Consumer's Wtp Towards Environmental Friendly Goods

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consumers making buying decisions, if he or she will consider environmental factors, are more likely to spend more money on environmentally friendly goods (Laroche et al., 2001) and more willing to change their lifestyle to be environmentally friendly (Rice, 1996). Some studies also suggested individuals behaviors are greatly affected by his or her own society (Michel et al., 2002).

Knowledge

One study suggested that knowledge is a significant factor that affects people on gathering and organizing information (Chan,2000). One othe study suggested that knowledge would also affect consumers’ evaluation on goods and services (Bui, 2005). Two researchers (Vining, 1990; Chan, 1996) suggested that knowledge about global environmental issues is a significant factor to predict one’s environmentally friendly behavior. Another researcher Amyx (1994) also stated that individual knowledgeable on ecological issues are more willing to pay a higher price for environmentally friendly goods.

Buying environmentally friendly goods is a new trend for Hong Kong consumers. There are small number of studies have studied the role identity of Hong Kong’s environmentally friendly good consumers. This essay aims at fulfilling this empty place. I will study the buying decision of Hongkongers. This article may also help global marking teams to promote environmentally friendly goods.

Research approach - Deductive approach

I will use deductive approach as the research process of this thesis, because there are too much information and data available for this research topic. Consumers’ WTP for environmentally friendly goods has been studied by many researchers due to the concern of the environmental degradation and deterioration. As global public have increasing concern on environmentally friendly goods, I interested in this topic. In the deductive approach, we base on what has already been done and investigated in the topic and the suitable theories can be applied on the issue in order to formulate a hypothesis, which has been tested so as to be rejected or confirmed for the review (Bryman and Bell, 2011, p.11-12). I will test the hypotheses base on Hongkongers’ point of view, i.e. their willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly goods, and the factors will help me to do the test.

Source of Data

There are two methods to get the information, which are primary and secondary data. Primary data means that the information have been collected according to the research purpose and requirement. I will use questionnaire as the survey basis to obtain the primary data, and I will write the questionnaire according to the target sample size.

On the other hand, secondary data means that the data has been collected by other researchers who are interested in a similar topic and other sources like articles, publications and journalists. I can obtain this kind of data by literature review of newspaper, articles, journal and even the Internet. In this article, I will collect secondary data from journal and articles.

Measurement Tools – Questionnaire (Quantitative research)

Questionnaire refers to “the collection of data that involves larger, more respondent’s samples and numerical calculation of results” (Wiid and Diggines, 2009). The questionnaire will be written in Chinese, and the target population are Hongkongers.

The research will derive some advantages by using the quantitative research design over the qualitative one. It has merits on the validity, reliability, replication and generalization which are valuable for the quality criteria of the thesis (Bryman, 2012, p.170-171 and Shiu et al., 2009, p.173-174). Questions will be divided into different groups to obtain and classify interviewed Hongkongers’ demographic profile, which include age, income level, education level and etc.

Questionnaire structure

The questionnaire is formed by four parts: (i) Intention to buy environmentally friendly goods, (ii) Behavior of buying environmentally friendly goods, (iii) attitude and (iv) subject norm of the interviewees.

(i) Intention to buy environmentally friendly goods will be measured by calculating the overall interviewees’ rate on how likely they buy environmentally friendly goods and not-so-environmentally friendly goods in next purchase, with four levels as the scale, i.e. level 1 means definitely not and level 4 means definitely yes. The sum of the purchasing unit and expenditure on environmentally friendly goods and not-so-environmentally friendly goods will form the measurement on intention to buy environmentally friendly goods.

(ii) Behavior of buying environmentally friendly goods will be measured by questioning the interviewees how frequently they buy environmentally friendly goods and or not-so-environmentally friendly goods, on a five levels scale, i.e. 1 means never and 5 means never. The sum of the purchase time on both two kinds of goods will be the measurement on behavior of buying environmentally friendly goods.

According to Ajzen (1991), if we include the past behavior, we would be provided a method to test the theory’s sufficiency. If any important factor is not being included, there will be a significant residual effect on later behavior. The relationship between behavior in past and later provides strong information about product-related experiences over time (Alba and Hutchison, 1987). As the purchase of housing utilities is repetitive and frequent, effects are being expected to be important in considering future intention to decisions on buying environmentally friendly goods.

(iii) Attitude on the buying behavior of environmentally friendly goods will be calculated by obtaining total interviewees’ rate on a five level scale semantic differential scale two evaluative adjectives: bad-good, dislike-like. The two dimensions attempt to capture respondents’ cognitive and affective evaluation of green consumerism and this method was being use in advertising research to measure the audiences’ attitude toward TV advertisement. The sum will form the measure of Hongkongers’ attitude on the buying behavior of environmentally friendly goods. The higher the score, the more positive attitude towards environmentally friendly goods.

(iv) Subject norms

Subjective norm will be measured through asking interviewees’ rate under a five level scale, i.e.1 means strongly disagree, and 5 means strongly agree. Here are the five statements: (a) ‘Family members whose can easily affect