Antecedents of green purchase intention: a cross-cultural empirical evidence from Vietnam and Poland

Abstract

Research background: Even though antecedents of green consumption have already been considered in numerous scientific articles, their findings still remain inconsistent. Furthermore, far less attention has been paid to understanding the underlying mechanism of cultural values, including collectivism and long-term orientation, and perceived environmental knowledge influencing intention to purchase environmentally friendly products, as well as the meditating role of green purchase willingness in the linkages between antecedents and green purchase intention. In addition, some previous studies suggested that it might be meaningful and significant to explore these linkages in the cross-cultural context with different levels of economic development. Purpose of the article: This study explored the effects of cultural dimension, perceived environmental and green purchase willingness with regard to intention to purchase environmentally friendly products of Vietnamese and Polish customers. Moreover, the mediating role of green purchase willingness was also investigated in this study. Methods: To achieve the objectives of this research, customer surveys were conducted in two developing countries ? Vietnam and Poland. Two convenience samples of 611 Vietnamese consumers and 301 Polish consumers have been recruited from 03 May to 03 October 2020. The structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilized to examine the conceptual framework and test the proposed hypotheses. Findings & value added: The research revealed that green purchase willingness became the most influential factor to predict green purchase intention in both cultures. Also, perceived environmental knowledge was found to have substantial effects on willingness and intention to purchase environmentally friendly products in both countries, even though the influential degree in Poland was much higher than that in Vietnam. Remarkably, cultural dimensions were found to significantly affect green consumption in the collectivist culture of Vietnam, while these relationships were not significant in Poland. This study was expected to significantly contribute to the existing literature by boosting our understanding of the importance of cultural values and perceived knowledge environment in promoting green consumption in the cross-cultural context.