Residents’ Green Purchasing Intentions in a Developing-Country Context: Integrating PLS-SEM and MGA Methods

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

While I appreciate that this paper's intention is to extend and improve the TPB approach, I feel more contextualisation would be useful in the introduction and the discussion and conclusion - i.e. why do we need to do this? The purpose of the TPB approach was to change behaviours, and this needs to be discussed or at least described at the start. Otherwise, it seems a bit strange to want to extend and improve a theory simply because others somewhere might think it useful. This will involve more discussion of pro-environmental behaviour change, which is the real focus of this study (through green consumption). One issue here is the 'action-intention' gap that a number of researchers have noted (including Kollmuss, A. and J. Agyeman (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 ) have pointed out. This again could be considered in the introduction - can extending the TPB help us in this?

Then there is the issue of how the variables chosen can do this. 'Habit' is here treated as a variable added to the TPB, and this brings up the problem of the relationship between drivers and barriers that influence behaviour. Habit can be both, making it an ideal variable. However, again I would suggest more discussion of habit as an important variable to consider should form part of the introduction and discussion (e.g. why we need to consider habit). See A. Warde and D. Southerton (eds), The Habits of Consumption (Helinski: Collegium for Advanced Studies – online). I am suggesting here more discussion of what has been added and why. 

Secondly, I think the paper could be improved by considering consumer knowledge which emerges as an issue in this kind of study. How do consumers know what is a green product? Is this information reliable? Transparency and traceability are one of the 'targets' in the UN SDG 12 'ensuring sustainable consumption and production' for a reason - a number of the variables touch upon it, and again this could be considered in your introduction and interpretation of the results. The higher education, and perhaps youth groups, presumably involves more accurate knowledge. 

I think a bit more work on contextualising this study, on explaining why and how the TPB was extended, in the introduction, and then more in the discussion on its significance (not just the novelty!) would help strengthen the argument and the result.

In terms of English, this is not bad, but could do with some help from a fluent editor.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Special thank you for your suggestions and for helping us find important arguments.

We have carefully answered the questions point by point and have further revised this article according to your comments.

Thanks again for your comments and kind help. Please see the attachment.  

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a paper which is well-written and argued and adequately analyses its survey data. This paper adds however little to what we already know about the normative embedding of intentions for behaviour in general and green consumption in particular. In addition my main objections are that its sampling is not clear and the problematic relation between stated intentions and actual behaviour is not discussed in this paper. I explain these in a bit more detail below.

I have some questions regarding the methodology, especially the selection of the respondents which is unclear. The authors state that a random sampling method was used, but unclear is what the population was which was sampled. It appeared to be based in the inhabitants of this area. This problem becomes bigger while the demographic profile in table 1 is not compared to the characteristics of the population from which this sample was drawn. The statistical techniques used and the division in subgroups produce however credible results.

A more fundamental problem is that the problematic relation between intentions and behaviour is not discussed, although the aim of an increase in green consumption is the stated societal relevance of this paper. On page 14 they claim that “These results show that young people in the new era may pay more attention to their quality of life and tend to buy eco-friendly products and goods in their daily lives” (line 448)

The lack of correlation with behaviour related indicators of ‘habit’ is also indicative of this difference between intentions and behaviour.

There is lot of other research which also uses the theory of planned behaviour in relation to green consumption, which is however not used in this paper. The results reported in this paper add little to what we already know about the normative embedding of intentions for behaviour.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments.

We have carefully read your suggestions and further revised our manuscript, particularly methodology, introduction, discussion and conclusion. We have carefully answered the questions point by point according to these suggestions.

Thanks again for your comments and kind help. Please see the attachment.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has sufficiently been improved.