Research Article
BibTex RIS Cite

SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION BEHAVIORS OF YOUNG CONSUMERS: A STUDY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT

Year 2022, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 6 - 17, 28.11.2022

Abstract

The rapid increase in production activities, technological developments and the globalization process have led to a change in consumption habits and an increase in the desire for faster and more consumption. This change in consumption processes has rapidly depleted limited resources and brought them to the point of extinction. Faced with this situation, threatening the lives of current and future generations, the concept of sustainability, which has been on the agenda for the last 30 years, has come to the fore. Thus, concepts such as sustainable development, sustainable life, and sustainable consumption have become important. The development goals published by the United Nations include achieving green growth in the context of sustainable consumption by 2030. In this context, it is important to support and encourage sustainable consumption. It is essential to encourage the participation of the younger generation, who grew up in a society of overconsumption, in sustainable consumption. The literature shows that the concept of consumer engagement is a strategic and important tool for encouraging consumers to perform certain consumption behaviors. However, in studies on sustainable consumption behavior, little attention has been given to the subject of consumer engagement. This study aimed to reveal the sustainable consumption behaviors of young consumers through consumer engagement. In this context, the intermediary role of consumer engagement in the impact of environmental attitude and perceived environmental responsibility on sustainable consumption behavior has been examined. Therefore, quantitative research was carried out by choosing the questionnaire technique and the 134 analyzable data obtained were tested with the Structural Equation Model using AMOS v21. The results show that young consumers' perceived responsibility and environmental attitudes have a statistically significant and positive influence on their sustainable purchasing behavior. Also, the results indicate that consumer engagement plays a partially mediating role in the relationship between environmental attitudes, perceived environmental responsibility, and sustainable consumption behavior.

References

  • Adams, M., & Raisborough, J. (2010). Making a difference: ethical consumption and the everyday. The British journal of sociology, 61(2), 256-274.
  • Akehurst, G., Afonso, C., & Gonçalves, H. M. (2012). Re‐examining green purchase behaviour and the green consumer profile: new evidences. Management decision.
  • Alniaçik, Ü. (2010). Çevreci Yönelim, Çevre Dostu Davraniş ve Demografik Özellikler: Üniversite Öğrencileri Üzerinde Bir Araştirma. Sosyal Ekonomik Araştırmalar Dergisi, 10(20), 507-532.
  • Balderjahn, I., Buerke, A., Kirchgeorg, M., Peyer, M., Seegebarth, B., & Wiedmann, K. P. (2013). Consciousness for sustainable consumption: scale development and new insights in the economic dimension of consumers’ sustainability. AMS review, 3(4), 181-192.
  • Banytė, J., Tarutė, A., & Taujanskytė, I. (2014). Customer engagement into value creation: Determining factors and relations with loyalty. Engineering Economics, 25(5), 568-577.
  • Barber, N. A., & Deale, C. (2014). Tapping mindfulness to shape hotel guests’ sustainable behavior. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 55(1), 100-114.
  • Barber, N. A., & Taylor, D. C. (2013). Experimental approach to assessing actual wine purchase behavior. International Journal of Wine Business Research.
  • Bly, S., Gwozdz, W., & Reisch, L. A. (2015). Exit from the high street: An exploratory study of sustainable fashion consumption pioneers. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 39(2), 125-135.
  • Biswas, A., & Roy, M. (2015). Leveraging factors for sustained green consumption behavior based on consumption value perceptions: testing the structural model. Journal of Cleaner production, 95, 332-340.
  • Brodie, R. J., Hollebeek, L. D., Jurić, B., & Ilić, A. (2011). Customer engagement: Conceptual domain, fundamental propositions, and implications for research. Journal of service research, 14(3), 252-271.
  • Brodie, R. J., Ilic, A., Juric, B., & Hollebeek, L. (2013). Consumer engagement in a virtual brand community: An exploratory analysis. Journal of business research, 66(1), 105-114.
  • Čapienė, A., Rūtelionė, A., & Tvaronavičienė, M. (2021). Pro-environmental and pro-social engagement in sustainable consumption: Exploratory study. Sustainability, 13(4), 1601.
  • Caruana, A., & Vassallo, R. (2003). Children’s perception of their influence over purchases: the role of parental communication patterns. Journal of consumer marketing.
  • Catlin, J. R., Luchs, M. G., & Phipps, M. (2017). Consumer perceptions of the social vs. environmental dimensions of sustainability. Journal of Consumer Policy, 40(3), 245-277.
  • Cicala, J., Carmona, J., & Oates, B. R. (2016). Influencing Consumer Engagement in Environmentally Responsible Behavior. International Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 9(2), 1-12.
  • Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. psychometrika, 16(3), 297-334.
  • Dolan, P. (2002). The sustainability of “sustainable consumption”. Journal of Macromarketing, 22(2), 170-181.
  • Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C., & Morgan-Thomas, A. (2015). Consumer engagement in online brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand Management.
  • Durif, F., Boivin, C., & Julien, C. (2010). In search of a green product definition. Innovative Marketing, 6(1).
  • Geiger, S. M., Fischer, D., & Schrader, U. (2018). Measuring what matters in sustainable consumption: An integrative framework for the selection of relevant behaviors. Sustainable development, 26(1), 18-33.
  • Gilg, A., Barr, S., & Ford, N. (2005). Green consumption or sustainable lifestyles? Identifying the sustainable consumer. Futures, 37(6), 481-504.
  • Green, T., & Peloza, J. (2014). Finding the right shade of green: The effect of advertising appeal type on environmentally friendly consumption. Journal of advertising, 43(2), 128-141.
  • Gupta, S., & Agrawal, R. (2018). Environmentally responsible consumption: Construct definition, scale development, and validation. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 25(4), 523-536.
  • Hollebeek, L. (2011). Exploring customer brand engagement: definition and themes. Journal of strategic Marketing, 19(7), 555-573. Hollebeek, L. D., Glynn, M. S., & Brodie, R. J. (2014). Consumer brand engagement in social media: Conceptualization, scale development and validation. Journal of interactive marketing, 28(2), 149-165.
  • Hollebeek, L. D., Conduit, J., Sweeney, J., Soutar, G., Karpen, I. O., Jarvis, W., & Chen, T. (2016). Epilogue to the special issue and reflections on the future of engagement research. Journal of Marketing Management, 32(5-6), 586-594.
  • Hoyle, R. H. (1995). The structural equation modeling approach: Basic concepts and fundamental issues.
  • Huber, M. Z., & Hilty, L. M. (2015). Gamification and sustainable consumption: overcoming the limitations of persuasive technologies. In ICT innovations for sustainability (pp. 367-385). Springer, Cham.
  • James, L.R.; Mulaik, S.A.; Brett, J.M. (2006) A tale of two methods. Organ. Res. Methods, 9, 233–244.
  • Janmaimool, P., & Denpaiboon, C. (2016). Evaluating determinants of rural Villagers’ engagement in conservation and waste management behaviors based on integrated conceptual framework of Pro-environmental behavior. Life Sciences, Society and Policy, 12(1), 1-20.
  • Javornik, A., & Mandelli, A. (2013, July). Research categories in studying customer engagement. In AM2013 Academy of Marketing Conference.
  • Jones, P., Hillier, D., & Comfort, D. (2011). Shopping for tomorrow: promoting sustainable consumption within food stores. British Food Journal.
  • Kaiser, F. G., Oerke, B., & Bogner, F. X. (2007). Behavior-based environmental attitude: Development of an instrument for adolescents. Journal of environmental psychology, 27(3), 242-251.
  • Khan, M. N., & Kirmani, M. D. (2015). Influence of environmental characteristics of the consumers on their willingness to pay for green products: An empirical investigation. International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 3(5), 374-386.
  • Kollmuss, A., & Agyeman, J. (2002). Mind the gap: why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?. Environmental education research, 8(3), 239-260.
  • Lim, W. M., Yong, J. L. S., & Suryadi, K. (2014). Consumers’ perceived value and willingness to purchase organic food. Journal of Global Marketing, 27(5), 298-307.
  • Luchs, M. G., Swan, K. S., & Creusen, M. E. (2016). Perspective: A review of marketing research on product design with directions for future research. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(3), 320-341.
  • Mattila, A. S., Wu, L., & Choi, C. (2016). Powerful or powerless customers: the influence of gratitude on engagement with CSR. Journal of Services Marketing.
  • Miao, L., & Wei, W. (2016). Consumers’ pro-environmental behavior and its determinants in the lodging segment. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 40(3), 319-338.
  • Milfont, T. L., & Sibley, C. G. (2012). The big five personality traits and environmental engagement: Associations at the individual and societal level. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(2), 187-195.
  • Mont, O., Neuvonen, A., & Lähteenoja, S. (2014). Sustainable lifestyles 2050: stakeholder visions, emerging practices and future research. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63, 24-32.
  • Mostafa, R. B. (2021). From social capital to consumer engagement: the mediating role of consumer e-empowerment. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 15(2), 316-335.
  • Nagar, K. (2015). Modeling the effects of green advertising on brand image: investigating the moderating effects of product involvement using structural equation. Journal of global marketing, 28(3-5), 152-171.
  • Nguyen, T. N., Lobo, A., & Nguyen, B. K. (2018). Young consumers’ green purchase behaviour in an emerging market. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 26(7), 583-600.
  • Peattie, K. (2010). Green consumption: behavior and norms. Annual review of environment and resources, 35(1), 195-228.
  • Pepper, M., Jackson, T., & Uzzell, D. (2009). An examination of the values that motivate socially conscious and frugal consumer behaviours. International journal of consumer studies, 33(2), 126-136.
  • Piligrimienė, Ž., Žukauskaitė, A., Korzilius, H., Banytė, J., & Dovalienė, A. (2020). Internal and external determinants of consumer engagement in sustainable consumption. Sustainability, 12(4), 1349.
  • Rather, R. A. (2019). Consequences of consumer engagement in service marketing: An empirical exploration. Journal of Global Marketing, 32(2), 116-135.
  • Roy, D., Verplanken, B., & Griffin, C. (2015). Making sense of sustainability: exploring the subjective meaning of sustainable consumption. Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 14(3), 187-195.
  • Shirsavar, H. A., & Fashkhamy, F. (2013). Green marketing: A new paradigm to gain competitive advantage in contemporary business. Trends in Advanced Science and Engineering, 7(1), 12-18.
  • Thakur, R. (2016). Understanding customer engagement and loyalty: a case of mobile devices for shopping. Journal of Retailing and consumer Services, 32, 151-163.
  • Uddin, S. F., & Khan, M. N. (2016). Green purchasing behaviour of young Indian consumers: An exploratory study. Global Business Review, 17(6), 1469-1479.
  • Uddin, S. F., & Khan, M. N. (2018). Young consumer's green purchasing behavior: Opportunities for green marketing. Journal of Global Marketing, 31(4), 270-281.
  • Vivek, S. D., Beatty, S. E., Dalela, V., & Morgan, R. M. (2014). A generalized multidimensional scale for measuring customer engagement. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 22(4), 401-420.
  • Wang, P., Liu, Q., & Qi, Y. (2014). Factors influencing sustainable consumption behaviors: a survey of the rural residents in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63, 152-165.
  • Wilhite, H., & Lutzenhiser, L. (1999). Social loading and sustainable consumption. ACR North American Advances.
  • Wu, C. S., Zhou, X. X., & Song, M. (2016). Sustainable consumer behavior in China: An empirical analysis from the Midwest regions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 134, 147-165.
  • Zhao, H. H., Gao, Q., Wu, Y. P., Wang, Y., & Zhu, X. D. (2014). What affects green consumer behavior in China? A case study from Qingdao. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63, 143-151.
  • Zsóka, Á., Szerényi, Z. M., Széchy, A., & Kocsis, T. (2013). Greening due to environmental education? Environmental knowledge, attitudes, consumer behavior and everyday pro-environmental activities of Hungarian high school and university students. Journal of cleaner production, 48, 126-138.
Year 2022, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 6 - 17, 28.11.2022

Abstract

References

  • Adams, M., & Raisborough, J. (2010). Making a difference: ethical consumption and the everyday. The British journal of sociology, 61(2), 256-274.
  • Akehurst, G., Afonso, C., & Gonçalves, H. M. (2012). Re‐examining green purchase behaviour and the green consumer profile: new evidences. Management decision.
  • Alniaçik, Ü. (2010). Çevreci Yönelim, Çevre Dostu Davraniş ve Demografik Özellikler: Üniversite Öğrencileri Üzerinde Bir Araştirma. Sosyal Ekonomik Araştırmalar Dergisi, 10(20), 507-532.
  • Balderjahn, I., Buerke, A., Kirchgeorg, M., Peyer, M., Seegebarth, B., & Wiedmann, K. P. (2013). Consciousness for sustainable consumption: scale development and new insights in the economic dimension of consumers’ sustainability. AMS review, 3(4), 181-192.
  • Banytė, J., Tarutė, A., & Taujanskytė, I. (2014). Customer engagement into value creation: Determining factors and relations with loyalty. Engineering Economics, 25(5), 568-577.
  • Barber, N. A., & Deale, C. (2014). Tapping mindfulness to shape hotel guests’ sustainable behavior. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 55(1), 100-114.
  • Barber, N. A., & Taylor, D. C. (2013). Experimental approach to assessing actual wine purchase behavior. International Journal of Wine Business Research.
  • Bly, S., Gwozdz, W., & Reisch, L. A. (2015). Exit from the high street: An exploratory study of sustainable fashion consumption pioneers. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 39(2), 125-135.
  • Biswas, A., & Roy, M. (2015). Leveraging factors for sustained green consumption behavior based on consumption value perceptions: testing the structural model. Journal of Cleaner production, 95, 332-340.
  • Brodie, R. J., Hollebeek, L. D., Jurić, B., & Ilić, A. (2011). Customer engagement: Conceptual domain, fundamental propositions, and implications for research. Journal of service research, 14(3), 252-271.
  • Brodie, R. J., Ilic, A., Juric, B., & Hollebeek, L. (2013). Consumer engagement in a virtual brand community: An exploratory analysis. Journal of business research, 66(1), 105-114.
  • Čapienė, A., Rūtelionė, A., & Tvaronavičienė, M. (2021). Pro-environmental and pro-social engagement in sustainable consumption: Exploratory study. Sustainability, 13(4), 1601.
  • Caruana, A., & Vassallo, R. (2003). Children’s perception of their influence over purchases: the role of parental communication patterns. Journal of consumer marketing.
  • Catlin, J. R., Luchs, M. G., & Phipps, M. (2017). Consumer perceptions of the social vs. environmental dimensions of sustainability. Journal of Consumer Policy, 40(3), 245-277.
  • Cicala, J., Carmona, J., & Oates, B. R. (2016). Influencing Consumer Engagement in Environmentally Responsible Behavior. International Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 9(2), 1-12.
  • Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. psychometrika, 16(3), 297-334.
  • Dolan, P. (2002). The sustainability of “sustainable consumption”. Journal of Macromarketing, 22(2), 170-181.
  • Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C., & Morgan-Thomas, A. (2015). Consumer engagement in online brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand Management.
  • Durif, F., Boivin, C., & Julien, C. (2010). In search of a green product definition. Innovative Marketing, 6(1).
  • Geiger, S. M., Fischer, D., & Schrader, U. (2018). Measuring what matters in sustainable consumption: An integrative framework for the selection of relevant behaviors. Sustainable development, 26(1), 18-33.
  • Gilg, A., Barr, S., & Ford, N. (2005). Green consumption or sustainable lifestyles? Identifying the sustainable consumer. Futures, 37(6), 481-504.
  • Green, T., & Peloza, J. (2014). Finding the right shade of green: The effect of advertising appeal type on environmentally friendly consumption. Journal of advertising, 43(2), 128-141.
  • Gupta, S., & Agrawal, R. (2018). Environmentally responsible consumption: Construct definition, scale development, and validation. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 25(4), 523-536.
  • Hollebeek, L. (2011). Exploring customer brand engagement: definition and themes. Journal of strategic Marketing, 19(7), 555-573. Hollebeek, L. D., Glynn, M. S., & Brodie, R. J. (2014). Consumer brand engagement in social media: Conceptualization, scale development and validation. Journal of interactive marketing, 28(2), 149-165.
  • Hollebeek, L. D., Conduit, J., Sweeney, J., Soutar, G., Karpen, I. O., Jarvis, W., & Chen, T. (2016). Epilogue to the special issue and reflections on the future of engagement research. Journal of Marketing Management, 32(5-6), 586-594.
  • Hoyle, R. H. (1995). The structural equation modeling approach: Basic concepts and fundamental issues.
  • Huber, M. Z., & Hilty, L. M. (2015). Gamification and sustainable consumption: overcoming the limitations of persuasive technologies. In ICT innovations for sustainability (pp. 367-385). Springer, Cham.
  • James, L.R.; Mulaik, S.A.; Brett, J.M. (2006) A tale of two methods. Organ. Res. Methods, 9, 233–244.
  • Janmaimool, P., & Denpaiboon, C. (2016). Evaluating determinants of rural Villagers’ engagement in conservation and waste management behaviors based on integrated conceptual framework of Pro-environmental behavior. Life Sciences, Society and Policy, 12(1), 1-20.
  • Javornik, A., & Mandelli, A. (2013, July). Research categories in studying customer engagement. In AM2013 Academy of Marketing Conference.
  • Jones, P., Hillier, D., & Comfort, D. (2011). Shopping for tomorrow: promoting sustainable consumption within food stores. British Food Journal.
  • Kaiser, F. G., Oerke, B., & Bogner, F. X. (2007). Behavior-based environmental attitude: Development of an instrument for adolescents. Journal of environmental psychology, 27(3), 242-251.
  • Khan, M. N., & Kirmani, M. D. (2015). Influence of environmental characteristics of the consumers on their willingness to pay for green products: An empirical investigation. International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 3(5), 374-386.
  • Kollmuss, A., & Agyeman, J. (2002). Mind the gap: why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?. Environmental education research, 8(3), 239-260.
  • Lim, W. M., Yong, J. L. S., & Suryadi, K. (2014). Consumers’ perceived value and willingness to purchase organic food. Journal of Global Marketing, 27(5), 298-307.
  • Luchs, M. G., Swan, K. S., & Creusen, M. E. (2016). Perspective: A review of marketing research on product design with directions for future research. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(3), 320-341.
  • Mattila, A. S., Wu, L., & Choi, C. (2016). Powerful or powerless customers: the influence of gratitude on engagement with CSR. Journal of Services Marketing.
  • Miao, L., & Wei, W. (2016). Consumers’ pro-environmental behavior and its determinants in the lodging segment. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 40(3), 319-338.
  • Milfont, T. L., & Sibley, C. G. (2012). The big five personality traits and environmental engagement: Associations at the individual and societal level. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(2), 187-195.
  • Mont, O., Neuvonen, A., & Lähteenoja, S. (2014). Sustainable lifestyles 2050: stakeholder visions, emerging practices and future research. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63, 24-32.
  • Mostafa, R. B. (2021). From social capital to consumer engagement: the mediating role of consumer e-empowerment. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 15(2), 316-335.
  • Nagar, K. (2015). Modeling the effects of green advertising on brand image: investigating the moderating effects of product involvement using structural equation. Journal of global marketing, 28(3-5), 152-171.
  • Nguyen, T. N., Lobo, A., & Nguyen, B. K. (2018). Young consumers’ green purchase behaviour in an emerging market. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 26(7), 583-600.
  • Peattie, K. (2010). Green consumption: behavior and norms. Annual review of environment and resources, 35(1), 195-228.
  • Pepper, M., Jackson, T., & Uzzell, D. (2009). An examination of the values that motivate socially conscious and frugal consumer behaviours. International journal of consumer studies, 33(2), 126-136.
  • Piligrimienė, Ž., Žukauskaitė, A., Korzilius, H., Banytė, J., & Dovalienė, A. (2020). Internal and external determinants of consumer engagement in sustainable consumption. Sustainability, 12(4), 1349.
  • Rather, R. A. (2019). Consequences of consumer engagement in service marketing: An empirical exploration. Journal of Global Marketing, 32(2), 116-135.
  • Roy, D., Verplanken, B., & Griffin, C. (2015). Making sense of sustainability: exploring the subjective meaning of sustainable consumption. Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 14(3), 187-195.
  • Shirsavar, H. A., & Fashkhamy, F. (2013). Green marketing: A new paradigm to gain competitive advantage in contemporary business. Trends in Advanced Science and Engineering, 7(1), 12-18.
  • Thakur, R. (2016). Understanding customer engagement and loyalty: a case of mobile devices for shopping. Journal of Retailing and consumer Services, 32, 151-163.
  • Uddin, S. F., & Khan, M. N. (2016). Green purchasing behaviour of young Indian consumers: An exploratory study. Global Business Review, 17(6), 1469-1479.
  • Uddin, S. F., & Khan, M. N. (2018). Young consumer's green purchasing behavior: Opportunities for green marketing. Journal of Global Marketing, 31(4), 270-281.
  • Vivek, S. D., Beatty, S. E., Dalela, V., & Morgan, R. M. (2014). A generalized multidimensional scale for measuring customer engagement. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 22(4), 401-420.
  • Wang, P., Liu, Q., & Qi, Y. (2014). Factors influencing sustainable consumption behaviors: a survey of the rural residents in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63, 152-165.
  • Wilhite, H., & Lutzenhiser, L. (1999). Social loading and sustainable consumption. ACR North American Advances.
  • Wu, C. S., Zhou, X. X., & Song, M. (2016). Sustainable consumer behavior in China: An empirical analysis from the Midwest regions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 134, 147-165.
  • Zhao, H. H., Gao, Q., Wu, Y. P., Wang, Y., & Zhu, X. D. (2014). What affects green consumer behavior in China? A case study from Qingdao. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63, 143-151.
  • Zsóka, Á., Szerényi, Z. M., Széchy, A., & Kocsis, T. (2013). Greening due to environmental education? Environmental knowledge, attitudes, consumer behavior and everyday pro-environmental activities of Hungarian high school and university students. Journal of cleaner production, 48, 126-138.
There are 58 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Business Administration
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Seray Kağıtcı 0000-0003-4998-789X

Publication Date November 28, 2022
Submission Date July 15, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022 Volume: 1 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Kağıtcı, S. (2022). SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION BEHAVIORS OF YOUNG CONSUMERS: A STUDY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT. EJOSTIMTECH International Electronic Journal of OSTIMTECH, 1(1), 6-17.