In this study, the Extended Theory of Planned Behavior (ETPB) was applied to analyze consumers’ intention to purchase meal kits. The perception of ESG management practiced by companies was used as a moderating variable to investigate its influence and moderating effects between each variable. An online survey was conducted over 4 days in January 2023 on consumers aged 20 years or older who had purchased meal kits within 6 months. Hypotheses were tested using IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 and AMOS 24.0 programs with an effective sample size of 324 copies (100%). Attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, perceived sustainable package, and price sensitivity of the theory of planned behavior toward meal kit products had a significant positive effect on purchase intention, and all research hypotheses were accepted. The moderating effect of consumers' perceptions of ESG management practiced by companies had a positive and significant effect on attitude and perceived behavioral control.

Introduction With awareness of the importance of environmental protection, encouragement of green consumption has been an important part of the Chinese government's efforts to promote sustainable development. Green consumption is similar to the concept of environmental responsible consumption, which refers to individual’s behavior with a consideration of the environmental impacts in the process of purchasing, using and disposing of various products, or use of various green services (Stern, 1999). Previous studies tried to predict pro-environmental behavior with social-psychological factors, such as values, attitudes and beliefs. However, researches about the relationship between environmental attitudes and behaviors do not produce consistent results. Some prove that they are positive related, and others argue that their relationship is very weak. Studies have testified that lots of consumers declare that they concern about the environmental situation, but hesitate to pay for green products due to this affect (Chang, 2011). Advancing knowledge about the motivations and obstacles that shape intention and behavior of green consumption is important. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) is appropriate as an initial framework for studies investigating consumers’ pro-environmental behaviors. With the inclusion of a new construct perceived behavioral control, the explanatory ability of this model is strengthened. However, simple adoption of this model does not give us deep insight into consumers’ behavior. Later studies apply TPB in different contexts (e.g. Paul, Modi, Patel, 2016; Mancha & Yoder, 2015; Han, Hsu, Sheu, 2011). The mechanism of how attitude, norms and perception of behavioral control are formed may differ in different circumstances, which is still under research especially in China. The purpose of this paper is to (a) identify applicability of TPB model in predicting green purchasing intention and behavior in China and capture which factor including attitude, perceived behavioral control and norm is the most influential determinant; (b) to examine the most useful psychological and situational antecedents, which indirect influence consumers’ green purchase behavior through the factors in TPB framework. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development Green products refer to those produced with consideration of less harm to the ecological environment such as air, water and land. Green purchase behavior should be considered as a typical socially conscious behavior that is different from other types of consumer behaviors, which can deliver instant personal gain and gratification (Kim & Choi, 2005). Most of the time, pro-environmental purchasing is future-oriented and benefits society as a whole (Author, Mccarty, & Shrum, 2001). Previous research models seek to explain green purchase behavior from two aspects of causal factors. Some emphasize intra-personal determinants from within and others may stress that from outside. However, a single consideration of any one set of these factors will weaken the interpretation of consumers’ green consumer behavior. The research model of this study is based on the most influential TPB framework. Some significant psychological and situational factors are integrated into the framework with the purpose of further understanding Chinese consumers’ purchase behavior. Theory of planned behavior According to the TPB model, individual’s decision making is oriented by a rational evaluation of behavioral consequences (Bamberg & Moer, 2007). The intention to perform a behavior, is considered as the central factor in the TPB model (Tarkiainen & Sundqvist, 2005). Attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm about the behavior, and perceived behavioral control regarding the performance of the behavior are three principal factors that determine behavioral intention. H1: Intention to buy green product has a positive relationship with the green purchase behavior. Attitude refers to individuals' beliefs about the outcomes of the behavior together with an evaluation of the importance of these outcomes. Consumers who feel positive toward green products and have agreement on their environmental goodness will most likely to consider buying products with pro-ecological features. H2a: Attitude toward buying green product is positively associated with the intention to perform green purchase behavior. Subjective norm refers to the responses of important reference group (e.g. family members, close friends) to a particular behavior. Some scholars argue that “subjective norm” is the weakest component in the TPB model when predicting behavioral intentions due to its feature of both self and social interest (Armitage & Conner, 2001; Bagozzi et al., 2000). In this study, “moral norm” instead of “subjective norm” is proposed as a direct predictor of intention toward green purchasing. Moral norm indicates individual’s perception that whether performing a certain behavior is morally correct or not (Ajzen, 1991). H2b: Moral norm regarding buying green product is positively associated with the intention to perform green purchase behavior. Perceived behavioral control is an individual’s perception about if performing a particular behavior is easy or difficult. People tend to be more involved in behaviors that are considered to be easier to realize than what they think is difficult and have less control (Bamberg & Moer, 2007). H2c: PBC of buying green product is positively associated with the intention to perform green purchase behavior. Psychological antecedents of attitude Environmental concern indicates consumers' awareness about environmental issues and people’s worry that the human intervention will have threat to the environment (Kim & Choi, 2005). Literatures reveal an indirect relationship between ecological affect and actual behavior. Bang et al. (2000) concludes that environmental concern has indirect effect on purchase intention through the influence of consumer’s attitude toward paying a premium for renewable energy. The emotional responses to ecological problems help consumers to create a positive attitude toward green purchase behavior. H3a: Environmental concern is positively associated with the attitude toward green purchase behavior. Environmental knowledge represents consumers’ understanding of the environmental conditions, as well as fundamental factors that contribute to environmental change and crucial ecological effects (Pagiaslis & Krontalis, 2014). Knowledge has impact for individual’s cognitive processing. Zhao et al. (2014) confirms knowledge as one of the factors that form people’s attitudes toward environment-friendly behavior. Compared with less knowledgeable consumers, those who have more environmental knowledge incline to be more concerned about the environment, which in turn leads consumers to take attention to products’ ecological features while purchasing (Kim, Park, & Schwarz, 2010). H3b: Perceived environmental knowledge is positively associated with attitude toward green purchase behavior. In the pro-environmental behavior domain, PCE indicates to what extent consumers feel that every single person can contribute to solve environmental problems through their own efforts and their everyday purchase behavior (Straughan & Roberts, 1999).With the absence of belief that individual’s actions have observable outcome in making different solution to a problem, people will hesitate to take into action. Kim and Choi (2005) conclude that PCE has indirect effect on green purchasing through the role of ecological sensitive attitudes. H3c: PCE is positively associated with attitude toward green purchase behavior. Moral norm and subjective norm Bamberg and Moer (2007) suggest that people make use of subjective norms to determine whether a specific behavioral choice is easy to perform or whether it is beneficial. The opinions from “important others” deliver the standards for people to conform when they encounter the same situation. That is, the views about what is right or wrong from reference group will be absorbed and transformed as one’s personal moral norms (Bamberg & Moer, 2007). H4: Subjective norm is positively associated with moral norm regarding green purchase behavior. Situational factors influencing PBC Perceived availability indicates if consumers feel they can easily obtain or consume a certain product. If green products are not easy available, most consumers will not spend too much time and effort for searching. The limited availability and inconvenience in obtaining products is bound to hamper green products purchasing (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). H5a: Perceived availability of green product is positively associated with PBC regarding green purchase behavior. Perceived price is one of the most important factors that have impact on consumers’ decision-making of green consumption (Osterhus, 1997). Green products are generally priced higher than conventional products. However Chinese consumers who would like to pay a large premium are still in the minority. The perceived high price is a barrier that influences consumers’ perceived capability over green purchase behavior. H5b: Perceived price of green product is negatively associated with PBC regarding green purchase behavior. Information has an impact on individual’s cognitive process. It is an influential factor that leads consumer behavior change (Bator & Cialdini, 2000). Atkinson and Rosenthal confirm that eco-labels have effects on consumer’s trust and purchase intention. If consumers feel hard to recognize eco-labels and cannot understand their difference with regular ones, their perception of control will be highly influenced and the green purchase may be hindered. H5c: Perception of information provided by eco-label is positively associated with PBC regarding green purchase behavior. Methodology This research adopted the survey approach for data collection. A questionnaire that consisted of 46 items was designed according to relevant previous studies. All the items in the questionnaire use five-point Likert scale, which ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). The target group of this study was consumer who is over 18 years old in the urban areas of Mainland China. An online survey was conducted for collecting data in the mid-October, 2017 and 500 samples were collected totally. After removing the disqualified questionnaires, 485 questionnaires were identified as eligible for further analysis. To testify the proposed hypotheses, the simple and multiple linear regression analyses using IBM SPSS Statistics was primarily adopted in the study. Meanwhile, the structural equation modeling (SEM) was also conducted as an alternative approach to examine the arguments. Results Firstly, the theory of planned behavior suggested by Ajzen (1991) was proved to be applicable in the green purchasing circumstance. Attitude was identified to play the most significant role in predicting the intention. The construct “moral norm” was resulted to be more predictable for green purchase intention compared with the original “subjective norm”. It indicates that in certain contexts, personal feeling of moral obligation or responsibility is more crucial and direct reason for consumer conducting ethical behaviors. Perceived behavioral control was testified as the third prediction of purchase intention. The proportion of variance explained (R2=0.546) for intention was even better compared with previous studies, which claimed that the three determinants account for between 40% and 50% of the variance in intention (Ajzen, 1991; Amireault et al., 2008; Conner & Armitage, 1998). This model revealed consumers’ mental development of their purchase intention before enacting the buying behavior. Secondly, the results testify that PCE plays as the central role in predicting attitude. Respondents who believe that their consumptions can help to reduce environmental deterioration will be much likely to hold positive attitudes toward green purchasing. Environmental concern and perceived knowledge have a considerable, but only indirect impact on consumers’ attitude. Implications for practice The results of this study suggest that consumers’ intentions to buy green products are directly predicted by attitude, moral norm and their perceived behavioral control. Firstly, enterprises in the green market need to adopt effective communication strategy to inform consumers about the advantages of environmentally friendly products in order to help consumers to develop a positive attitude to pro-environmental products. Moreover, due to the significant effect of PCE on consumer attitude, it's necessary for the government to quantify the effect of green consumption by real cases and data, so that people can perceive the effectiveness of green buying behavior in a more intuitive way. Meanwhile, companies should take more emphasis on consumer’s ability to solve the problem in a positive manner in marketing communications. Secondly, personal moral norm is also found to have direct effects on purchase green products. Thus, normative appeal is needed for creating consumers' emotional connection and should be presented in the promotion programs to stimulate green consumption. Thirdly, this study reveals that the availability is the main factor that affects consumers’ perceived behavioral control over green purchasing.

This study explores determinants of purchase intentions for vegan fashion products based on the modified planned behavior model. Survey data from 434 university students were subjected to an analysis using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. The results showed that almost half of the consumers surveyed recognized vegan fashion products and a little more than a half of consumers surveyed had purchase experience for vegan fashion products. Clothing, bags, and shoes are the most frequently purchased vegan fashion product categories. From the results of the model test, purchase intentions on vegan fashion products were determined by attitude, subjective norms, ethical responsibility, and ethical identity of the consumers. When consumers have a more positive attitude, have higher subjective norms, stronger ethical responsibility, and stronger ethical identity regarding the purchase of vegan fashion products, they are likely to have a greater intention to purchase vegan fashion products. The findings contribute to the literature by adding test results for vegan fashion products among the ethical product categories, highlighting the importance of the consideration of product category, which can give somewhat different results when exploring ethical consumption. Based on these findings, marketers need to use special tags or signage highlighting the ethical values and meanings of vegan fashion products to better communicate with target consumers with a high level of ethical responsibility and to help increase consumers’ control over purchase behaviors through reducing barriers generated by insufficient product information.

With the sweeping popularity of Korean Wave across Asia, the number of Chinese tourists to Korea has rapidly been increasing over the last decade. Korea Tourism Organization estimates that the number of Chinese visitors exceeded 6 million in 2014, and Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade estimates that their spending in Korea surpassed KRW 7.67 trillion in 2013 alone. In particular, Chinese tourists spend most of their money in Korea on shopping. Since Chinese have become the major customers of the Korean market, it is critical to understand their consumption patterns and behavior. Previous studies looked into tourist destinations and shops that Chinese people frequently visited, and also researched on product selection criteria regarding their preference on fashion products. However, this study focuses on how Chinese tourists feel while they are shopping in Korea and how such emotions affect their evaluation on the purchased products. Planned purchase refers to the situation where the buying intention of a consumer has already been formed prior to entering the store based on the perception of purchase necessity. An unplanned purchase is not anticipated or planned before the customer enters the store, and products are bought without planning similar to impulsive buying. Oliver (1980) suggested that emotions are an important factor when consumers evaluate a product. Therefore, this study focuses mainly on the emotion created during the shopping. We conceptualized product attitudes based on the expected consumer satisfaction paradigms of Oliver and Desarbo (1988). This study also explores the product usage satisfaction of tourists as a post-purchase attitude. According to statistics, majority of Chinese tourists who buy fashion products are women. The survey is conducted on 550 women in the age group between 20 and 60 years who have visited Seoul before, using an online panel of respondents sampled by an international survey firm. 530 questionnaires are analyzed, with the remaining responses determined to be incomplete. For the demographic characteristics of the sample group, the average age is 33.5 years old, with 201 in their 20s (37.9%), 190 in their 30s (35.8%), 107 in their 40s (20.2%), and 32 in or over their 50s (6.0%). As for the average household income, RMB 10,000 to 20,000 is the most frequent (210 or 39.6%). For residential areas, Hua Dong (East China) is the most frequent (207 or 39.1%). Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling by AMOS 20.0. Respondents were asked to recall most impressive fashion product that they bought in Korea during their visit, and to answer whether it was planned or unplanned purchase.This study also attempts to measure the emotions they had during the purchase in order to understand differences in attitude toward the purchased products. Although emotions cannot persist over time, previous studies have measured emotions during consumption to evaluate the situation. The study categorizes respondents according to their purchasing power into heavy and light buyers to determine the moderating effects of purchase amount. In the literature, purchasing power is described in terms of the number of purchase and purchase amount. Based on previous studies on purchasing power, consumers can be categorized as heavy or light buyers. This study focuses on purchase amount in the context of tourism shopping. The results find that planned purchases tend to deliver positive emotions, which in turn enhances product satisfaction. Unplanned purchases, positive shopping emotions have positive impact on their attitude toward purchased products. Interestingly, unplanned purchases have negative direct impact on the product attitude without the mediating role of positive shopping emotions, showing the importance of positive emotions that consumers feel while shopping When it comes to the impact of purchasing power, the effect of unplanned purchases of light buyers on shopping emotions or product attitude was not significant. Only planned purchases trigger positive emotions, many of which induced positive impact on product satisfaction. For heavy buyers, on the other hand, even unplanned purchases have positive impact on their product satisfaction when positive shopping emotions are developed. This study is differentiated from previous studies in that it deals with how purchase types (planned vs. unplanned) affect shopping emotions and post-purchase product attitude of Chinese tourists who account for the significant share of the Korean tour industry. It is also notable that this study groups tourists by their purchasing power and identifies the impact of their purchasing power, considering the fact that tourists are increasingly influencing the domestic consumption market. The Korean government and companies may tap into the results of this study to provide better environments to trigger positive shopping emotions to tourists. However, it should be considered that the subject of this study is limited to Chinese female tourists, which should be complemented by future studies.