Title: Attitudinal ambivalence towards green products: an empirical study in an emerging market

Authors: Angelina Nhat Hanh Le; Megha Jain; Truong Duong Tam; Le Thanh Tam

Addresses: School of Management, University of Economics HCM City, Ho-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam ' Business School, Middlesex University Dubai, Dubai, UAE ' International School of Business, University of Economics HCM City, Ho-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam ' School of Banking, National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam

Abstract: Attitudinal ambivalence is an emerging concept in marketing and only limited articles have attempted to explore the concept of attitudinal ambivalence in the context of green consumption. This study is one of the pioneer works that examines four negative antecedents (i.e., greenwashing, consumer scepticism, green confusion, and green risk) of attitudinal ambivalence. The largely-ignored concept of resistance to change from non-green to green products is also investigated as the outcome variable of attitudinal ambivalence. Based on a sample of 310 Vietnamese consumers, the results indicate that green confusion is the strongest negative predictor of consumers' attitudinal ambivalence towards green products followed by consumer scepticism, greenwashing, and green risk, respectively. Furthermore, attitudinal ambivalence is found to significantly increase consumers' resistance to change. This study provides implications for marketing practitioners regarding attitudinal ambivalence and resistance to change, from which appropriate strategies can be formulated and applied to target green consumers.

Keywords: attitudinal ambivalence; greenwashing; consumer scepticism; green confusion; green risk; resistance to change.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2019.102726

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2019 Vol.18 No.3, pp.292 - 303

Received: 07 Aug 2018
Accepted: 14 Sep 2018
Published online: 02 Oct 2019 *

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