scholarly journals Reconceptualizing and modeling sustainable consumption behavior: A synthesis of qualitative evidence from online education industry

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-156
Author(s):  
Songyu Jiang ◽  
Ruihui Pu

In recent years, the concept of sustainable consumption behavior (SCB) is largely introduced and changed continuously to be discussed with industries such as energy sector, agriculture, transportation, sharing economy, and tourism. However, the study of sustainable consumption behavior in the online education industry (SCBOEI) remains a research gap. Thus, this paper aims to identify the significance of sustainable consumption behavior and theoretically conceptualize SCBOEI. This study employs content and text analysis to reconceptualize the major theories that contribute to the research of SCB. The findings in this study show that SCBOEI is contributed of great significance to promote sustainable development. In addition, this study introduces a model of SCBOEI, in which the consumer value theory, social exchange theory, and planned behavior theory are integrated. Additionally, this paper suggests that value, environmental attitude, identity, consumer engagement, and contextual factors (government behavior, market conditions, and environmental education) are highly important to extend the research on SCBOEI. In conclusion, this study strongly recommends that SCB research shall be directed to the online education industry. Furthermore, future studies shall emphasize the empirical effects of psychological factors, activity factors, and contextual factors for SCBOEI to find the correlation.

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Levent Altinay ◽  
Babak Taheri

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to review and synthesise recent studies in the sharing economy literature and identify the knowledge gap and future opportunities for hospitality and tourism researchers.Design/methodology/approachThe study commences by introducing sharing economy models and strategic frameworks for profitable service enabler performance. Following this, it identifies emerging overarching theories (e.g. complexity theory, social exchange theory, norm activation model, and value co-creation) and some emerging themes (i.e. trust and reputation, disruptive behaviour, choice and segmentation, pricing strategies, socially excluded consumers, personality and satisfaction) in current hospitality and tourism studies from top-tier journals.FindingsThe findings of the study suggest new paths for advancing theoretical and practical implications for hospitality and tourism studies.Practical implicationsThe themes, models and overarching theories reviewed in this study are relevant and insightful across the fulcrum of hospitality and tourism research. It offers several useful guides for practitioners and academics to trace relevant literature on different aspects of sharing economy and perceptibly highlight the gaps in existing studies.Originality/valueThe paper provides new directions to broaden interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches undertaken by scholars within both the field of hospitality and tourism management and beyond.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 919-943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marylyn Carrigan ◽  
Solon Magrizos ◽  
Jordon Lazell ◽  
Ioannis Kostopoulos

PurposeThis article addresses the lack of scholarly attention paid to the sharing economy from a sociological perspective, with respect to the technology-mediated interactions between sharing economy users. The paper provides a critical overview of the sharing economy and its impact on business and communities and explores how information technology can facilitate authentic, genuine sharing through exercising and enabling conviviality and non-direct reciprocity.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins with a critique of the technology-mediated sharing economy, introduces the concept of conviviality as a tool to grow and shape community and sustainability within the sharing economy and then explores reciprocity and sharing behaviour. Finally, the paper draws upon social exchange theory to illustrate conviviality and reciprocity, using four case studies of technology-enabled sharing.FindingsThe paper contributes to the emerging debate around how the sharing economy, driven by information systems and technology, affects social cohesion and personal relationships. The paper elucidates the central role conviviality and reciprocity play in explaining the paradoxes, tensions and impact of the sharing economy on society. Conviviality and reciprocity are positioned as key capabilities of a more sustainable version of the sharing economy, enabled via information technology.Originality/valueThe findings reveal that information technology-mediated sharing enterprises should promote conviviality and reciprocity in order to deliver more positive environmental, economic and social benefits. The diversity of existing operations indicated by the findings and the controversies discussed will guide the critical study of the social potential of sharing economy to avoid treating all sharing alike.


Author(s):  
Wenlong Liu ◽  
Changqing He ◽  
Yi Jiang ◽  
Rongrong Ji ◽  
Xuesong Zhai

Workers’ isolation may occur in gig employment in the sharing economy, which generates a weak perception of the organization and unpredictable work performance. Drawing on social exchange theory, this paper proposes a framework to explore the effect of psychological contract fulfillment on gig workers’ task performance from the perspective of the mediation of organizational identification and the moderation of the length of service. A total of 223 samples were recruited from Didi (a ride-hailing company in China) drivers. The results show that both transactional and relational psychological contract fulfillment can directly affect gig workers’ task performance and also indirectly affect it via organizational identification. When the length of service for the current company is taken into consideration, transactional contract fulfillment, as the representation of a company’s recognition of gig workers’ effort, has a stronger effect on the organizational identification of gig workers who have been working for the company for less than a year compared with those who have been working for a longer period. The results show no difference in the relationship between relational psychological contract and organizational identification between the two groups. Transactional psychological contract fulfillment exhibits the same significant effect on gig workers’ task performance in both groups. By contrast, relational psychological contract fulfillment has a stronger effect on long-serving Didi drivers than on those who joined the company within the year. These findings generate certain theoretical and practical implications for gig employment management in the sharing economy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyi Chen ◽  
Sarah Cheah ◽  
Ao Shen

Existing sharing economy (SE) studies tend to focus on the nature of SEs, their business models, and impact. However, there are limited in-depth studies on what motivates consumers’ participation in sustainable SE context, particularly in short-term rentals involving safety risks arising from face-to-face engagement with strangers while consuming the services. Applying the perceived value theory and extended theory of planned behavior, this study examines the relationships among consumers’ perceived value (gain versus loss), past experience, and behavioral intentions in sustainable consumption of short-term rentals offered on smart online matching platforms. Based on a survey of 421 Chinese consumers, our study has demonstrated that social appeal and economic appeal (gains) are positively related to behavioral intentions. Second, we establish that the relationship between perceived risk (loss) and behavioral intentions is inverted U-shaped, enriching the existing literature which has assumed a linear relationship. Finally, our study shows that past experience positively moderates the influence of social appeal on behavioral intentions. This suggests that, compared with consumers having little or no past experience, the positive relationship between social appeal and behavioral intentions is stronger for consumers having much past experience. On the other hand, past experience has no effect on the relationship between economic appeal and behavioral intentions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. ar13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa B. Limeri ◽  
Muhammad Zaka Asif ◽  
Erin L. Dolan

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers (postgraduates) in the life sciences frequently mentor undergraduate researchers, especially at research universities. Yet there has been only modest investigation of this relationship from the postgraduate perspective. We conducted an exploratory study of the experiences of 32 postgraduate mentors from diverse institutions, life sciences disciplines, and types of research to examine their motivations for mentoring and their perceived outcomes. Although some postgraduates reported feeling pressured to mentor undergraduate researchers, all expressed personal motivations, including both agentic (self-focused) and communal (community-focused) motivations. These postgraduates reported benefits and costs of mentoring that had both vocational and psychosocial elements. Given that our results indicated that even postgraduates who engaged in mentoring at the request of their faculty advisors had their own motivations, we conducted a second phase of analysis to determine the extent to which our results aligned with different theories of motivation (self-determination theory, social cognitive career theory, expectancy-value theory, social exchange theory). We end by proposing a model of postgraduate mentoring of undergraduate researchers that integrates the theories supported by our findings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 8955
Author(s):  
Sadegh Salehi ◽  
Audronė Telešienė ◽  
Zahra Pazokinejad

This article explores the underlying factors of sustainable consumption behavior. Survey data are employed to test the impacts of environmental attitude, knowledge, social awareness, perceived credibility of information sources, self-efficacy and gender on sustainable consumption patterns among samples of university students in Iran and Japan. This contributes to the scientific search for valid explanatory models that could be employed to foster lifestyle transformations towards sustainability. Our findings confirm positive relationship between self-efficacy, social awareness and sustainable consumption in both Japanese and Iranian samples. Other predicators did not have a consistent effect in both samples. This article also presents the results of moderated regression and discusses which impacts were moderated by gender. The discussion presents with interpretation of the findings and proposes possible alternative explanations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (19) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Mazni Saad ◽  
Nur Nabilah Abdullah ◽  
Siti Nur Hidayah Rosman

This paper explores the significance of a rural region, the village of Panchor, as a potential nature tourism site located in Johor district of Muar, Malaysia. The study's objectives were (1) evaluating local community funding, and (2) evaluating the participation of local government. Three overlapping topics were explored based on qualitative interpretation of an interview and open-ended answers in the questionnaire: (1) group connection, (2) economic benefits, and (3) environmental attitude. The findings revealed that river-based tourism could improve the socio-economic status and the sustainability of rural areas. It also addressed the consequences and limitations of the study in this report. Keywords: Community Attachment; Economic Gains; Environmental Attitude; River-based Tourism eISSN 2398-4295 ©2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers (AMER); Association of  Behavioural Researchers on Asians / Africans / Arabians (ABRA); Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies (cE-Bs), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ajbes.v5i19.191


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-40
Author(s):  
Manita Matharu ◽  
Ruchi Jain ◽  
Shampy Kamboj

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the potential determinants of sustainable consumption behavior. This study describes lifestyle of health and sustainability (LOHAS) tendency and the effects of such lifestyles on the behavioral intentions for sustainable consumption in sharing economy.Design/methodology/approachThis research adapts LOHAS tendency, consumer attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and consumers' behavioral intention for sustainable consumption scale in Indian context to describe the sustainable consumption behavior by extending the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Data of 627 individuals collected through a questionnaire, after the scales validation process and thereafter a structural equation analysis has been performed.FindingsThe findings confirm the extended TPB, wherein LOHAS tendency has emerged as an antecedent to consumer attitudes for taking part in sustainable consumption. Results highlight that consumer attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control are significant determining factors of consumers' sustainable consumption behavior.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has examined the sustainable consumption behavior by considering the lifestyle tendency. A few other limitations are also discussed.Originality/valueConsumer behavior in sharing economy is surely one of the emerging research areas; there is dearth of research to understand Indian consumers' sustainable consumption, particularly from lifestyle perspective. This research establishes relationship between LOHAS tendency and sustainable consumption, which may serve as a contributor to sharing economy in terms of LOHAS consumer's lifestyle and their sustainable consumption behavior.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document