What Makes People Pay Premium Price for Eco-Friendly Products? The Effects of Ethical Consumption Consciousness, CSR, and Product Quality
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for your manuscript and please find my remarks and comments.
The presented paper deals with an interesting topic of eco-friendly product purchase and the intention to pay a higher price. Taking into consideration the large interest in eco and sustainable products this topic is important.
The strengths of the paper are as follows:
- well-prepared theoretical framework
- statistical analysis
Below you can find several remarks which might be taken into consideration:
General comments
1/
Subchapter: 2.1. Characteristics of Eco-Friendly Products => seems to be very superficial and should be extended.
2/
In section 5.1. Discussions – you present statements related to the testing of the hypothesis, i.e. whether the hypothesis was rejected or not. It creates a repetition as this information is already presented in section 4.4. Hypotheses Verification. Moreover subchapter 5.1. does not provide any discussion but presents only results. I suggest skipping this part and presenting a simple table to sum up hypothesis testing. In the text, you can refer to the table that will make the paper shorter and easier to follow.
3/
You have stated: “It is possible for future researchers to introduce the concept of consumer citizenship to explain the mechanism related to how ethical consumption values influence green behavior. Previous studies have found that consumer citizenship is responsible for exhibiting eco-friendly behavior [73,74]. However, there is no previous literature, which explained whether consumer citizenship makes people pay premium prices for eco-friendly products.” => why consumer citizenship could be a problem for future research. I cannot see any references to this topic in the paper now. Please put an explanation to the text.
4/
You have stated “The reason for selecting university students as survey respondents is that they were considered to have a relatively large amount of eco-friendly knowledge.” => do you have any evidence to support such statement? Please provide references to the text.
5/
Try to make the text more concise. For instance please consider the following paragraph:
The study findings suggest important theoretical implications for consumers' intention to pay premium prices in the process of purchasing eco-friendly products. and are expected to help Our paper may support environmentally conscious policymakers, educators, and environmental activists make responsible and effective eco-friendly strategies and policies. The theoretical implications of this study are as follows. As a result of the verification of this study's research hypotheses; It was found that subjective norms and perceived behavioral control did not affect premium payment intention. This result demonstrates that attitudinal evaluation of the purchase behavior of eco-friendly products is more important than social influence or individual perceived behavior control in consumers' eco-friendly consumption decisions. In other words, the attitudinal, subjective evaluation of behavior itself is more significant than one’s social norm or one’s perceived control over eco-friendly pur-chase behavior.
More specific comments / questions
1/
Now is
“decision making, But this theory was ini”
Should be:
“decision making, but this theory was ini”
2/
Now is
“According to a study by [35], negative attitudes to-”
Should be:
“According to a study by Name of the Author/s [35], negative attitudes to-”
3/
Now is
Table 2 is very difficult to read as some columns are too narrow
Should be:
Please edit the table
Good luck,
Reviewer
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I analyze the single sections:
Abstract has inappropriate structure. I suggest to answer the following aspects: - general context - novelty of the work - methodology used (describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied) - main results and related interpretations.
Introduction: This section should briefly place the study in a wide context and emphasize why it is relevant carrying out the analysis. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance. In this perspective, this section is too succinct and fails to effectively point out the relevance of your contribution towards the existing literature.
In this perspective, this section is too succinct and fails to effectively point out the relevance of your contribution towards the existing and recent literature. I would suggest the authors to look generally also on circular bioeconomy dimension as providing eco-friendly products (e.g. bio-based).
Some literature to look at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652619345184
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106794
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40888-020-00206-4
Moreover, the authors do not provide at the end of the section the description of the paper structure which is very useful for readers.
Materials and methods: I found this section very important for the readability of the paper. the research methodology seems underdeveloped. Methods should be described in detail. I think the research procedure could be much more clearly described by means of a diagram also highlighting its potential and limit.
Discussions: The discussion of the results is merely descriptive and the obtained evidence is flimsy due to the fact the outcomes are not supported by an adequate discussion in light of scientific literature. Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible.
Conclusions: Conclusions must also be revised according to the previous comments. In particular, they should discuss practical and policy implications as well as future lines of research. As it stands now, they fail to extract all the juice of your work.
I hope these comments might help in improving the paper and encourage the authors to move forward.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for your updated manuscript. I find this version significantly improved, however the whole paper has to be edited and adjusted to the journal requirements.
All the best,
Reviewer
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We had our paper rigorously edited once again by a native English speaker for any abnormal expressions, active/passive expressions, and grammatical mistakes. In addition, we reformatted the paper in accordance with the journal''s editorial guidelines. Authors greatly appreciate the reviewer for very helpful comments and suggestions throughout review process.
Sincerely Yours,
Zhao-Qi Sun and Sungjoon Yoon
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is much improved. I suggest minor revisions. Specifically, look to author guidelines to improve layout. Please do check refs: For example ref 2 should be reported like:
D'Adamo, I., Falcone, P. M., Imbert, E., & Morone, P. (2020). A socio-economic indicator for EoL strategies for bio-based products. Ecological Economics, 178, 106794.
Author Response
ear Reviewer,
We had our paper rigorously edited once again by a native English speaker for any abnormal expressions, active/passive expressions, and grammatical mistakes. In addition, we reformatted the paper in accordance with the journal''s editorial guidelines. Authors greatly appreciate the reviewer for very helpful comments and suggestions throughout review process.
Sincerely,
Authors
