KOREASCHOLAR

In recent years, maintaining transparency has become a trend among brands, and a
better level of supply chain transparency has been demonstrated to positively affect
consumer environmental concern and conscious behavior. Consumers may accept
transparency efforts as a signal of the brand goodwill and perceive it as a visibly
sustainable effort that can convert brand trust. In the information transparency trend,
eco-certification plays an important role as a tool to inform consumers about
sustainability. However, facing large amounts of information, consumers spend much
time filtering information, so the accuracy of the obtained information can be
compromised. The Higg index is a sustainable verification platform that reveals the
entire activities of supply chains. However, most consumers are facing an overload of
information that could confuse their processing of any information. In this context, the
present study seeks to examine the effect of business transparency to conscious
consumer behavior and purchase intention. Second, this study deals with the
moderating effects of sustainable knowledge on the relationship between business
transparency, environmental concern, and brand trust. Third, we explore the effects of
high and low level of consume knowledge of sustainability on the relationship
between business transparency and brand trust. In terms of the methodology used in
the present study, an off-line survey of Korean consumers was conducted. SPSS 21.0
was used for data analysis aiming to test the proposed model and research hypothesis.
The mains results of this study are as follows. First, business transparency has a
positive effect on environmental concern, brand trust, and consumer willingness to
conscious behavior. Second, consumer sustainable knowledge has a moderating effect
on business transparency for environmental concern and brand trust. Taken together,
the findings of the present study provide meaningful implications for marketers by
highlighting the importance of transparency and introduction of a transparent eco-certification
for communication with consumers. To successfully influence consumer
willingness to assume conscious behavior, brands are advised to provide standardized
transparency labels, rather than complicated information.

• Heerim Joung(Yonsei University, Republic of Korea)
• Young Ju Lim(Yonsei University, Republic of Korea)
• Eunha Chun(Dong-A University, Republic of Korea)
• Eunju Ko(Yonsei University, Republic of Korea) Corresponding author