MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY ◆ DO THANH LONG Exposure to Internet Content and the Formation of Green Consumption Behavioural Intention among Generation Yers in Vietnam PHD DISSERTATION BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Hanoi – 2022 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY ◆ DO THANH LONG Exposure to Internet Content and the Formation of Green Consumption Behavioural Intention among Generation Yers in Vietnam SPECIALIZATION: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SPECIALIZATION CODE: 9340101 PHD DISSERTATION Supervisor: Associate Professor Doctor Nguyen Vu Hung Hanoi – 2022 DECLARATION I have read and understood the University’s policy on plagiarism. I hereby declare on my honor that this research proposal is my own work and does not violate the regulations on good academic practices. Supervisor(s) PhD candidate i TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES. v LIST OF TABLES .vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
Reasons for choosing topic. Purpose of the research. The human value – green consumption behaviour gap. The role of environmental content exposure on the internet in filling value – behaviour gap.
The research questions. Subject and scope of the research. Original contributions of the research. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Adverse impacts of environmental problems. The emergence of green consumption. Environmental problems and sustainable development of Vietnam. Land degradation and soil erosion.
Deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Environmental protection and sustainable development of Vietnam. Green consumption in Vietnam as a solution to environmental problem. The importance of generation Y consumers in constructing green consumption culture in Vietnam.
Antecedents of green consumption behaviours. Sustainable-related attitude. Perceived Behavioural Control. Perceived consumer effectiveness.
Environmental/ external factors. Other environmental factors (Product price, Product availability, Product characteristics, lack of information). The effects of human values on green consumption behaviours. 46 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 1.
50 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH FRAMEWORK. Theory of basic human value. Value basis of green consumption behaviours. From human values to green consumption behaviours.
Environmental internet content exposure as moderators. Environmental internet content exposure and biospheric-altruistic value - green consumption behaviour gap. Environmental internet content exposure and egoistic value - green consumption behaviour gap. 61 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2.
65 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Moderation testing method - Moderated Multiple Regression. Research site and sampling. Common method bias (CMB).
76 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 3. 78 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGS. Reliability and validity of the measures. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results.
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results. 90 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 4. 96 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION. Summary and discussion of the research findings.
Human values and green consumption behaviours. The moderating role of exposure to environmental contents on the internet and social network. Theoretical contributions of the research findings. Managerial implications of the research findings.
Strengthening biospheric-altruistic value. Activating relevant values by proper media information campaigns. Limitation and further research. 105 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 5.
108 APPENDIX A: OFFICIAL SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH). 130 APPENDIX B: EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS RESULTS. 133 APPENDIX C: MEASURE OF SAMPLING ADEQUACY (MSA) AND PARTIAL CORRELATIONS. 140 APPENDIX D: CORRELATIONS MATRIX BETWEEN MEASUREMENT INDICATORS.
142 APPENDIX E: HARMAN’S SINGLE FACTOR TESTING RESULTS. 144 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Hypothesis testing model .1: Main steps of quantitative research .2: Simple slope analysis results for moderating effects of Action-related content exposure on biospheric-altruistic value – green consumption behaviour relationship .3: Simple slope analysis results for moderating effects of Action-related content exposure on money-based egoistic value – green consumption behaviour relationship .4: Simple slope analysis results for moderating effects of Action-related content exposure on authority-based egoistic value – green consumption behaviour relationship. 95 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: The comparison between social norms and personal norms .1: The comparison between values, norms, and attitudes .2: Human values and their motivational goals .1: Summary of contrasts between qualitative and quantitative research .1: KMO and Bartlett's test .2: Measure reliability and validity .3: Correlations between variables .4: CFA testing results .5: Construct correlation matrix .6: Descriptive Statistics of scores for measurement items .7: Descriptive Statistics of summated scores for variables .8: Regression result with green consumption behavioural intention as dependent variable. 91 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 2 Chi-square AVE Average Variance Extracted CFA Confirmatory factor analysis CFI Comparative Fit Index CMB Common method bias EFA Exploratory factor analysis GDP Gross Domestic Product MSA Measure of sampling adequacy NEP New environmental paradigm OLS Ordinary least squares PBC Perceived behavioural control PPP Purchasing power parity RMSEA Root mean square error of approximation SRMR Standardized root mean residual TLI Tucker Lewis Index TPB The Theory of planned behaviour UNDP United Nations Development Program VBN Value – belief – norm theory VIF Variance inflation factor vii INTRODUCTION 1.
Reasons for choosing topic Over the past decades, the development and welfare of human being have been threatened by number of serious environmental problems such as air and water pollution, resource scarcity, deforestation, climate change, loss of biodiversity and so on. For example, at regional level, significant reduction in water resources, soil erosion and salinization caused by the global climate change have adversely affected human livelihood and economy in Central Asia countries. It has brought on the ineffectiveness of agricultural sector followed by food insecurity, inadequate freshwater supplies or growing religious extremism due to the deepened social and economic problems (Qi & Kulmatove, 2008). Similarly, air pollution, soil and water contamination caused by the industrialization have been also substantial environmental problems posing threats on the sustainable development of central and eastern European countries (Carter & Turnock, 1993; Jedrychowski et al.
At individual level, these problems have undeniably had adverse impacts on human health and well-being (Brusseau et al., 2019; Jedrychowski et al. Pollution is posited to be the main cause of multiple deadly diseases such as asthma, cancer, neurodevelopmental disorders, birth defects, heart disease, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Air pollution, including both indoor and outdoor sources, causes more than seven million deaths annually as estimated. Meanwhile, water pollution accounts for approximately 1.8 million deaths per year.
Such illnesses and deaths in turn results in economic loss for the population as well as negative social impacts such as considerable cost for medical treatments, loss of productivity, loss of time from work and school, potential unemployment and so forth (Brusseau et al. It has been affirmed that the over-exploitation of natural resources for production to meet the increasing demand of rapidly proliferating population is one of main causes of these problems. Obviously, the dependence of human being on natural resources is undeniable. At individual level, people require land for agriculture, wood for construction and production or simply for fire to heat up their home, so that they cut down trees.
People need meat, animal fur, bone, and other animal products that motivate them to capture and kill wild animals. At national level, most countries throughout the world base on their natural resources to foster their growth and to meet the demand of their population (Dunlap & Jorgensen, 2012). For them, natural resources such as oil, coal, gas and other mineral resources (such as iron, metals, sand, stone, etc.) are vital to economic development. In fact, there might not be such environmental problems if waste products produced by the process of production and consumption did not exceed 1 the ability to absorb and recover of the nature.
However, the global overpopulation that reached near 7.7 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach around 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050 (United Nations, 2019) has led to the deterioration of natural resources embodied by the uncontrolled poaching and fishing, the increasing request for living space and timbers, and an enormous quantity and various types of wastes disposed from factories and households. Ultimately, many serious environmental problems are the result (Dunlap & Jorgensen, 2012). Solving the problems requires co-operation among academics and practitioners from different field of science to find out practicable solutions. From behaviour change perspective, since the late 1990s, there has been belief among scholars that the view and patterns of consumption need to be changed toward more environmentally friendly way in order to ensure sustainable development for our planet.
To date, sustainable production and consumption have become a common concern throughout the world (Liu et al. Empirically, in order to offer governments, marketers, and policy makers valuable insights to design effective behavioural intervention to foster the changes, scholars have put great effort into understanding which factors are promoters or inhibitors of environmentally significant behaviours from different perspectives. Purpose of the research 1. The human value – green consumption behaviour gap Among different research lines in the field, many scholars have focused on the roles of human value in driving pro-environmental consumption behaviours with theory of basic human values as theoretical foundation (Steg & Vlek, 2009).
Accordingly, forming and changing values are a common stream of research which is promising to change the behaviours. To date, increasing numbers of research have investigated the link between Schwartz’s value types (Schwartz, 1992) and pro-environmental consumption behaviours. Among various values that guide human behaviours, Stern and associates (1995) clearly distinguished underlying values for the behaviours, basing on the work about human values of Schwartz (1992). The first one is biospheric-altruistic value that implies the importance an individual places on the benefits of other species, other people and the biosphere.
The second one is egoistic value that indicates the extent to which self-benefit is important to an individual (Karp, 1996; Stern & Dietz, 1994; Wesley Schultz, 2001). The driving force of these values behind pro-environmental consumption behaviours thus have usually been examined. 2 Nevertheless, while providing significant contribution about value-behaviour relationship in the field, there is still value-behaviour gap that remains unexplained. More specifically, this is reflected by empirical evidence that people may not always be ready to take pro-environmental actions even when they emphasize the importance of environmental protection as well as altruism (e.: Geiger & Keller, 2018; Groot & Steg, 2008; Lee et al.
Conversely, people may not always deny responsibility to protect the environment even if they strongly display the importance of self-benefits to themselves (e.: Kim & Seock, 2019; Landon et al. One of the most important reasons for the gap is that, this line of research focused mainly on identifying the direct impacts of internal values in driving green consumption behaviours while overlooking the roles of external factors (Peattie, 2010; Steg & Vlek, 2009). More specifically, as “human value” reflects desirable goals that people want to achieve in life, human value may match or mismatch with various situations before being converted into behaviours. The linkage between a value and a specific behaviour therefore may be moderated by other factors.
In fact, scholars suggested that peope’s beliefs towards target behaviours can be one of such moderating factors (Ponizovskiy et al. More specifically, from this view, people who hold strong value for the nature may engage in green consumption behaviours for environment protection if they are aware of the environmental degradation. Likewise, people who strongly value personal benefits for themselve may take green consumption actions if they believe that green consumption can bring them such gains and deny the behaviour engagement if it is believed to be threats to their benefits (Groot & Steg, 2008; Stern & Dietz, 1994). Relevant information about environment that consumers are exposed to then can moderate the relationship between the values and green consumption behaviours.
The role of environmental content exposure on the internet in filling value – behaviour gap In this study, I expect that environmental content that a consumer is exposed to may play important role in narrowing value – green consumption behaviour gap. It is because frequency of environmental content exposure can change individuals’ beliefs and knowledge concerning the green consumption behaviours (Green et al., 2019; Staats et al., 1996; Steg & de Groot, 2010; Valkenburg et al.