumar (2012) that there is a positive relationship between

availability of environmentally friendly products and purchase intention towards such

products Therefore, it is interesting to investigate the relationship of availability and

green purchase intention in Vietnam context, which makes this current study

hypothesizes that:

H7: Availability positively influences consumer’s Green Purchase Intention

CHAPTER THREE – METHODOLOGY

This chapter will present the process through which the topic will be narrowed

down as well as present main research methodologies and techniques to analyze and

resolve the research question

The research will apply quantitative method through survey questionnaire design in

order to study the relationship of independent variables (Environmental Concern, Social

Influences, Willingness to Pay, Green Corporate Image, Packaging, Labels, and

Availability) on dependent variable (Green Purchase Intention)

3.2 LOCATION OF THE STUDY

The study will be conducted in Ho Chi Minh City This place will be chosen as

study site because of underlying reasons According to an interview on Sai Gon Giai

Phong newspaper issued in May, 2011 with Mr Quach To Dung, deputy director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade, “Ho Chi Minh is one of the 10 cities

in the world suffering the highest impact from climate change” and he also added that in the year 2007 Ho Chi Minh became a member of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

to address climate risks locally and globally This also means that the city realized

protecting environment as a key issue of the city In addition, in the same interview, Ms Nguyen Thi Hong, vice chairperson of the Ho Chi Minh City People‟s Committee, said that Ho Chi Minh would launch so-called green consumption campaigns to encourage

society and enterprises to execute their duty in both national economy and sustainable

development, which will help Ho Chi Minh consumers could exercise their green

purchasing practice Equally important, it is revealed in an article issued in September

2013 on Vietnam Investment Review that over sixty percent of consumers in Ho Chi

Minh City believed that pollution had worsened over the previous three years Last but

not least, as Mr Ralf Matthaes (the regional managing director of TNS Indochina, a

world leader in market research, global market information, and business analysis) said

Vietnamese consumers, particular in Ho Chi Minh City, usually bought energy efficient

products, products in recycled packaging, and ethically produced or grown products but

they were unaware they were buying so-called green products (Vietnam Investment

Review, 2013) On the whole, Ho Chi Minh City is deserving to be selected as a study

site in this research, and the target population will be green consumers who are over 18

years old living in Ho Chi Minh City

3.3 SAMPLING TECHNIQUES

Sampling Scheme: As Craig and Douglas (2005) claimed that there is limited

availability of sampling lists as well as the cost associated with developing such lists,

which recommends that convenience sampling could be more cost effective

Considering the resources and time available, researcher is in a position to recruit

convenience sampling method, particularly Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009 added

that convenience sampling is inexpensive, easy to run and no frame is required With

this technique, where subjects are selected because of their convenient accessibility and

proximity to the researcher, the sample selection process will be continued until the

required sample size can be reached However, these researchers at the same time

argued that when participants appear in the sample only due to the ease of obtaining

them, that selection might introduce some bias to the sample but most importantly, these

problems are considered to be less important when respondents are chosen without

focusing on a particular demographic characteristics to achieve nearly randomness

Sampling Size: Generally, an adequate sample size can be able to help minimize

sampling errors, and improve generalizability of research findings In the case of

non-probability sampling technique like convenience sampling, it is said that the norm of

sample size is not clear like probability sampling, thus no rules (Saunders, Lewis, and

Thornhill, 2009) However, based on some previous literature, this study will recruit

some rationales to have optimal sample size for data testing and analysis In a research

“Heuristics for Sample Size Determination in Multivariate Statistical Techniques” (2013), Siddiqui provided some convincing evidences to have adequate sample size

required for a specific statistics test It is reported that to perform multiple regression,

the optimal amount is between 15 to 20 observations for each independent variable,

which means in our current research we need at least 20 observations for 7 independent

variables or minimum sample size is 140 Furthermore, Siddiqui also cited from

previous research of Meyers, Gamst, and Guarino (2006), it is argued that the

appropriate sample sizes for factor analysis (equal or less 10 independent variables)

should be at least 200 observations, this also in sync with current research situation

Equally important, he also demonstrated more viewpoint of quality of sample size as

below illustrations:

Figure 4: Sample size classification

Source: Siddiqui (2013)

Subsequently, along with available time and resources, the adequate sample size

for current study is supposed to be 300

Questionnaire Method: Marczyk, Dematteo, and Festinger (2005) claimed that

questionnaire is one of the most commonly used data collection method for the survey

strategy in which each participant will be asked to respond to the same set of questions,

and it provides an effective way to collect responses from a large sample before

performing quantitative analysis The study will employ self –administered

questionnaires which are supposed to be completed by the respondents In particular,

“Internet-mediated questionnaires” and “Delivery and collection questionnaires” will be applied

Internet-mediated questionnaires: questionnaires are administered electronically

using the Internet, which is believed to be in conjunction with email, offering a greater

control for researcher (Andrews, Nonnecke, and Preece, 2003) In details, the

questionnaire will be advertised on the Internet (Facebook, Linkedin, and some

Vietnamese forums such as Songxanh.vn) and then respondents are invited to access the

questionnaire via a hyperlink created on Google Drive application

(http://docs.google.com/form s/d/ 1HJC5NCPXb06q UdIMHZsYREm9J5_5kTCAx9

JWXK3Vbp8/viewform) Adopting this web-based approach ensures participants can

remain anonymous, equal importance, are unable to modify the questionnaire (Andrews,

Nonnecke, and Preece, 2003)

Delivery and collection questionnaires: questionnaires are delivered by hand to

respondents and collected later With this method, it is known that researcher can check

who has answered the questions at collection (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009)

Reliability Testing: Andrews, Nonnecke, and Preece (2003) also indicated that

reliability of questionnaires need to be considered at the design stage In fact, they

outlined one of most common approaches to assess reliability-internal consistency which

measures the consistency of responses within the whole set of all the questions or a

sub-group of the questions Furthermore, the advised method to calculate internal

consistency in this research is based on Cronbach‟s alpha

Questions design: This study employs such questionnaire include a combination of

open and closed questions Open questions may be useful to find out what is uppermost

in the respondent‟s mind; however, if the number of open questions is too large, it‟s

extremely time consuming to code As a result, the study will keep the use of open

questions at minimum level Most of all, close questions are utilized to allow

respondents quicker and easier to choose from a number of provided alternative answers,

particularly five-point Likert scale is most frequently used (Saunders, Lewis, and

Thornhill, 2009)

Pilot Testing: Pilot test can refine the questionnaire so that respondents will have no

problems in answering the questions, and there will be no problems in recording the

data Specifically, Andrews, Nonnecke, and Preece (2003) advised that the minimum

number for a pilot is 10 for most questionnaires This study aims to implement pilot tests

from 15 respondents Some considerations should be made in pilot testing stage for this

research including how long the questionnaire took to complete, the clarity of

instructions, which questions were unclear or ambiguous, which questions the

respondent felt uneasy about answering, whether the layout was clear and attractive, and

other comments if any

3.5 MEASURES

The measurement scale for this research is adapted from previous studies and

adjusted to be fit in the context of Vietnam Besides, researcher also developed some

new items based on personal knowledge and experiences, as well as based on what have

been occurring in reality in Vietnam regarding environment protection and green

products All items are measured by 5-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 2=

disagree, 3= neutral, 4= agree, 5= strongly agree) This study will examine relationship

of Environmental Concern (ENC), Social Influence (SIE), Willingness to pay (WTP),

Green Corporate Image (GCI), Packaging (PKG), Labels (LAB) and Availability (AVL)

towards Green Purchase Intention (GPI)

Table 2: Measurement Scale Development

Source: Souza et al (2006), Roberts and Bacon (1997), Laroche et al (2001), Pradeep (2012), Mei, Ling, and Piew (2012), Kumar

GPI-1: I will purchase green products even if they are somewhat more expensive than alternatives

GPI-2: I will purchase green products even if they are somewhat lower quality than alternatives

D’Souza et al (2006)

GPI-3: I will buy green products if I happen to see them in a store

GPI-4: I will actively seek out green products in a store in order to purchase it

ENC-1: Natural resources are being used up by humans

ENC-2: Industrialization process have negative effects on environment

Roberts and Bacon (1997)

ENC-3: Products which pollute the environment during manufacturing or consumption should be taxed

higher

Pradeep (2012)

ENC-4: I think our government should put more efforts in protecting environment Researcher (2014)

ENC-5: I think environment protection is human survival problem

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

(SIE)

SIE-1: I learn so much about environmental issues from my family/friends /peers

SIE-2: I learn so much about green products from my family/friends /peers

SIE-3: I often buy environmental products with my family/friends /peers

SIE-4: I often share information regarding green products with my family/friends /peers

Mei, Ling, and Piew (2012)

SIE-5: I will encourage people around me to purchase green products Researcher (2014)

Willingness to pay

(WTP)

WTP-1: It is acceptable to pay 10 percent more for green products that are produced, processed, and

packaged in an environmentally friendly way

WTP-2: I would accept paying 10 percent more taxes to pay for new green technologies

WTP-3: I would be willing to spend more each month in order to buy less environmentally harmful

products

Laroche et al (2001)

WTP-4: I think higher price for green products is reasonable because of production cost

WTP-5: I think Vietnamese consumers accept higher price for green product if it functions as

manufacturer’s advertisement

Researcher (2014)