PROS Chairy Long Term Orientation Full text
LONG TERM ORIENTATION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD GREEN
PRODUCT
Chairy
Tarumanagara University, Jalan S. Parman No. 1 Jakarta 11440, Indonesia
e-mail: chairy@tarumanagara.ac.id
Abstrak
Produk hijau memperoleh perhatian yang besar dari para pemasar akhir-akhir ini. Agar
pemasaran produk hijau dapat sukses, para pemasar perlu mengetahui faktor-faktor yang
berkaitan dengan sikap konsumen terhadap produk hijau. Tujuan studi ini adalah untuk
menyelidiki hubungan antara orientasi jangka panjang dengan sikap konsumen terhadap
produk hijau. Sampel penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa Universitas Tarumanagara Jakarta.
Melalui analisis korelasi, studi ini memperlihatkan bahwa orientasi jangka panjang memiliki
hubungan yang positif dengan sikap konsumen terhadap produk hijau. Hasil studi ini
mendukung pendapat yang mengatakan bahwa dalam mempopulerkan konsumsi produk
hijau, para pemasar perlu memperhatikan faktor budaya yang salah satunya adalah orientasi
jangka panjang.
Kata Kunci: orientasi jangka panjang, sikap terhadap produk hijau, analisis korelasi
INTRODUCTION
Environmentally friendly consumption has become major concern of the government
of Indonesia. Festivals and conferences held recently was the indicator of the seriousness of
the government of Indonesia in this field (Chairy, 2012). These activities are part of the
government efforts to preserve the environment and enhance Indonesian consumer welfare.
The government also participated in 20th APEC Economic Leader Meeting in Vladivistok and
reached consensus on the development of and promoting green growth
(http://apec.org/Meeting-Papers/Ministerial-Statements/Annual/2012/2012_amm.aspx). This
strong support on green growth reaffirmed the commitment to popular green consumption in
Indonesia.
Since consumer is one of the most important sides in fostering green growth, it is
needed to better understand consumer green behavior. One of the most important factors in
studying consumer behavior is consumer attitude. This study is based on the premise that
attitude is one of the crucial factors in determining consumer further decision. Attitude
has long been considered as a predictor of behavior. Favorable consumer attitude will
lead to specific behavior that correspondent to the marketers’ expectation (Solomon,
2009). Consumer attitude toward green product is considered as a strong predictor for
actual consumption of green product. That’s why the study of consumer attitude toward
green product has always been an important research area in green marketing.
Consumer decision is also influenced by cultural factors (Briley and Aaker 2006).
LONG TERM ORIENTATION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD GREEN... (Chairy) 167
For instance, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2001) play an important role in
consumer preferences. One of these cultural dimensions is long term orientation
(Bearden, Money, & Nevins, 2006). In term of green product, cultural factor such as long
term orientation is predicted to have a positive relationship with consumer attitude toward
green product. The purpose of this study is to link the attitude to cultural dimension. This
study also tried to gain more knowledge about the consumer attitude toward green
product.
Attitude toward Green Product
An attitude is a complex mental state involving beliefs, feelings, values, and
dispositions to act in certain ways. It is a lasting, general evaluation of people (including
oneself), objects, advertisements, or issues. An attitude is lasting because it tends to endure
overtime. It is general because it applies to more than a momentary event. Attitudes can offer
a prediction about a person’s future actions. Consumers’ attitude is a directly influenced
factor that affects the consumers’ buying willingness (Solomon, 2009). Ajzen and Fishbein
(1980) describe attitude towards a behavior as a person’s evaluation of a specified behavior
involving an object or outcome. The study about consumer attitude is important because
attitude towards a behavior has been found to be strongly related to a particular behavior. It
means that attitude is an essential factor in explaining consumer behavior.
Smith, Roy, and Potter (1996) define green product as a product which has a reduced
impact on the natural environment arising from its materials, production, use or disposal – as
well as satisfying the more usual design factors such as performance, aesthetics, cost, etc.
Further, they state that consuming green product reflects a conscious concern for preserving
the environment.
Attitude toward green product reflects overall consumer evaluation on green product.
If consumer perceives the green product as a product which would enhance their welfare, they
will have a positive attitude toward green product. Although many studies report a low
correlation between a person’s reported attitude toward something and his/her actual behavior
toward it, some other studies report the opposite results. One study on environmental issues
and marketing activities found that people who express greater conviction in their feeling
regarding environmentally responsible behaviors show greater consistency between attitudes
and behavioral intentions (Solomon, 2009). So it is reasonable if consumers have a favorable
attitude toward green product, they will be likely to consume the green product.
Several researchers investigated the role of attitude on green consumption. Kim (2011)
tried to understand green consumption patterns by investigating the role of collectivism,
personal values, environmental attitudes and perceived consumer effectiveness. Chan (2001)
examined the determinants of Chinese consumers’ green purchase behavior. The variables
included in his research are man-nature orientation, degree of collectivism, ecological affect,
ecological knowledge, and attitudes toward green purchases. Generally, attitudes toward
green product are overall favorable globally, contributing to a growth in consumers
purchasing green product (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2012). These researches confirmed
the important role of attitude in studying consumer green behavior.
168 | Proceeding for Call Paper PEKAN ILMIAH DOSEN FEB – UKSW, 14 DESEMBER 2012
Long Term Orientation
An increasing volume of research addresses cultural, social, and psychological factors
in consumers' demand for green product (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2012). In term of
culture, Hofstede (2001) has developed six dimensions of culture to analyze national culture
of a country. Originally, in the late 1970s, Hofstede surveyed more than 116,000 IBM
employees in 40 countries about their work-related values. He found that employee vary on
several dimensions of national culture. These dimensions are individualism- collectivism,
masculinity-femininity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, long-short term orientation,
and indulgence-restraint. Further, many researchers extended these cultural dimension into
other fields. For instance, Aaker and William (1998) stated that consumer behavior is also
influenced by the culture in which the consumers operate. Cultural orientation is found
affected product and brand evaluation. Consumer researchers use these dimensions to
predict consumer behavior (Bearden, et al, 2006).
In this research, the focus is given to long term orientation dimension. It focuses on
the degree of a society’s long term devotion to traditional values. People in cultures with long
term orientation tend to look to the future and value thrift, persistence, and tradition. Hofstede
(2001) suggest that long term orientation fosters behavior oriented toward future reward. In
term of green marketing, Bearden et al (2006) argue that long term orientation is a salient
aspect of national culture values that affects consumer decision making processes. It is argued
in this research that the stronger the value of long term orientation, the more favorable the
consumer attitude toward green product.
So far, only limited number of studies explored the role of long term orientation in
green consumption context. This research tried to fill this gap by examining the relationship
between long term orientation and attitude toward green product and proposing the
hypotheses: there is a positive relationship between long term orientation and attitude toward
green product
METHOD
The sample of this research was 100 undergraduate students (61 females) of
Tarumanagara University. This sample was drawn using convenience sampling. The
questionnaire was developed by adapting scales from previous research. The attitude toward
green product scale was adapted from the work of Chan (2001). Statements for this variable
are “I like the idea of purchasing green product’, “Purchasing green product is a good idea”,
“I have a favorable attitude toward green product.” The long term orientation scale was
adapted from the work of Kopalle, Lehmann, and Farley (2010). The statements included are
“I plan for a long term”, I work hard for success in the future”, “I don’t mind giving up
today’s fun for success in the future”. These two scales were tried out with 30 samples from
the same population. All reliability sores are acceptable, 0.72 and 0.86 respectively.
Correlation analysis was used to test whether there is a relationship between attitude toward
green product and long term orientation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between long term orientation
and attitude toward green product. As predicted, research result showed a significant
LONG TERM ORIENTATION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD GREEN... (Chairy) 169
correlation between long term orientation and attitude toward green product at 0.01 level (r =
0.711). It means that the stronger the long term orientation values, the more favorable the
attitude toward green product. In general, this research support the previous finding that
stated attitude toward a product or consumer behavior has a positive relationship with cultural
values (Aaker and William, 1998). Specifically, this finding supported the idea that long
term orientation has a relationship with consumer decision making (Bearden et al, 2006). In
this case, long term orientation value significantly related to attitudes toward green product.
This research finding showed a need for marketer to consider cultural values in
enhancing consumer attitude toward green product. In other words, to succeed in marketing
green product, marketers should take into account long term orientation in designing their
marketing strategy.
This research only investigated the relationship between long term orientation and
attitude toward green product. Future research should examine the relationship between other
cultural values and attitude toward green product. Future research needs also to investigate the
relationship between cultural values, attitude toward green product, and intention to purchase
green product.
CONCLUSION
This correlation study showed that long term orientation has a significant relationship
with attitude toward green product. The stronger the magnitude of long term orientation a
consumer has, the more favorable the consumer attitude toward green product. A society with
high value of long term orientation will be a promising market for green product marketers
because they have a favorable attitude toward green product. Since fostering green
consumption is one of the government’s objectives, the public policy maker should find ways
of how to have a long term orientation society. Public policy makers could also design
activities that would enhance the value of long term orientation.
REFERENCES
Aaker, Jennifer L. and Patti Williams. 1998. Empathy versus pride: The influence of
emotional appeals across cultures. Journal of Consumer Research, 25 (December):
241–61.
Ajzen, I., and M. Fishbein. 1980. Understanding attitudes and predicting behavior.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bearden, William O., R. Bruce Money, and Jennifer L. Nevins. 2006. Measure of long-term
orientation: Development and validation. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 34 (3): 456–67.
Briley, Donnel A. and Jennifer L. Aaker. 2006. When does culture matter? Effects of personal
knowledge on the correction of culture-based judgments. Journal of Marketing
Research, 43 (August): 395–408.
170 | Proceeding for Call Paper PEKAN ILMIAH DOSEN FEB – UKSW, 14 DESEMBER 2012
Chan, R.Y.K. 2001. Determinants of Chinese consumers’ green purchase behavior.
Psychology & Marketing, 18 (4): 389-413.
Chairy. 2012. Spirituality, self transcendence, and green purchase intention in college
students, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 57: 243 – 246.
Hartmann, P. and Vanessa Apaolaza-Ibáñez. 2012. Consumer attitude and purchase intention
toward green energy brands: The roles of psychological benefits and environmental
concern, Journal of Business Research, 65: 1254-1263
Hofstede, Geert. 2001. Culture’s consequences, 2nd ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kim, Y. 2011. Understanding green purchase: the influence of collectivism, personal values
and environmental attitudes, and the moderating effect of perceived consumer
effectiveness. Seoul Journal of Business, 17 (1): 65-92.
Kopalle, Praveen K., Donald R. Lehmann, and John U. Farley. 2010. Consumer expectations
and culture: The effect of belief in Karma in India. Journal of Consumer Research, 37
(Aug): 251-263.
Smith, M.T., R. Roy, and S. Potter. 1996. The commercial impacts of green product
development, The Design Innovation Group, Faculty of Technology (Design), The
Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, (UK).
Solomon, M.R. 2009. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, being, 8th Edition. New Jersey:
Pearson Education.
LONG TERM ORIENTATION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD GREEN... (Chairy) 171
172 | Proceeding for Call Paper PEKAN ILMIAH DOSEN FEB – UKSW, 14 DESEMBER 2012
PRODUCT
Chairy
Tarumanagara University, Jalan S. Parman No. 1 Jakarta 11440, Indonesia
e-mail: chairy@tarumanagara.ac.id
Abstrak
Produk hijau memperoleh perhatian yang besar dari para pemasar akhir-akhir ini. Agar
pemasaran produk hijau dapat sukses, para pemasar perlu mengetahui faktor-faktor yang
berkaitan dengan sikap konsumen terhadap produk hijau. Tujuan studi ini adalah untuk
menyelidiki hubungan antara orientasi jangka panjang dengan sikap konsumen terhadap
produk hijau. Sampel penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa Universitas Tarumanagara Jakarta.
Melalui analisis korelasi, studi ini memperlihatkan bahwa orientasi jangka panjang memiliki
hubungan yang positif dengan sikap konsumen terhadap produk hijau. Hasil studi ini
mendukung pendapat yang mengatakan bahwa dalam mempopulerkan konsumsi produk
hijau, para pemasar perlu memperhatikan faktor budaya yang salah satunya adalah orientasi
jangka panjang.
Kata Kunci: orientasi jangka panjang, sikap terhadap produk hijau, analisis korelasi
INTRODUCTION
Environmentally friendly consumption has become major concern of the government
of Indonesia. Festivals and conferences held recently was the indicator of the seriousness of
the government of Indonesia in this field (Chairy, 2012). These activities are part of the
government efforts to preserve the environment and enhance Indonesian consumer welfare.
The government also participated in 20th APEC Economic Leader Meeting in Vladivistok and
reached consensus on the development of and promoting green growth
(http://apec.org/Meeting-Papers/Ministerial-Statements/Annual/2012/2012_amm.aspx). This
strong support on green growth reaffirmed the commitment to popular green consumption in
Indonesia.
Since consumer is one of the most important sides in fostering green growth, it is
needed to better understand consumer green behavior. One of the most important factors in
studying consumer behavior is consumer attitude. This study is based on the premise that
attitude is one of the crucial factors in determining consumer further decision. Attitude
has long been considered as a predictor of behavior. Favorable consumer attitude will
lead to specific behavior that correspondent to the marketers’ expectation (Solomon,
2009). Consumer attitude toward green product is considered as a strong predictor for
actual consumption of green product. That’s why the study of consumer attitude toward
green product has always been an important research area in green marketing.
Consumer decision is also influenced by cultural factors (Briley and Aaker 2006).
LONG TERM ORIENTATION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD GREEN... (Chairy) 167
For instance, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2001) play an important role in
consumer preferences. One of these cultural dimensions is long term orientation
(Bearden, Money, & Nevins, 2006). In term of green product, cultural factor such as long
term orientation is predicted to have a positive relationship with consumer attitude toward
green product. The purpose of this study is to link the attitude to cultural dimension. This
study also tried to gain more knowledge about the consumer attitude toward green
product.
Attitude toward Green Product
An attitude is a complex mental state involving beliefs, feelings, values, and
dispositions to act in certain ways. It is a lasting, general evaluation of people (including
oneself), objects, advertisements, or issues. An attitude is lasting because it tends to endure
overtime. It is general because it applies to more than a momentary event. Attitudes can offer
a prediction about a person’s future actions. Consumers’ attitude is a directly influenced
factor that affects the consumers’ buying willingness (Solomon, 2009). Ajzen and Fishbein
(1980) describe attitude towards a behavior as a person’s evaluation of a specified behavior
involving an object or outcome. The study about consumer attitude is important because
attitude towards a behavior has been found to be strongly related to a particular behavior. It
means that attitude is an essential factor in explaining consumer behavior.
Smith, Roy, and Potter (1996) define green product as a product which has a reduced
impact on the natural environment arising from its materials, production, use or disposal – as
well as satisfying the more usual design factors such as performance, aesthetics, cost, etc.
Further, they state that consuming green product reflects a conscious concern for preserving
the environment.
Attitude toward green product reflects overall consumer evaluation on green product.
If consumer perceives the green product as a product which would enhance their welfare, they
will have a positive attitude toward green product. Although many studies report a low
correlation between a person’s reported attitude toward something and his/her actual behavior
toward it, some other studies report the opposite results. One study on environmental issues
and marketing activities found that people who express greater conviction in their feeling
regarding environmentally responsible behaviors show greater consistency between attitudes
and behavioral intentions (Solomon, 2009). So it is reasonable if consumers have a favorable
attitude toward green product, they will be likely to consume the green product.
Several researchers investigated the role of attitude on green consumption. Kim (2011)
tried to understand green consumption patterns by investigating the role of collectivism,
personal values, environmental attitudes and perceived consumer effectiveness. Chan (2001)
examined the determinants of Chinese consumers’ green purchase behavior. The variables
included in his research are man-nature orientation, degree of collectivism, ecological affect,
ecological knowledge, and attitudes toward green purchases. Generally, attitudes toward
green product are overall favorable globally, contributing to a growth in consumers
purchasing green product (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2012). These researches confirmed
the important role of attitude in studying consumer green behavior.
168 | Proceeding for Call Paper PEKAN ILMIAH DOSEN FEB – UKSW, 14 DESEMBER 2012
Long Term Orientation
An increasing volume of research addresses cultural, social, and psychological factors
in consumers' demand for green product (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2012). In term of
culture, Hofstede (2001) has developed six dimensions of culture to analyze national culture
of a country. Originally, in the late 1970s, Hofstede surveyed more than 116,000 IBM
employees in 40 countries about their work-related values. He found that employee vary on
several dimensions of national culture. These dimensions are individualism- collectivism,
masculinity-femininity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, long-short term orientation,
and indulgence-restraint. Further, many researchers extended these cultural dimension into
other fields. For instance, Aaker and William (1998) stated that consumer behavior is also
influenced by the culture in which the consumers operate. Cultural orientation is found
affected product and brand evaluation. Consumer researchers use these dimensions to
predict consumer behavior (Bearden, et al, 2006).
In this research, the focus is given to long term orientation dimension. It focuses on
the degree of a society’s long term devotion to traditional values. People in cultures with long
term orientation tend to look to the future and value thrift, persistence, and tradition. Hofstede
(2001) suggest that long term orientation fosters behavior oriented toward future reward. In
term of green marketing, Bearden et al (2006) argue that long term orientation is a salient
aspect of national culture values that affects consumer decision making processes. It is argued
in this research that the stronger the value of long term orientation, the more favorable the
consumer attitude toward green product.
So far, only limited number of studies explored the role of long term orientation in
green consumption context. This research tried to fill this gap by examining the relationship
between long term orientation and attitude toward green product and proposing the
hypotheses: there is a positive relationship between long term orientation and attitude toward
green product
METHOD
The sample of this research was 100 undergraduate students (61 females) of
Tarumanagara University. This sample was drawn using convenience sampling. The
questionnaire was developed by adapting scales from previous research. The attitude toward
green product scale was adapted from the work of Chan (2001). Statements for this variable
are “I like the idea of purchasing green product’, “Purchasing green product is a good idea”,
“I have a favorable attitude toward green product.” The long term orientation scale was
adapted from the work of Kopalle, Lehmann, and Farley (2010). The statements included are
“I plan for a long term”, I work hard for success in the future”, “I don’t mind giving up
today’s fun for success in the future”. These two scales were tried out with 30 samples from
the same population. All reliability sores are acceptable, 0.72 and 0.86 respectively.
Correlation analysis was used to test whether there is a relationship between attitude toward
green product and long term orientation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between long term orientation
and attitude toward green product. As predicted, research result showed a significant
LONG TERM ORIENTATION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD GREEN... (Chairy) 169
correlation between long term orientation and attitude toward green product at 0.01 level (r =
0.711). It means that the stronger the long term orientation values, the more favorable the
attitude toward green product. In general, this research support the previous finding that
stated attitude toward a product or consumer behavior has a positive relationship with cultural
values (Aaker and William, 1998). Specifically, this finding supported the idea that long
term orientation has a relationship with consumer decision making (Bearden et al, 2006). In
this case, long term orientation value significantly related to attitudes toward green product.
This research finding showed a need for marketer to consider cultural values in
enhancing consumer attitude toward green product. In other words, to succeed in marketing
green product, marketers should take into account long term orientation in designing their
marketing strategy.
This research only investigated the relationship between long term orientation and
attitude toward green product. Future research should examine the relationship between other
cultural values and attitude toward green product. Future research needs also to investigate the
relationship between cultural values, attitude toward green product, and intention to purchase
green product.
CONCLUSION
This correlation study showed that long term orientation has a significant relationship
with attitude toward green product. The stronger the magnitude of long term orientation a
consumer has, the more favorable the consumer attitude toward green product. A society with
high value of long term orientation will be a promising market for green product marketers
because they have a favorable attitude toward green product. Since fostering green
consumption is one of the government’s objectives, the public policy maker should find ways
of how to have a long term orientation society. Public policy makers could also design
activities that would enhance the value of long term orientation.
REFERENCES
Aaker, Jennifer L. and Patti Williams. 1998. Empathy versus pride: The influence of
emotional appeals across cultures. Journal of Consumer Research, 25 (December):
241–61.
Ajzen, I., and M. Fishbein. 1980. Understanding attitudes and predicting behavior.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bearden, William O., R. Bruce Money, and Jennifer L. Nevins. 2006. Measure of long-term
orientation: Development and validation. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 34 (3): 456–67.
Briley, Donnel A. and Jennifer L. Aaker. 2006. When does culture matter? Effects of personal
knowledge on the correction of culture-based judgments. Journal of Marketing
Research, 43 (August): 395–408.
170 | Proceeding for Call Paper PEKAN ILMIAH DOSEN FEB – UKSW, 14 DESEMBER 2012
Chan, R.Y.K. 2001. Determinants of Chinese consumers’ green purchase behavior.
Psychology & Marketing, 18 (4): 389-413.
Chairy. 2012. Spirituality, self transcendence, and green purchase intention in college
students, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 57: 243 – 246.
Hartmann, P. and Vanessa Apaolaza-Ibáñez. 2012. Consumer attitude and purchase intention
toward green energy brands: The roles of psychological benefits and environmental
concern, Journal of Business Research, 65: 1254-1263
Hofstede, Geert. 2001. Culture’s consequences, 2nd ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kim, Y. 2011. Understanding green purchase: the influence of collectivism, personal values
and environmental attitudes, and the moderating effect of perceived consumer
effectiveness. Seoul Journal of Business, 17 (1): 65-92.
Kopalle, Praveen K., Donald R. Lehmann, and John U. Farley. 2010. Consumer expectations
and culture: The effect of belief in Karma in India. Journal of Consumer Research, 37
(Aug): 251-263.
Smith, M.T., R. Roy, and S. Potter. 1996. The commercial impacts of green product
development, The Design Innovation Group, Faculty of Technology (Design), The
Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, (UK).
Solomon, M.R. 2009. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, being, 8th Edition. New Jersey:
Pearson Education.
LONG TERM ORIENTATION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD GREEN... (Chairy) 171
172 | Proceeding for Call Paper PEKAN ILMIAH DOSEN FEB – UKSW, 14 DESEMBER 2012