The Relationship of Perceived Consumer Effectiveness, Subjective Knowledge, and Purchase Intention on Carbon Label Products—A Case Study of Carbon-Labeled Packaged Tea Products in Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Abstract.

L21Instead of 7-11, use 7-Eleven

L24. perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) is defined here, there is no need to define it anymore within the abstract, use only PCE (e.g. L25 and L28).

L29: …can also provide…

Keywords. The keywords are basically the repetition of the title. Please use more relevant keywords which are not present in the title.

L76: [15,15] should be 15,16?

L79-80: “environmentally product purchase” – please rephrase (maybe eco-purchasing?)

L97: reference needed

L103? Use SI units (600cc)

In order to make the aims of the paper clearer, I suggest putting the aims at the end of the Introduction section. (lines 88-93) and the placing the last paragraph (L94-109) after line 78.

L116. Instead of 7-11, use 7-Eleven

L120 and L121: non-probability vs nonprobability. Please be concise.

L189: “…and regression analysis was used to examine hypothesis 4.”

L199: “..the overall result of the three dimensions..”

L199: two decimal places are enough to report explained variances.

 Table 1. Use goodness of fit instead of good fitness. Please define KMO in the footnotes.

L230: “The F test (0.000) and t test (0.000)…” – use p<0.001

L231: showed, not shown

The results section gives a complete overview of the findings, however some minor issues should be addressed:

-use p<0.001 instead of p<0.001***

-use only two decimals

-please revise English language carefully

Conclusions section should be improved to introduce future steps based on the findings of the given study.

Author Response

Response to Reviewers:

Reviewer 1.

1. The use of 7-11 had been change to be 7-Eleven as can be trance in Abstract (Pg 1) and section 2.1. Sampling and data collection (Page 4)
2. Some keywords in abstract have been changed
3. The purposes of the study have been placed to the end of section 1 (Page 4, Line 116-121)
4. The three decimal places have been changed to be two decimals in Table 1 (Pg 7-8)
5. The good fitness in Table 1 have been change to be goodness of fit.
6. The term p<0.001*** in the result section have been changed in the result discussion part.
7. The conclusion that improves suggestion to future researches had been added in Page 14 (line 406-410)

…..This study accessed the consumers perceived knowledge and intention on carbon labelling, which mean that individual factors such as educational level, environmental education background or past history, and economic income that influence the knowledge on carbon label, PCE, and willingness to purchase carbon label products. Therefore, this study suggests the evaluation of socio-economic factors on subjective knowledge, PCE an purchase intention in the future studies.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

During the research, a number of 4 hypotheses were established, listed before indicating the proposed conceptual models. According to the literature, the hypotheses in a research are established based on other previously identified information, or based on the results of other similar research. In this case, no source of information is mentioned in the formulation of the hypothesis, which is why I would choose to scientifically substantiate the hypotheses by referring to the source of the statement made, at the time of their formulation and not only at the time of explanations regarding their validation (certainly in the literature similar topics have been addressed that can be used in this regard).

In addition, the hypothesis is a positive or negative statement formulated in response to an objective. In the case of this article, the objectives are not present in the text. I thus suggest their inclusion in order to observe the stages according to the research methodology.

Also, the part of modeling by structural equations is amply developed from the point of view of the performed analyzes, but not from the point of view of the offered explanations. I suggest supplementing the research results with information regarding the role and purpose of modeling on the results obtained.

Author Response

Response to Reviewers:

Reviewer 2.

1. The comment was about the support of previous study to develop hypotheses. The hypothesis development has been improved in the section 2. Research hypotheses (Page 5-6).
2. The hypotheses have been suited to answer the revised objectives of the study that can be seen in Page 4 (Line 116-121)

“This study has purposes to examine: (1) the difference level of consumers’ subjective knowledge, PCE, and purchase intention on carbon labelled packaged tea-products; (2) to reveal the relationship of consumers’ subjective knowledge, PCE, and willingness to purchase carbon labelled tea products. This research also evaluates (3) the effect of female consumers’ PCE as a moderating factor that connects knowledge and purchase intention on carbon labelled product”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper presents an interesting study looking at the impact of subjective knowledge on purchase intention re carbon labeling of tea products in Taiwan.

The paper justifies the selection of tea as the context for the research well and although the sampling approach is a non-probability approach, the selection of stores is well justified. 

While the paper requires extensive revision in terms of English expression and grammar, there are some further minor issues that should be addressed before the paper is at a publishable standard as follows:

• page 5 the authors give brief details of the scales used in the questionnaire but give no indication of where these scales came from ie are they adapted from other studies or were they developed specifically for this study? if they were developed specifically for this study what process was undertaken to ensure validity and reliability?
• the authors state that 6 point scales were used ie interval level data and yet much of the analysis relies on cross tabs. Given interval data why the reliance on cross tabs and not more appropriate statistical tests?
• How was a distinction made between respondents with high subjective knowledge versus low subjective knowledge made?
• While a non-probability approach was made for sampling, how were actual respondents selected over the long period of data collection? Was a quota approach used? How well does the final sample represent the actual population of interest?

I also think more discussion could be made re the implications of these findings, for example, given the significant relationships found what are the practical implications for industry?

In brief, an interesting paper that needs some improvement to be publishable.

Author Response

Response to Reviewers:

Reviewer 3.

The using of Cross tab and Chi-square analysis was to evaluate the significance of different level of Subjective knowledge (SK), Perceived consumers effectiveness (PCE) and purchase intention (PI), as it was used to test H1, H2, H3. The further analysis was regression analysis to evaluate the correlation of SK and PCE toward PI all together (Model 1). In this analysis the 6-level scale of the respondent answer was used to test significance of the model.  The objective, hypothesis, and result discussion have been revised and improved in the manuscript. The revised objective is in Page 4 (line 116-121), the hypothesis is in Page 5-6 and, and result discussion to explain Table 2 and Table 3 is in Page 9-10. Justification in using 6 scale level has been improved in section 2.4 Data analysis (Page 7 line 226-229)

Author Response File: Author Response.docx