Antecedents of green purchase behavior of cosmetics products. An empirical investigation among Malaysian consumers

• Pages: 185-203
• Published date: 21 December 2019
• Date: 21 December 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOES-11-2018-0170
• Author: Azila Jaini,Farzana Quoquab,Jihad Mohammad,Nazimah Hussin
• Subject Matter: Economics,Social economics

Antecedents of green purchase

behavior of cosmetics products

An empirical investigation among

Malaysian consumers

Azila Jaini

Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,

Skudai, Malaysia and Faculty of Entrepreneurship and Business,

Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Pengkalan Chepa, Malaysia

Farzana Quoquab

Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Jihad Mohammad

Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business and Economics,

Qatar University, Doha, Qatar, and

Nazimah Hussin

Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose –There is a growing need to conduct more studiesto understand the green purchase behavior of

cosmetics productsbecause of its increasing trend in the emerging markets. Consideringthis, the study aims

to shed some lighton the factors that affect green purchase behavior of Malaysianconsumers in the context of

cosmetics product purchase.More specifically, the objective of this study is to examine the effect of altruistic

and hedonic values and the mediating effect of personal norm and pro-environmental belief toward green

purchasebehavior.

Design/methodology/approach –An online survey usingjudgmental sampling technique was used to

gather responses from green cosmetics consumers. A questionnaire was designed to measure the study

variables, which was then testedfor content, and face validity and reliability prior to its administration.The

structural equation modeling using the partial least squares approach (SmartPLS, version3.7) was used to

test the study hypotheses.

Findings –The results revealed that hedonic value has a significant and positive effect on pro-

environmental belief. However, altruistic value did not exert any significant effect on pro-environmental

belief. It is also found that pro-environmental belief positively affects personal norm, and as a

consequence, personal norm affects green purchase behavior. The data also support the mediating effect

of pro-environmental belief in the relationship between “hedonic value and personal norm.”

Nevertheless, pro-environmental belief did not mediate the relationship between altruistic value and

personal norm. Lastly, personal norm mediates the relationship between “pro-environmental belief and

green purchase behavior”.

Practical implications –The findings fromthis study enable managers, marketers and policymakers to

execute better green strategies that would boost consumers’green purchase behavior toward cosmetics

products.

Originality/value –This study contributes to the existing literature on green purchase behavior by

testing hedonic value as the antecedent and pro-environmental belief as the mediator by using the

Green

purchase

behavior

185

Received26 November 2018

Revised20 June 2019

Accepted12 November 2019

InternationalJournal of Ethics and

Systems

Vol.36 No. 2, 2020

pp. 185-203

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2514-9369

DOI 10.1108/IJOES-11-2018-0170

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2514-9369.htm

value-belief-normtheory. Moreover, this is a pioneer study to consider personalnorm as the mediator of green

purchasebehavior.

Keywords Green purchase behavior, Hedonic value, Personal norm, Pro-environmental belief,

Altruistic value, Green cosmetics industry, Cosmetics products

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

In the recent years, the notion of “greenpurchase behavior”has received significant research

attention because of its impact on the environment. The uncontrollable consumption of

goods and irresponsible treatment of the environment tremendously damage the

environment and ultimately affect the balanceof the ecosystem and the human lives on the

whole (Chan, 2001). Being the partof this world, the human beings should be responsible to

protect the earth from any exploitationof the environment in a rampant manner (Julia et al.,

2016). Therefore, there is a need to have a paradigm shift from conventional purchase

behavior to green purchase behavior to reduce the negative impact on the environment

(Quoquab and Mohammad,2016;Quoquab et al.,2019).

Due to the bad impact on health, in recent years, consumers are moving toward

purchasing green cosmetics instead of chemical one. Plenty of cosmetics products are

banned globally due to the usage of poisonous substances such as triphenyl phosphate,

petroleum, propyl paraben, phthalates, avobenzone, mercury, tretinoin and hydroquinone

(DG of Health, 2017). Malaysia also has been facing critical issues pertaining to the high

usage of chemical cosmeticswhere more than 12,000 cosmetics products have been declared

as poisonous by the Ministry of Health Malaysia (DG of Health, 2017). However, there is a

lack of studies that have examined consumers’purchase behavior toward green cosmetics

products. Considering this, the present study attempts to shed some light on Malaysian

consumers’greenpurchase behavior toward cosmetics products.

Indeed, it is crucial to understand the green consumption behavior of the consumers

because they are the members of the society and also a large stakeholder in the

environmental marketplace (Paswan et al.,2017). Unfortunately, the reasons for not

considering green cosmetics are not fully uncovered yet.In the existing literature, a bulk of

studies are focused primarily on the attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral

control toward purchase behavior,but less attention was given to assess the notion of value,

belief and norm (Kim et al.,2015;Lindet al.,2015).It is argued that consumers’values play a

significant role in purchase behavior (Jayawardhena et al., 2016). Luchs et al. (2015)

suggested that the green consumption behavior does not solelyrely on the general attitude

of consumers, but it is rather related to the sense of responsibility that displays a set of

beliefs among consumers to behave environmentally. In addition, Roos and Hahn (2017)

indicated that values like distal behavioral factors and beliefs about consequences,

responsibility as well as personal norms are more of proximalbehavioral factors that affect

the human behavior. Thus, it is expected that values, belief and personal norms can be

considered as the driversof consumers’green purchase behavior.

The advancement of technology greatly impacted on the magnitude of consumer

purchase behavior.It is reported that Malaysian online shopping valuehas reached up to US

$15.3m, among whichcosmetics products are among the major categoriesof online purchase

that hit US$407m of total revenuein 2013 (Hassali et al.,2015). Unfortunately, in 2016, there

were 300 social media websites that were involved in promoting illegal cosmetics and

violated the enforced act and have been reported to the relevant agenciesfor sanctions and

closure (DG of Health, 2017). The retailing of illegal cosmetics in social media becomes

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