To green or not to green : a study of moral and social factors influencing convenience in green purchase in a frugal society.

Abstract

This causal study intends to investigate the motivators of both frugal and non-frugal consumers for purchasing green in the context of convenience. The main objective is to provide green marketers, via our research findings, with an understanding of the influences, and to what extent do these influences affect convenience in green purchase for the frugal and non-frugal consumer. The revised conceptual framework consists of six independent variables - Altruism, Reciprocity, Social Justice, Social Recognition, Social Pressure, and Social Influence. Convenience in green purchase acts as the dependent variable. Two groups of consumers – the frugal and non-frugal – were used for comparison as to how the motivators differed. We developed 7 hypotheses for each of the consumer groups based on the conceptual framework.

A quantitative research approach was used. Questionnaires were used for data collection. A pen-and-paper self-administered survey was used as the data collection instrument. There were 500 responses collected and after data cleaning, 465 responses remained. The remaining data collected was analyzed using SPSS. The results show that for frugal consumers, Social Influence has the largest impact on consumers’ Convenience in Green Purchase, followed by Social Justice and Social Recognition. Altruism had however an inverse relationship. In addition, Social Pressure, followed by Social Justice, had a strong impact on Convenience in Green Purchase for non-frugal consumers. The other variables had little or no correlation with Convenience in Green Purchase.

The findings offer green marketers insights in focusing their marketing efforts on the motivators in order to boost convenience in green purchase. Future research can focus on exploring other factors other than those mentioned in this study to develop a more holistic understanding of the influences of consumers’ convenience in green purchase.