Motivating consumers to switch to sustainable clothing: Accessing determinants and barriers influencing the adoption of sustainable clothing consumption
Jan Král 12360600 Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Master’s Programme Communication Science
Supervisor: dr. S. (Saar) Mollen
Due date: 31st January 2020 Word count: 7 696
Abstract
The goal of this study was to understand determinants and barriers influencing the adoption of sustainable clothing purchase intentions amongst young adults, aged 18-30 years old. An extended model raising for the theory of planned behaviour was tested with attitudes, norms, perceived behavioural control, perceived consumer effectiveness, green advertising scepticism and environmental concern.
The study employed a cross-sectional self-reported survey design. Results of
hierarchical regression of 189 observations showed gradually increasing predictive power to its final iteration with 79% of the explained variance with all added variables. Amongst the significant factors were attitudes, perceived behavioural control and environmental concern, with inversed order for their individual strength when compared to each other. Contrary to expectations, green advertising scepticism did not show any significant relationship with buying intentions. Neither did norms nor perceived consumer effectiveness. Implications with regard to theory and practice were discussed.
Keywords
Theory of Planned Behaviour, perceived consumer effectiveness, green advertising
scepticism, environmental concern, behavioural intentions, green consumption, sustainable consumption, sustainable fashion.
Introduction
Everything and everyone seems to be going green. Energy, technology, IT, agriculture, architecture, businesses, investments, governments and the list continues (Leonidou & Skarmeas, 2017). These changes are usually fuelled by a growing number of consumers who are concerned about rising environmental issues (Chen & Chai, 2010; Eurobarometer, 2014). Among those, who are especially concerned, are young adults (Sheahan, 2005; Hume, 2010). More commonly known as millennials or generation Z. A group of people born between late 1980 and 2000. Their higher environmental
consciousness, for example, translates into a stronger preference to change their buying behaviour towards green and sustainable products as a way of decreasing environmental damage (Smith, 2010). Encouraging people to change their consumption habits and purchase environmentally conscious products is seen as one of solutions how to decrease environmental damage (Rogers, 2013). Therefore, this potential for a change in buying habits is worth following and studying.
One industry that is known for its significant contribution to environmental pollution is the fashion industry. More specifically, its sub-branch known as fast fashion (Cachon & Swinney, 2011; United Nations Environment Programme, 2018; Nathalie, Eveline, & Steven, 2016). One of the main reasons why is fast fashion considered as one of the biggest
polluters lies in its ever-changing nature and the structure of its business cycle. Consumers want to stay up to date with fashion trends, while also following their natural and constantly changing tastes and desires to express themselves (Frings, 2008). The consumers,
therefore, create a demand which is supplied by fashion business companies. To generate even more profit, fashion companies realized they can speed up the traditional business cycle by responding as fast as they can (Goldsmith, Moore, & Beaudoin, 1999). As a result of reducing the interval between production and consumption, the already existing
environmental stress associated with, for example, use of natural resources, garment production, use of chemicals, logistics all around the world as well as disposals of products,
led to progressively more serious environmental problems alongside the industry growth (Gam & Banning, 2011).
One of the ways that will change the environmental impact of fast fashion and fashion in general is a change towards more sustainable fashion purchase behaviour. Sustainable fashion consumption can be understood as a buying of fashion products that are aimed to have the least “possible adverse effects on human beings, other living creatures, and the
planet Earth during their production, supply, value and consumption” (Moon, Youn, Chang, &
Yeung, 2013; Moon, Lai, Lam, & Chang, 2015, p. 940). For a better understanding of the term sustainable fashion, the concept is further specified and used as sustainable clothing as it gives more specific connotations to apparel rather than the originally broad term of fashion. To encourage consumers to purchase more sustainable fashion it is important to understand what might (or might not) motivate consumers to change and adopt this (new) purchase behaviour. It is therefore important to study what are the determinants of sustainable clothing buying. The results could prove to be helpful for practitioners and companies in preparations of effective communication campaigns and product strategies (Kanchanapibul, Lacka, Wang, & Chan, 2014).
In addition to the applied value, it is also relevant to look into the theory as it seems that the topic of adoption of sustainable clothing buying behaviour remains understudied. A recent review by Liobikienė and Bernatonienė (2017) about green purchase determinants showed that clothing and fashion ranked as the least researched category of green
purchases, among 80 research papers published from 2011 to 2017. Even though the
number of studies on sustainable fashion has grown in recent years (Moon et al., 2015), they failed to take into consideration models of attitude-behaviour formation (e.g., TRA or TBP) that have proved to help explain behaviour of consumers in other green domains such as organic food consumption, energy savings or recycling (Joshi & Rahman, 2015).
Other studies have for example focused on people’s willingness to pay a premium for green fashion (Casadesus-Masanell, Crooke, Reinhardt, & Vasishth (2009). In a qualitative study by Connell (2010), the importance of social cognitive determinants (e.g., attitudes,
knowledge) was mentioned, but not quantitatively researched. In Yan, Hyllegard, and Blaesi (2012), the theory of reasoned action was theoretically touched, but its variables were neglected and not studied.
Therefore, the goal of this research is to enhance our understanding of what drives sustainable clothing consumption by measuring socio-cognitive and affective determinants such as attitudes, norms and perceived behavioural control (self-efficacy). These
determinants are the basis of the theory of planned behaviour and by using them, more systematic and comparable insights into what motivates (or not) people to purchase sustainable clothing, could be found. In an extension of this model and its variables, a few more other factors are included in the current study due to their contextual and cultural importance (Singh & Gupta, 2013).
Especially in the green and sustainable consumption domain, consumers not only evaluate the ease of adopting a certain behaviour (i.e., self-efficacy), but they also think whether the behaviour could have an actual positive effect on the environment. This concept is known as perceived consumer effectiveness, also known as response efficacy (Roberts, 1996). Together with self-efficacy, these two concepts could be seen as linked parts of an efficacy appraisal that extend one and the other and might serve as important motivational factors for consumers to even intent to perform in a certain behaviour (Witte & Allen, 2000).
Another prevalent phenomenon in the context of sustainable products and clothing is the notion of consumer scepticism towards green advertising. Green advertising utilizes environmental features and environmental performance of a product for more effective and persuasive communication towards costumers. When these features are frequently misused or are misleading, they lead to consumer’s doubts and scepticism. This tactic is also known as greenwashing and is strongly associated with fashion and clothing brands (Kangun, Carlson, & Grove, 1991). While the relationship between green advertising scepticism and purchases or purchase intentions is to some extent supported by literature (e.g., Do Paço & Reis, 2012), there seems to be a lack of systematic empirical evidence (Matthes &
Lastly, taking into account the cornerstone of environmental research, the
environmental concern. A concept that has been researched as a sound factor in consumer decision making and buying processes as is seen as a necessary factor for consumers to event start thinking about changing their purchase behaviour or intentions (Hines,
Hungerford, & Tomera, 1987; Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch, Sinkovics, & Bohlen, 2003). Adding all of the mentioned factors together into one model of interest, the current study tries to answer the following research question: What is the relationship between
attitudes, norms, perceived behavioural control, perceived consumer effectiveness, green advertising scepticism, environmental concern and sustainable clothing purchase intentions among young adults?
Theoretical background and hypotheses
To assess factors and barriers related to sustainable clothing purchase intentions, the presented study draws upon the main variables of Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen 1991) as this framework has proven to be powerful in explaining environmentally and
sustainably friendly purchasing behaviour in different contexts (Chan & Lau, 2002; Bamberg, 2003; Kim & Han, 2010; Yadav & Pathak 2016). In the expansion of this model, three more variables are also added as they are not only thought to further improve the explanatory strength of the model.
For ease of reading, a glossary of abbreviated names of the main concepts is also provided in Table 1. These terms will be used in the remainder of this part.
Table 1
Glossary of abbreviated concepts
Theory of Planned Behaviour TPB
Attitudes towards Sustainable Clothing Buying ATT
Norms NS
Green Advertising Scepticism GAS
Environmental Concern EC
Perceived Consumer Effectiveness PCE
Sustainable Clothing Purchase Intentions INT
A conceptual model presented below (see Figure 1) depicts assumed relationships between mentioned variables that can influence the intention to purchase sustainable clothing amongst young adults.
Figure 1. Conceptual model
Attitudes towards Sustainable Clothing Buying
The concept of ATT refers to the degree to which a person has a favourable or unfavourable evaluation of certain behaviour or behavioural intentions in question, in this case, INT. It is mostly determined by one’s beliefs about the likelihood of and evaluation of
the consequences of the given behaviour (Ajzen, 1991; Ramayah, Lee, & Mohamad, 2010). The idea of the TPB is that positive attitudes towards the behaviour or behavioural intentions will more likely result in positive intentions to perform the behaviour (Leonard, Graham, & Bonacum, 2004).
Past research on attitudes and their structure have led to the distinction of three main evaluative components: an affective component, a cognitive component and overall
evaluation (Crites, Fabrigar, & Petty, 1994; Trafimow & Sheeran, 1998; Van den Berg, Manstead, Van der Pligt, & Wigboldus, 2005). The affective component in attitudes refers to the emotions connected to the behaviour, in this case, INT. Cognitive part refers to thoughts and judgments about INT and overall evaluation represents a global and complex
assessment, based on the two components which serve as building-blocks (Keer, van den Putte, & Neijens, 2010).
Previous studies in the domain of green and sustainable behaviour indeed showed their supporting correlation role with behaviour or behavioural intentions depending on a context (Moser, 2015). For instance, Birgelen, Semeijn, and Keicher (2009) found that consumers who held positive attitudes towards the environment also preferred buying beverages with environmentally friendly and green looking packaging. The same positive relationship of attitudes with behavioural intentions was observed in a context of making a booking of perceived green hotels (Han and Yoon 2015), intention to buy wine (Barber, Taylor, & Deale 2010), energy-efficient products (Han, Hsu, & Sheu, 2010; Ha and Janda 2012) or organic food (Dean, Raats, & Shepherd, 2012; Zhou, Thøgersen, Ruan, & Huang 2013).
Since attitudes have been in general widely considered as one of the most important predictors of behavioural intentions alongside with other TBC variables (Kotchen & Reiling, 2000), the hypothesis reflects its overall structure made of cognitive as well as affective dimensions as is stated as:
H1: There is a positive relationship between attitudes towards sustainable clothing buying and sustainable clothing purchase intentions.
Norms
Within the TPB, social norms play an important role as a predictor of behaviour or intentions, as the behaviour and opinion of others have a strong impact on one’s own decisions (Nolan, Schultz, Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2008). Norms can be defined, in line with Azjen (1991) as, “perceived social pressure to perform or not perform the
behaviour” (p. 188). It is the behaviour, or opinion about the behaviour, of others who are
important to an individual and influence one's decision making (Park, 2000).
In social psychology, types of norms that are generally distinguished from each other: descriptive and injunctive norms (Prentice, 2008). Descriptive norms are characterized as the behaviour most others perform in a given environment. While injunctive norms are described as approval or disapproval of the given behaviour that is needed to fit into a group (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990). The influence of descriptive norms lies in their role of showing what is the correct way of acting. They say that if a lot of people are doing something, it should be probably the right way of doing it. The social proof of majority therefore serves as a low cognitive behavioural shortcut (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Jacobson, Mortensen, & Cialdini, 2011). For injunctive norms, their effectiveness is related to how people would like to act to be socially accepted (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Jacobson et al., 2011). If the behaviour is approved or disapproved by significant others, individuals are more or less likely to intend to perform the given behaviour (Conner & Armitage, 1998). Therefore, measuring both
descriptive as well as injunctive normative dimensions help to better understand the overall complex character of norms.
Even though this distinction does not seem to be followed by all of the prior studies in the field of green and sustainable consumerism as some studies only focus on the injunctive component (e.g., Paul, Modi, & Patel, 2016; Kamonthip Maichum, Surakiat Parichatnon, & Ke-Chung Peng, 2016; Chaudhary & Bisai, 2018), norms were in general found positively correlated with green purchase behaviour or behavioural intentions based on a review study in the green purchasing context (Joshi & Rahman, 2015). For example, Liu, Wang, Shishime and Fujitsuka (2012) showed in their study that even when consumers had lower levels of
green purchase intentions, norms still served as one of the most positive influences on intentions, compared to other TBP variables. Similar results could be seen in Lee (2010), where social norms were the strongest predictor of green purchase intentions amongst a big sample of adolescents in Hong Kong. Although this study was done in Asia, there is
evidence for the relationship between norms and purchase intentions in Europe as well. In a study Vermeir and Verbeke (2008) on sustainable food consumption amongst Belgium youngsters, experiencing social pressure explained intentions to buy green and organic products, despite rather negative attitudes. For this reason, the proposed hypothesis follows the logic of previous studies and is stated as:
H2: There is a positive relationship between norms and sustainable clothing purchase intentions.
Perceived Behavioural Control / Perceived Self-Efficacy
Perceived behavioural control refers to “the perception of ease or difficulty of
performing a particular behaviour” (Ajzen, 1991, p. 188). It is a perception of whether the
individual thinks that he or she has the available means and opportunities to perform a certain behaviour (Conner and Armitage,1998). The concept is interchangeably used and related to perceived self-efficacy; a term originally coined by Bandura in his Social Cognitive Theory (1977).
From what is known, there is some evidence that supports the positive relationship between PBC and purchase intentions. For example, one study concerned about factors influencing sustainable consumption behaviour and behavioural intentions in China found support for the role of PBC (Wang, Liu, & Qi, 2014). Other supporting results could be found in a study of Moser (2015) on a German sample of household, where PBC was
operationalized as a willingness to pay. With very similar operationalization, the concept also proved to help explaining organic food consumption (Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, 2005). However, especially in organic food consumption, there is also opposing evidence from a study with multiple European nationalities, where PBC was not related to purchase intentions (Arvola et al., 2008). Since the results remain inconclusive, a further empirical and
quantitative investigation is needed due to the limited research in the area (Joshi & Rahman, 2015). Thus, in light of the above, the hypothesis is proposed as:
H3: There is a positive relationship between perceived behavioural control and sustainable clothing purchase intentions.
Perceived Consumer Effectiveness / Perceived Response Efficacy
In an almost natural and logical extension of PBC stands perceived consumer effectiveness, also known as perceived response efficacy (Witte & Allen, 2000). People not only consider means, barriers and opportunities before performing a certain action or behaviour, they also think whether the actions when taken might have an impact (Roberts, 1996). In the context of sustainable and green behaviours, this translates into whether the given behaviour might make a difference in solving environmental issues (Wei, Ang, & Jancenelle, 2018).
PCE has been therefore researched as one of the necessary potential influencers on green and sustainable purchase intentions (Wesley, Lee, & Kim, 2012). Roberts (1996) as well as Ellen, Wiener, and Cobb-Walgren (1991) suggest, that especially in green domains, consumers should be convinced of the behavioural effects of their actions to even engage in the given behaviour.
Prior research provides some evidence for this argument and shows a significant effect of PCE on purchase intentions of organic food (Vermeir and Verbeke, 2008) or general green purchase intentions (Mostafa, 2006). Moreover, results from of study of purchase intentions of organic cotton apparel indicate an indirect role of PCE through attitudes and norms (Kang, Liu, & Kim, 2013). In a line of the previous findings, the study speculates the following hypothesis:
H4: There is a positive relationship between perceived consumer effectiveness and sustainable clothing purchase intentions.
Green Advertising Scepticism
Marketing claims about green, sustainable and environmental effects of products have been becoming more pervasive throughout the years (Mohr, Eroǧlu, & Ellen, 1998).
Up to a point where almost anything seems to be eco-friendly, green or sustainable (Leonidou & Skarmeas, 2017). But consumer organizations, governments and even marketers have long realized that consumers receive such claims with some degree of scepticism (Mohr et al., 1998). This gave rise to a notion of green scepticism or green advertising scepticism.
The present study adopts the perspective of scepticism in line with Goh and Balaji (2016) as the tendency of consumers to doubt the environmental performance of green products and communication claims associated with them. Prior research has shown increased academic interest in this concept, but Goh and Balaji mention (2016) that the empirical evidence connecting green advertising scepticism to green purchase behaviour intentions remains rather limited. Yiridoe, Bonti-Ankomah, and Martin (2005) found in their study that consumer scepticism was negatively correlated with buying behaviour of organic food. In the same domain of organic food products, scepticism stemming from green and organic product labels was observed in a negative relationship toward intentions to buy organic food (Hughner, Mcdonagh, Prothero, Shultz, & Stanton, 2007). Lastly, green scepticism was also found in a negative relation to general future purchase intentions (Leonidou & Skarmeas, 2017).
What all of these studies have in common is the negative relationship between green advertising scepticism and sustainable buying behaviour intentions in general. For this reason, the proposed hypothesis for this concept is stated as:
H5: There is a negative relationship between green advertising scepticism and sustainable clothing purchase intentions.
Environmental Concern
In past research in the environmental and sustainable domain, the environmental concern of consumers has been considered as essential for understanding possible sustainable purchase intentions and behaviour of people (Dunlap and Van Liere, 1978).
In line with Matthes and Wonneberger (2014), EC can be defined as: “high involvement with
environmental issues, awareness of environmental problems, and the necessity to sacrifice and to protect the environment” (p. 119).
Individuals who are more concerned about the environment are thought to show more environmentally friendly behaviours (Czap & Czap, 2010). This was supported by several studies. For example, Bang, Ellinger, Hadjimarcou, Traichal, and Taylor (2000) found in their study of the adoption of green renewable energy, that consumers who have stronger
concerns about the environment are also more willing to pay a premium. Newton, Tsarenko, Ferraro, and Sands (2015) showed in their study that customers with higher levels of
environmental concern were more motivated to learn about the effects of their green purchases. Mostafa (2006) found a positive relationship between environmental concerns and general unspecified green purchase intentions, as well.
While these results show EC as an important determinant, there have also been a few studies that did not find support for this relationship. For example, Smith and Paladino (2010), were interested in purchasing organic food, but they did not find a significant relation between EC and purchase intentions. Yadav and Pathak (2016) were interested in
purchasing organic food among young adults in India. In their study, which was also an extension of the TPB, they found that EC did not influence the purchase intentions for organic food.
Even though possible inconsistencies were usually explained by the role of other external factors such as price, product convenience or even demographics (Smith and Paladino, 2010; Goh and Balaji, 2016), EC remains worth studying different contexts of sustainable and green purchase behaviour for its important role in a change of consumer decision making and buying processes (Hines et al., 1987; Diamantopoulos et al., 2003). For that reason, the hypothesis is stated as:
H6: There is a positive relationship between environmental concern and sustainable clothing purchase intentions.
Method Design and sample
To capture attitudes, intentions and other socio-cognitive and affective determinants of a larger sample a cross-sectional self-reported survey design was chosen as the most suitable design that will help answer the stated research objective (Bryman, 2012).
To recruit respondents, a non-probability convenience sampling method was
combined with the snowball sampling method. Participants younger than 17 and older than 30 were excluded as the focus of the study was on young adults, who are argued to be the age group of consumers that is likely to take their habits into older age and is capable of making a significant difference in consumption behaviour while starting or progressing in their work carriers (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). No incentives were provided to respondents.
The original data set comprised of 262 responses. Two main criteria for data cleaning were followed. Incomplete responses (n = 41) were deleted and participants who did not meet the age criteria set by the study (young adults between 18 and 30 years old), were excluded (n = 32). The final sample consisted of 189 respondents with a mean age of 25.04 (SD = 2.60; 62.4% females, 36% males). In terms of country of residence, most of the people reported living in the Czech Republic (48.1%) followed by the Netherlands (31.7%) and several other countries mainly from around Europe. Most of the sample reported having either bachelor’s (48.1%) or master’s university degree (33.9%), with the others reporting finished high or vocational school. When it comes to professional status, most of the people in the sample reported working while studying (36%), studying (32.8%) or just working (25.4%). For detailed sociodemographic description, see Table 2.
Table 2
Demographics of the survey sample
Demographic variable (N = 189) M (SD) % Sex Male Female Other 68 118 3 36 62.4 1.6 Age 25.04 (2.60) Country Czech Republic Netherlands United Kingdom Germany Other 91 60 12 4 20 48.1 31.7 6.3 2.1 Education Primary school
Secondary school / High school Vocational / Professional education Bachelor
Master
Postgraduate or doctoral degree Other 1 16 10 91 64 6 1 .5 8.5 5.3 48.1 33.9 3.2 .5 Professional status Student Worker
Both studying and working On parental leave Unemployed 62 48 68 8 3 32.8 25.4 36 4.2 1.6 Procedure
Respondents were recruited via public social media posts, private messages and peer to peer invitations. Data were collected between December 12th, 2019 and January 8th, 2020.
In terms of the questionnaire structure, respondents were at first presented with introductory information about the study and provided with informed consent before they could continue to the main questions. After agreeing to participate, main variables followed
and were presented in this order: attitudes, norms, perceived behavioural control, perceived consumer effectiveness, green advertising scepticism and environmental concern. A break set with information about the upcoming section was inserted after the main variables and demographics. In the demographics part, participants were asked to report their gender, age, country of residence, education and professional status. After completing the main section and demographics, final part consisted of debriefing with more information about the study. For the full questionnaire, see Appendix A.
Measures of main variables and scale validation
The questionnaire was prepared in the Qualtrics software (www.qualtrics.com) and pre-tested on a small convenience sample (N = 8) of young adults in order to asses and prevent possible informational ambiguities, visual issues and thereby strengthen internal validity. Before recruiting respondents, certain visual aspects and comprehensibility of the survey were improved (see Appendix A for the final version of the questionnaire). In terms of measurement, attitudes were measured with a 7-point bipolar Likert scale between word pairs. The other constructs were multiple items on a 7-point scale ranging for (1) strongly disagree to (7) strongly agree. Exploratory factor analyses with a principal-axis factoring extraction method and direct oblimin rotation were conducted, as correlations between items were expected (Field, 2009). Reliability of individual constructs was tested, and new
variables were subsequently computed. Individual results of factor analysis for each of the constructs can be found in Appendix B. Overall means, standard deviations and reliability scores for all variables are presented in Table 3.
Attitudes. Attitudes towards Sustainable Clothing Buying are made up of cognitive as well as affective sub-dimensions. These two parts are usually highly correlated and
combined into one green attitudinal scale (Chang, 2011). Both dimensions were measures with adopted two seven-point bipolar scales with three items for each part from Keer et al. (2010). In order to lower the potential order bias, all of the items were randomized.
Subsequently, these measures formed one factor and were computed together into one variable. When taken together as one construct, they showed very good Cronbach’s alpha of
.88 (M = 5.58, SD = 1.16). A full overview of all items for both components can be found in Appendices A and B.
Norms. For the concept of norms, a 4-item scale from Paul et al. (2016) was
adopted, contextualized and expanded with one more item to better reflect descriptive norms (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010). Both injunctive and descriptive dimensions formed one factor. The reliability of this adjusted scale indicated good reliability with Cronbach’s alpha = .86. Responses averaged with a mean of 4.23 (M = 4.23, SD = 1.12), which is slightly above the mid-score of the 7-point answer scale.
Perceived Behavioural Control. A proposed adjusted 5-item scale from Paul et al. (2016) was adopted and contextualized for the context of sustainable clothing buying. The new scale proved to be reliable with good Cronbach’s alpha of .81. On average, the sample reported a score almost one point above the mid-point with M = 4.97 and SD = 1.10.
Perceived Consumer Effectiveness. The scale for this concept was adopted and contextualized from Wei et al. (2018) and Roberts (1996). Overall, the instrument proved to have excellent Cronbach’s alpha of .90. The average reported a score of the sample of the scale was with mean of 4.96 (SD = 1.15).
Green Advertising Scepticism. For measuring this concept, a validated and commonly used 7-point scale of Mohr et al. (1998) was used. The wording of the four
statements was adjusted so that it referred to green claims in advertising only and excluding package labels as they were part of the original scale. Even though this scale was generally used in its full original form, in case of this research and the sample, the first item stated as “most environmental claims made in advertising are true” had to be deleted for the scale to be at least acceptably reliable. After deleting the item, the 3-item latent construct showed acceptable Cronbach’s alpha of .79 with a mean just around the mid-point (M = 4.01, SD = 1.20). For detailed information about scale adjustments and factor loadings, see Appendix B.
Environmental Concern. The concept of environmental concern is based on a combination of three items from Schuhwerk and Lefkoff- Hagius (1995) and one more added item from Goh and Balaji (2016) to comprise a potential emotional level of concern in line
with their study. A seven-point Likert answer scale ranging for strongly disagree (1) to
strongly agree (7) was used and proved to have good reliability with Cronbach’s alpha = .87. In total, the sample averaged with a mean of 5.40 (SD = 1.14).
Sustainable Clothing Purchase Intentions. In general, green purchasing is most often measured as green purchase intentions or behaviour. For this study, the concept of green purchase intentions was used and adjusted to cover intentions to buy sustainable clothing. It captures the motivational factors that influence the sustainable purchase
behaviour of consumers (Ramayah et al., 2010) and could be defined in line with Netemeyer, Maxham, and Pullig (2005) and Morrison (1979) as the likelihood that a consumer would buy a particular product resulting from his or her environmental needs.
In terms of measurement, this concept refers to two items from Sparks, Harris, and Lockwood (2004) that were expanded into three items in line with Yadav & Pathak (2016) to better encompass the concept of intention. The measurement with 7-degree Likert scale (from strongly disagree to strongly agree) showed good reliability, Cronbach’s alpha = .89, and a rather high mean score of the sample (M = 5.30, SD = 1.21).
Table 3
Means, SDs and reliabilities of main variables
Variable M SD Cronbach’s alpha
Attitudes towards Sustainable Clothing Buying 5.58 1.16 .88
Norms 4.23 1.12 .86
Perceived Behavioural Control 4.97 1.10 .81
Green Advertising Scepticisms 4.01 1.20 .79
Environmental Concern 5.40 1.14 .87
Perceived Consumer Effectiveness 4.96 1.15 .90
Sustainable Clothing Purchase Intentions 5.30 1.21 .89 Notes: N = 189
Results
To measure all direct hypotheses (H1 – H6) in the proposed conceptual model a hierarchical regression was run to see a potential increase of explained variance in the purchase intentions with each of the added variable. Moreover, by choosing this method, possible confounders could be also assessed. Before proceeding to the hypothesis tests, and several assumptions for the regression were tested, correlation matrix with all main variables was also inspected and a test of robustness was conducted.
In terms of regression assumptions. First, the size of the sample was tested and the assumption of 20 cases for each predictor variable with a need of at least 120 cases for 6 predictors was met (Statistics Solutions, 2019). Second, upon inspecting the histogram, the residuals seemed to be normally distributed and thus the assumption was met. Third, when inspecting the scatterplot, residuals seemed to be distributed equally well above and below zero at all levels, therefore confirming their homoscedasticity. Moreover, the effect of the predictor variables on the outcome variables can be assumed as linear.
The results of the correlation analysis provided initial insights into the relationships between variables. The 2-tailed as well as 1-tailed results proved to be the same, showing that some positive relationships might be further expected. While only green advertising scepticism not being significantly correlated with any of the other constructs. To asses direction of these potentially significant relationships as well as control for all of them in one model, the subsequent regression test was run. For correlation amongst main constructs and descriptive statistics, see Table 4.
Moreover, a robustness test was also run to assess the potential role of covariances of gender and country of residence. Since the test did not provide any further significant effects of covariances, did not change the significance of individual results from the
hierarchical regression, while it also lowered the statistical power of the test by reducing the number of tested units to 149, the covariances were therefore not used in the hypothesis testing as controls. For detailed results of the robustness test, see Appendix C. The
Model fit and hypotheses testing
The regression model with sustainable clothing purchase intentions as the outcome variable and attitudes, norms, perceived behavioural control, green advertising scepticism, environmental concern and perceived consumer effectiveness as predictor variables was significant, F(6, 182) = 118.96 and p < .001. No control variables or covariances were tested within the model. Together, all the variables explained 79% of the variance in the purchase intentions, thus reflecting a strong predictive power of the model (R2 = .79). Moreover, the model was significant in all of its hierarchical iterations with successively added variables. The steps of the added variables followed their position in the model. Starting just with attitudes, which explained 56% (R2 = .56) of the variance, the strength gradually grew. In the second iteration, attitudes and norms explained 58% (R2 = .58) of the variance. Third
iteration with attitudes, norms and perceived behavioural control explained 70% (R2 = .70) of the variance. The fourth iteration, as well as the fifth iteration, both explained with
subsequently added perceived behavioural control and green advertising scepticism in the fifth iteration explained 70% (R2 = .70) of the variance. The last iteration with added
environmental concern, thus the full model with all of the variables, explained 79%. For R2 change in the models of hierarchical regression, see Table 5.
In terms of hypotheses testing, the final iteration of the model with all variables was used to test for individual effects. The first hypothesis posited that there will be a positive relationship between attitudes towards sustainable clothing buying and sustainable clothing purchase intentions. While holding other variables constant, in other words, taking effects of other variables into account, the regression model showed results which support the
hypothesis, b* = .19, t = 3.65, p < .001, 95% CI [0.09, 0.30]. Meaning, that for every unit increase on the 7-point attitudinal measurement scale, the intentions to buy sustainable clothing also increased by 0.2 on a 7-point scale of intentions.
The second hypothesis expected positive relationship between norms and purchase intentions. According to the results of the analysis, there was a non-significant relationship
with b* = -.02, t = -.38, p = .705, 95% CI [-0.09, 0.70], while other variables were held constant. Thus, the hypothesis could not be confirmed.
For the third hypothesis, a positive relationship between perceived behavioural control and purchase intentions was expected. The results indicated statistical significance,
b* = .32, t = 6.30, p < .001, 95% CI [0.24, 0.47] with other variables held constant. For each
unit increase in perceived behavioural control, purchase intentions rose by .36.
The fourth hypothesis expected a positive role of perceived consumer effectiveness. However, the hypothesis could not be accepted as the results showed to be non-significant with b* = .07, t = 1.50, p = .136, 95% CI [-0.02, 0.16], while effects of other variables were held constant.
The fifth hypothesis stated that the relationship between green advertising scepticism and sustainable purchase intentions will be negative. While effects of other variables were taken into account, the results did not support this hypothesis with following results of b* = .02, t = .67, p = .506, 95% CI [-0.05, 0.09].
For the sixth hypothesis, positive relationship between environmental concern and purchase intentions was speculated. While other variables were hold constant, the results showed that the hypothesis could be confirmed, b* = .46, t = 9.04, p < .001, 95% CI [0.38, 0.59]. For each unit increase in environmental concern, purchase intentions rose by .49 on a 7-point scale. Moreover, upon adding this variable into the model of hierarchical regression, the effect not only proved to be the highest of all measured variables but also lowered original effects on purchase intentions of two other main strong variables – attitudes and perceived behaviour control. When comparing the fifth model without environmental concern and the sixth model, the effect of attitudes decreased from b = .42 to b = .20, with b* = .40 in the fifth model. In case of perceived behavioural control, its effect decreased from b = .48 to
b = .36, with b* = .42 in the fifth model (see Table 5 for final standardized b* from the overall
model). For overall test findings from the overall model, final standardized b* and R2 change between model, see Table 5.
Table 4
Correlation amongst main constructs
Variable Mean SD ATT NS PBC PCE GAS EC INT
ATT 5.58 1.16 - NS 4.23 1.12 .37** - PBC 4.97 1.10 .64** .47** - PCE 4.96 1.15 .54** .36** .56** - GAS 4.01 1.20 -.06 .12 .07 -.07 - EC 5.37 1.14 .71** .39** .64** .55** -.03 - INT 5.30 1.21 .75** .41** .76** .59** .01 .83** - Notes: N = 189. ATT: Attitudes towards Sustainable Clothing, NS: Norms, PBC: Perceived Behavioural Control, PCE: Perceived Consumer Efficacy, GAS: Green Advertising
Scepticism, EC: Environmental Concern, INT: Sustainable Clothing Purchase Intentions. **p < .01, all two-tailed tests.
Table 5
Findings of statistical tests predicting sustainable clothing purchase intentions & hypotheses results
Relationship tested b* t p R2 † Results
H1 ATT – INT .19 3.65 .000* .56 Supported
H2 NS – INT -.02 -.38 .705 .58 Not supported
H3 PBC – INT .32 6.30 .000* .70 Supported
H4 PCE – INT .07 1.50 .136 .71 Not supported
H5 GAS – INT .02 .67 .506 .71 Not supported
H6 EC – INT .46 9.04 .000* .79 Supported
Notes: N = 189. ATT: Attitudes towards Sustainable Clothing, NS: Norms, PBC: Perceived Behavioural Control, PCE: Perceived Consumer Efficacy, GAS: Green Advertising
Scepticism, EC: Environmental Concern. INT: Sustainable Clothing Purchase Intentions. * p < .001, † R2 each row represents one hierarchical regression model with subsequently added variable.
Discussion
The current work aimed to research potentially influential factors that might help to explain why young adults aged between 18 and 30 years old, might or might not adopt sustainable clothing buying behavioural intentions. The main constructs of interest, namely attitudes, norms and perceived behavioural control, were embedded within the theory of planned behaviour which served as a theoretical basis for this study. Moreover, three more variables were introduced in the expansion of this approach. Perceived consumer
effectiveness as an extension of perceived behavioural control as consumers especially in green domains consider the impact of their buying. Green advertising scepticism as a concept related especially to fashion and clothing and green communication. And lastly, environmental concern as a speculated strong motivator for consumers to partake in green consumption. The perspective taken by this research was somehow unique to the domain of sustainable and green consumption as it added more quantitate insights into relationships between factors not previously fully researched together. Especially in the context of fashion and clothing.
The overall model with all six variables proved to be successful in explaining a significant share of variance (R2 = .79) in sustainable clothing purchase intentions. Starting on 56% just with attitudes and gradually rising with subsequently added variables in each iteration of hierarchical regression, the results indicated three significant relationships and three non-significant. Amongst the significant factors were attitudes, perceived behavioural control and environmental concern, with inversed order for their individual strength when compared to each other. Results from the final model iteration showed environmental concern to be the strongest predictor, followed by behavioural control and attitudes with the weakest influence on intentions. Amongst the non-significant factors were norms, perceived consumer effectiveness and green advertising scepticism.
The important role of TPB variables as observed in other studies (Joshi and Rahman, 2015), was only partially confirmed as norms did not show to be significant in relation to
intentions. For this reason, each variable with its related hypothesis is going to be addressed individually.
The concept of attitudes was operationalized to better reflect its composite measure consisting of two parts (i.e., cognitive and affective), showing that participants expressed relatively favourable attitudes towards buying sustainable clothing. The predictive power gradually decreased upon adding other variables to a point, where attitudes were the weakest significant predictor. However, the relationship with intentions remained significant through every hierarchical iteration. These findings are to some extent in contrast to studies, which have observed a discrepancy in relationship between green, environmental or
sustainable attitudes and behaviour or behavioural intentions, in other words, so-called attitude-behavioural (intentional) gap (Vermeir and Verbeke, 2006). The observed gab means that although consumers hold very positive attitudes, they are not translated into behaviour or behavioural intentions. A possible explanation of why in the current study attitudes were a strong predictor of intentions could be two-fold. First, the adjusted and more theoretically anchored scales for both attitudes and intentions proved to be high in reported scores, reflecting more of their complex character. Thus, giving participants a better chance to express valency in their opinions. Second, the sample reported fairy high education level. This characteristic might be related to more socially desired answers (Kaiser, Schultz,
Berenguer, Corral-Verdugo, & Tankha, 2008). In addition to that, sample this educated could have been already partaking in the sustainable clothing buying, therefore holding and
reporting already high intentions.
In the current study, norms did not have a significant relationship with the purchase intentions of sustainable clothing. This result further strengthens the argument, that norms are identified as the weakest link of TPB in green and sustainable buying (Tarkiainen & Sundqvist, 2005; Kumar, Manrai, & Manrai, 2017). Consumers might not feel that more sustainable clothing buying intentions would be perceived as more socially acceptable or desired to fit into a social group (Paul et al., 2016; Liobikienė & Bernatonienė, 2017) as the phenomenon might not yet be spread wide enough other people. Or might not have been
communicated or accepted with its environmental benefits (Paul et al., 2016). Thus, inhibiting the underlying motivational potential of norms on intentions to buy.
When turning to the last variable of TPB, perceived behaviour control, a significant and the second strongest relation to purchase intentions was found. Since behavioural control represents the perception of available means and opportunities to perform a certain behaviour, it can be concluded that the sample did not find any major barriers that might have discouraged them from buying sustainable clothing. An explanation for this relationship could be also found when taking demographic, especially the country of residence, into account (Tarkiainen & Sundqvist, 2005). Options to buy sustainable clothing in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands might be better compared to possibilities in other countries.
Contrary to the results of behavioural control, the relationship between perceived consumer effectiveness and purchase intentions was not found. Wei et al. (2018) speculate that when consumers do not evaluate their role and individual contribution within the context of a problem, in this case, environmental issues, and that their effort might not have any impact, the role of consumer effectiveness might not be warranted.
With results from the study, the role of green advertising scepticism on sustainable buying intentions was also challenged. Nor positive, neither negative effect was found, which was in line with studies of Goh & Balaji (2016) and Leonidou & Skarmeas (2017), who also did not find support for a direct path to intentions. That could be seen as a bit surprising considering that especially fashion is often connected to misusing green claims, in other words using greenwashing. Nevertheless, almost perfect mid-score was reported which indicated that the sample is just not sceptical about green communication. A possible
explanation for this relationship can have several explanations. First, in the information utility of green advertising and communication. When consumers see green ads, the potential scepticism they might hold might be outweighed or counteracted by the value of the information they can get from these ads (Knobloch-Westerwick & Kleinman, 2012). Even when the information does not have to be right, consumers still feel that it was useful for their decision making. Second, to that, consumers want to believe that the decisions they
make are the right one. Therefore, they want to believe in the ads they see for products they buy. This kind of congruency of green ads and self-image might also eliminate mistrust and scepticism to green advertising (Chang, 2002).
Lastly, the study results validate findings regarding the strength of the relationship between environmental concern purchase intentions (Czap & Czap, 2010; Newton et al., 2015; Yadav & Pathak, 2016) and extend them into green and sustainable clothing domain. Environmental concern was observed as the strongest predictor of all measured variables and the result confirmed its importance in green consumption.
Limitations and future research
The presented study has also several limitations that should be addressed. First, the limitation related to the operationalisation of the behaviour of sustainable clothing purchases. At the beginning of the survey, this behaviour was defined as “buying clothes that have less
impact on the environment and are presented and advertised as such to consumers.”
However, like in most surveys, it is hard to control what might people imagine behind given terms, behaviours and actions they were asked about. Each participant might have a different experience or sets of ideas they use. With rather broad and complex topics that do not have to have precise definitions and deep-routed meanings generally known, it might be hard for people to come up with anything concrete. In this case, the term sustainable alone could have been found unclear as it was also outlined in a few comments given at the end of the study. Future research might consider providing specific product examples or brands that might aid the memory. Also, when considering a more qualitative approach, subsequent attempts might, for instance, take on the task to better understand what the complex phenomena of sustainable fashion and clothing means and represents to people.
To that, the study did not contain any questions that would have asked participants about their past purchase behaviour of sustainable clothing. When not controlling for that, it was not possible to distinguish between the type of consumers who already perform given behaviour and consumers, who just think about it. As well as the role of factors for both groups. Follow-up studies might consider including this sorting parameter.
This leads to another point. The sample itself. The method of convenience and non-probability sampling does not allow for high levels of generalizability. Even though the gender dispersion was quite balanced and not only students participated, it contained a big
proportion of highly educated people. To be precise, 82% with a university degree. A sample this highly educated could, contrary to expectations, be more prone to socially desirable responses (Kaiser et al, 2008). Moreover, the topic of green consumerism itself evokes a potential for social desirability bias as people generally do like the idea of buying or behaving green or sustainable. Future studies should consider extending the current findings to a wider sample to test whether similar relationships exist.
The current research focused just on behaviour intentions, not the behaviour itself. Self-reported behaviour or intentional measures instead of independent measures are a common shortage of studies using TPB. It has been reported that intentions might have only a weak connection to observed behaviour (Davies, Foxall, & Pallister, 2002) and that TPB variables might have a stronger effect in self-reported than in observed behaviour (Armitage & Conner, 2001). Therefore, future research should also consider extending the study findings from behavioural intentions to observed behaviour while accounting for a possible attitude-behavioural gap. To foresee this limit, the role of external, social and internal factors should be also studied as they might play an important role in explaining the adoption of more environmentally friendly consumption (Liobikienė & Bernatonienė, 2017; Joshi & Rahman, 2015). For example, the role of habitual buying behavioural has not been thoroughly researched.
Lastly, there is also a limitation connected to the statistical method of the study. More specifically, to its results. The process of hierarchical regression has the advantage of sequential analysis. The progressive change of explained variance of the model could be seen with each variable added. Also, possible changes in the strength of each variable, as well as correlations between variables, can be observed. In the case of this research, such changes were indeed observed. Upon adding environmental concern into the regression model, the strength of both attitudes and perceived behavioural control decreased.
This kind of confounding role of concern was something this study did not account for
beforehand even though some authors use attitudes and concerns interchangeably (Ritzer & Dunlap, 2012). In outcome, the spurious role indicates some sort of possible relationship between these studied variables and suggest that future research should study focus on a role of concern as a mediator between attitudes, behavioural concern and intentions.
Conclusion
In times when topics of sustainability and more ethical consumption towards the environment are still on a rise, it remains rather imperative to study and understand what motivates people to switch to more environmentally friendly consumption. It is particularly important within the industries considered as the most polluting ones, such as fashion and clothing.
The study employed a cross-sectional self-reported survey design targeted at young adults aged 18-30 years old. The results of the hierarchical regression of 189 observations reported not only a strong predictive power of the overall model but also showed several interesting things about individual relationships. Contrary to popular beliefs about the important role of scepticism in green consumerism, no role of green advertising scepticism was observed. Consumers might not, therefore, consider this factor as important when making their sustainable clothing purchase decision. Therefore, giving practitioners a reason to refocus their communication strategies. Instead of lowering potential consumer scepticism, they should direct their attention more towards consumers, who are concerned about the environment as well as those, who hold positive attitudes towards sustainable buying. Additionally, practical efforts should continue by giving consumers a variety of opportunities to buy sustainable clothing as the factor of behavioural control also plays an important role in their future decision making.
When looking into the scientific value of this research, the findings added to the current body of sustainable and green research an interesting perspective. The approach taken by this study was one of the first ones that attempted to use the extended TPB model
in the context of sustainable clothing. Through using this approach not only new insights specific to clothing buying could be seen, but the results could be also compared across studies from other green contexts, where TPB was already predominantly applied.
In outcome, showing that not all presumed theoretical and reported relationships from other studies were observed.
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