Examining drivers of sustainable consumption : the influence of norms and opinion leadership on electric vehicle adoption in Sweden

By Johan Jansson, A. Nordlund, K. Westin. 2017

264 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Transportation accounts for a large and growing part of carbon dioxide emissions. With an increasing vehicle fleet worldwide private car use is becoming an acute problem in need of urgent attention and action. Policy interference and cleaner cars are not enough; alternative fuel vehicles such as electric vehicles need to be adopted by consumers as well. Previous research on pro-environmental consumer behavior and sustainable consumption has proven the importance of norms and pro-environmental attitudes. However, little research has focused on understanding interpersonal influence found influential in consumer behavior research relating to innovation adoption. Consumer opinion leading and opinion seeking are two such interpersonal influence attitudinal constructs that have not been empirically analyzed in relation to sustainable consumption and alternative fuel vehicles. The main aim of this study is thus to analyze the influence of a set of attitudinal constructs on electric and flexfuel vehicle adoption: personal norms, social norms, ecological attitudes, opinion leading, and opinion seeking. Data from a questionnaire survey on three groups of electric vehicle adopters and non-adopters is used (N=1,192). The results confirm the importance of personal norms, opinion leading and opinion seeking in the three groups also when controlling for socio-demographic factors. The main contribution of this study is that it shows the importance of both interpersonal influence and attitudinal factors as drivers for eco-innovation adoption. The study also contributes in showing that electric vehicle and flexfuel vehicle adopters differ in relation to non-adopters on several factors.

Subfields: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/12c32fc9b9e9df64484623dbf6c9b15ff2c8c0bd

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

1. Johan Jansson
2. M. Bengtsson
3. Z. Rezvani
4. Xiongzhi Wang
5. Chaozhi Zhang

In Marketing

1. M. Bengtsson
2. Z. Rezvani
3. Xiongzhi Wang
4. Chaozhi Zhang
5. Johan Jansson

In Sociology and Political Science

1. M. Bengtsson
2. Z. Rezvani
3. Xiongzhi Wang
4. Chaozhi Zhang
5. Johan Jansson

Citations in the corpus

• Consumer motivations for sustainable consumption : the interaction of gain, normative and hedonic motivations on electric vehicle adoption (2018, background): “The finding with regard to the role of personal moral norms or the normative motivations is in line with previous research (e.g. Jansson, 2011; Jansson et al., 2017), which shows that personal moral norms are important predictors of high-involvement consumer pro-environmental behavior.”
• Contingent effects of social norms on tourists’ pro-environmental behaviours: the role of Chinese traditionality (2020, background): “The result adds evidence to the argument that the direct effect of social norms on PEBs usually disappears when personal norm is accounted (Biel & Thogersen, 2007; Jansson et al., 2017; Ru et al., 2018).”