Factors influencing consumers' purchase intention of green sportswear

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine consumers' purchase intention for green sportswear by investigating the effects of their expectation, perception, subjective norm, perceived behavior control, and attitude on purchasing green sportswear. The study further investigated differential influences towards purchase intention for green sportswear between non-green and green product users. A within-subjects research design was used to empirically test our conceptual model, which was expanded from the theory of planned behavior by adding two additional predictors (expectation and perception). An online survey was conducted with a nationwide convenience sample of U.S. consumers whose ages ranged from 18 to 74 years, and a total of 542 usable responses were obtained. The results of the overall model testing confirmed the significant effects of expectation, perception, subjective norm, and attitude on consumers' purchase intention for green sportswear. The findings from the comparative model testing indicated significant differences between non-green and green product users in terms of the effects of expectation and perceived behavior control on participants' green sportswear purchase intention. The outcomes of this study offer useful insights for developing effective strategies for consumers to generate more positive perception, expectation, and attitude towards purchasing green sportswear. This study also suggests potential ways for apparel retailers to develop effective marketing strategies for this sportswear segment to satisfy the values of potential customers.

Nam et al. Fash Text (2017) 4:2 DOI 10.1186/s40691-017-0091-3

Factors inuencing consumers purchase intention ofgreen sportswear

Changhyun Nam*http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9940-187X

Web End = , Huanjiao Dong and YoungA Lee

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9940-187X

Web End = *Correspondence: [email protected] Apparel, Merchandising, and Design Program, Department of Apparel, Events, and Hospitality Management, Iowa State University, 2302 Osborn Drive, Ames, IA 500111078, USA

Introduction

The sportswear industry has dramatically integrated into the apparel industry as tness apparel, in particular, has become the most recent casual uniform, contributing to the booming trend of athleisure (Pasquarelli 2014). The sportswear industry currently encompasses functional or performance clothing, sports-related attire, and tness clothing (Mintel 2014) and its global market is expected to climb from $97 billion in 2015 to $178 billion in 2019 (Sherman 2014). In recent years, individuals have become to wear sportswear, interchangeably used as active wear, not only for engaging in sports, but also for everyday occasions (Lockwood 2012). This upsurge has attracted a number of new entrants such as casual-end retailers, creating competition for the already crowded sportswear market.

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The apparel industry continues to remain as one of the greatest polluters and the second largest consumer of water usage in the world (Sahni 2016). This industry consisting of bers to production to the end consumers brings about serious social, economic, and environmental concerns, because of excessive uses of natural resources, chemical usage to make fabrics, and trends in fast fashion that promote consumers compulsive purchasing behavior. Environmentally sustainable or green purchasing decisions in everyday consumer behavior, therefore, oer a chance to reduce negative environmental impacts by substituting higher-impact products (e.g., air fresheners, cosmetics, plastic bags) with products that are more eco- friendly. As consumers become more aware of consumption-related environmental problems, they simultaneously grow more cautions when purchasing products and eventually seek to purchase eco-friendly products for the betterment of current and future generations (Kilbourne and Pickett 2008; Laroche etal. 2001). Consistent with these phenomena, in the apparel industry, consumers awareness and demands for green apparel have gradually increased.

Recently, more apparel companies, including sportswear companies, have joined as the members of the sustainable apparel coalition (SAC), a nonprot trade organization founded by a group of leading apparel retailers and brands (e.g., Patagonia, Walmart, GAP, Levis, Nike), to reduce the environmental impact of products for the betterment of people and the planet (Kaye 2011; Sustainable Apparel Coalition 2016). SAC members collaborate together to develop a variety of sustainable (or green) products, programs, and campaigns for consumers in our society. Nowadays, sustainability practices have become essential to maintain companies long-term success and maintain their loyal customers. The growing popularity of sustainability around the globe increases the pressure on apparel and footwear companies to heavily consider developing sustainable apparel and its related products.

For other industries, in an attempt to determine means to identify and retain potential customers, researchers have examined the perceived attractiveness of green products characteristics such as hybrid cars and green electronic products (e.g., PCs, monitors, printers) (Hast etal. 2015; Hur etal. 2015). Some studies also examined the relationships among consumers perception, expectation, and purchasing behaviors for green products (Cowan and Kinley 2014; Diddi and Niehm 2016; Han and Chung 2014; Tseng and Hung 2013). However, limited research exists investigating how consumers perceive green sportswear, in particular, and what consumers expect from this specic green sportswear. Although the increasing numbers of sportswear companies have placed the heavy emphasis on incorporating sustainability into their product design and development practices and joined the SAC to measure their sustainability performance (e.g., environmental, social, labor impacts of making and selling their products and services), limited attention has been given to understanding the relationships of perception and expectation of potential green sportswear customers with their purchase intention.

The purpose of this study was to examine green sportswear purchase intention by investigating the eects of their expectation, perception, subjective norm, perceived behavior control, and attitude on purchasing green sportswear. In this study, green sportswear was dened as a specic product category made of natural and (or) recycling materials that use alternative fabrics or bers (e.g., organic cotton, plastic bottle) with less pollution and less waste to preserve our nature. The two specic research

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objectives were to: (1) identify important predictors that inuence U.S. consumers purchase intention for green sportswear and (2) further investigate dierential inuences towards purchase intention for green sportswear between non-green and green product users. Notwithstanding the important contributions of past studies, there remains a lack of understanding of the barriers to non-green product users. Also, in spite of dynamic changes in the apparel industry in general, increased sales of sportswear, and increased emphases on environmental issues, little research has explored the ways to guide apparel designers, manufacturers, and retailers in understanding consumers purchase behaviors regarding green sportswear more holistically. Therefore, we aimed this study to contribute to ll these gaps by explicitly examining the dierence between non-green and green product users in terms of their purchase intention for green sportswear.

Literature review

This study used a modied theoretical framework integrating consumers expectation and perception (Parasuraman et al. 1985; Tseng and Hung 2013) with the concepts within the theory of planned behavior that associates the psychological processes, how an individuals subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and attitude lead to ones behavioral intention (Ajzen 1991). This modied framework was used to examine consumers attitude towards green sportswear and social norm that describes the social pressure a person receives while performing certain behaviors. This information was used to infer consumers perception and expectation to accomplish their purchasing behavior.

Expectation andperception

The perceived service quality concept by Parasuraman et al. (1985) emphasizes the degree and direction of distinction between consumers expectation and their perception. Generally, expectation and perception signicantly inuence consumers satisfaction of a certain product (Parasuraman etal. 1985; Tsiotsou 2006). Consumers determine whether a products performance meets their expectation based on their satisfaction level regarding the current requirements for a given product (Oliver 1981). Perceived product quality associated with consumers expectation and perception has a direct positive inuence on consumers purchase intention (Boulding etal. 1993; Tsiotsou 2006).

Tseng and Hung (2013) classied 11 sustainable attributes into three dimensions (tangibility, assurance, reliability) to measure dierences between consumers expectation and perception associated with green products. Their results showed that when consumers expectation was signicantly higher than the perceived quality of the products, many were not willing to purchase green products. This nding can be interpreted as consumers intend to purchase green products if their expectation is equivalent to their perception.

Consumers may acquire their expectation through word-of-mouth, experience, and social media (Anderson and Fornell 2000). Consumers expectation can be predicted and observed with regard to beliefs and the reliability regarding products or services (Lee et al. 2014). For example, consumers who are dissatised with apparel products hold fewer expectation when exposed to negative word-of-mouth as well as exhibiting less repurchasing behavior with the product (Richins 1983). Also, consumers increasingly

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expect retail brands to behave in line with ethical fashion practices, because their expectation has formed a reference point for their evaluation of socially responsible business practices and eco-products to develop favorable or unfavorable attitude towards retail brands (Creyer and Ross 1997).

Consumers perception of eco-friendly brands provides positive inuences to their purchasing behavior (Lee et al. 2012). When purchasing products, consumers positive or negative experiences toward the products could be accumulated (Sproles 1979), which may lead to change their purchasing behavior (Smith and Swinyard 1983). Therefore, actual product trials, here experience, can have greater eect on consumers attitude than the product advertising (Lee et al. 2012). Consumers perception has also been shown to directly inuence their purchase intention for organic or green products, because of perceiving the products to be more environmentally friendly, safe, and good for their health (Lai and Cheng 2016). As consumers believe that apparel made of organic cotton is benecial to the environment, they tend to have favorable attitudes towards purchasing such apparel (Han and Chung 2014). From these past study results, we may conclude, if consumers have the experience of purchasing green sportswear, their purchase intention can be aected by their perception toward the green sportswear. In light of previous research, the following hypotheses were proposed for this study:

Hypothesis 1 Expectation positively inuences (a) consumers attitude towards green sportswear and (b) consumers purchase intention for green sportswear.

Hypothesis 2 Perception positively inuences (a) consumers attitude towards green sportswear and (b) consumers purchase intention for green sportswear.

Subjective norm

A subjective norm, the perceived social force for carrying out a particular behavior, is a function of referents beliefs, constituting social pressure placed upon consumers by their families, relatives, or close friends and is considered before an individual performs a behavior (Ajzen 1991). This norm reveals the extent to which an individual feels morally responsible for others by buying green products and how important positive social image is to consumers (Barber etal. 2014). Therefore, when purchasing products, a subjective norm plays a functional role in reecting a consumers perception of his or her close relationships, such as whether their referents think he or she should purchase a product and his or her motivations to conform to the referents (Noble etal. 2009). When their referents have strong negative feelings about a product, consumers are more likely to adjust their purchase intention; likewise, a customers purchase intention would be elevated if others more positively reference the same product (Kotler and Keller 2006).

Subjective norm has direct, signicant relationships with attitude, perceived behavioral control, and purchase intention of articial apparel (Kim and Karpova 2010). Subjective norms not only play an important role in an individuals purchasing decision, but also are positively associated with a consumers attitude towards certain types of behavior (Han and Chung 2014; Paul etal. 2016). Subjective norms are also important predictors for environmental-related behaviors (Ko 2012; Zheng and Chi 2015), second-hand

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clothing consumption (Xu et al. 2014), and green product consumption (Paul et al. 2016). Therefore, when purchasing green sportswear, consumers may be inuenced by information from environmental awareness groups who make claims about the positive eects of purchasing eco-friendly apparel. Based on previous ndings, the following hypothesis was proposed for this study:

Hypothesis 3 Subjective norm directly inuences (a) consumers attitude; (b) perceived behavioral control; and (c) purchase intention for green sportswear.

Perceived behavioral control

Perceived behavioral control (PBC) reects peoples perception of how easy or difficult it is to perform a behavior (Ajzen 2002). It reects perception regarding access to resources and opportunities needed to accomplish behavior, including access to money, time, and other resources, and the focal persons self-condence in the ability to carry out the behavior (Ajzen 1991; Taylor and Todd 1995). Consumers PBC towards purchasing organic products positively inuences their purchase intention (Kim and Chung 2011). If consumers consider the price for eco-friendly apparel is too high, they tend to purchase other traditional apparel instead of this sustainable apparel (Joergens 2006).

Although consumers have a positive attitude with green products, they might not always purchase the products inuenced by PBC (e.g., price) (Mandese 1991). PBC is not only a powerful factor inuencing to attitude and behavior change, but also is related to salient beliefs that have been regarded as important resources for decision-making (Armitage and Talibudeen 2010; Ajzen and Madden 1986). Roberts (1996) also argues that PBC can positively inuence consumers attitude and purchase intention. When a consumer considers that signicant others may not agree to purchase a product, he or she may experience psychological obstacles to performing this behavior, negatively aecting to ones PBC (Kim and Karpova 2010). Therefore, this study proposes that the higher the PBC, the higher the purchase intention for green sportswear. Based on the previous ndings, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4 Perceived behavioral control directly inuences (a) consumers attitude and (b) purchase intention for green sportswear.

Attitude andpurchase intention

Attitude, which contributes to beliefs, plays a prominent role in decision-making. Ultimately the decision to perform a behavior is relative to an individuals attitude and his or her overall evaluation of a specic behavior (Tonglet etal. 2004). Behavioral intention refers to an individuals subjective possibility of engaging in a behavior, which can be inuenced by attitudes towards performing the behavior (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980). There is a positive correlation between consumers attitude and their willingness to pay more for sustainable products (Laroche etal. 2001). Consumers tend to engage in a behavior when they have more favorable attitude towards and intention for completing that behavior (Ajzen 1991). A strong positive relationship was identied between

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attitude towards and purchase intention for eco-friendly apparel (Chen and Chai 2010; Cowan and Kinley 2014; Zheng and Chi 2015). The intention of consumers to purchase green products is determined by a positive attitude towards green products (Vazifehdoust etal. 2013).

Paul etal. (2016) found that the direct and indirect inuences of environmental concern through attitude on green behavioral intention, which can be concluded as attitude plays a vital role as a mediator between purchase intention and other variables. Johe and Bhullar (2016) also found that consumers attitude indirectly mediated the eect of organic identity on consumers purchase intention. Consumers who have more environmentally conscious attitude are more likely to purchase eco-friendly apparel (Umberson 2008). Based on the previous ndings, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 5 Attitude towards purchasing green sportswear positively relates to a consumers purchase intention for green sportswear.

Summary of the hypothetical relationships among the variables are shown in Fig.1.

Methods

A quantitative research methodology was employed using an online survey. Universitys Internal Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained before the data collection.

Sample anddata collection

Using a convenience sampling method, diverse U.S. male and female consumers aged 18years old and over were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), as empirical

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studies have indicated that MTurk data are as reliable as the traditionally collected data (Goodman etal. 2013). Participants took approximately 1520min to complete a web-based questionnaire and received 90 cents as their compensation.

To control diverse spectrum of participants understanding for green sportswear, at the beginning of online survey, we provided the denition of green sportswear used in this study: a specic product category made of natural and (or) recycling materials that use alternative fabrics or bers (e.g., organic cotton, plastic bottle) with less pollution and less waste to preserve our nature. Then we guided them to respond the survey questions based on this dened term. Participants were categorized into two groups later for data analyses: Group 1 (G1) non-green product users who had never purchased any green products and Group 2 (G2) green product users who had experience purchasing general green products (e.g., green kitchen utensils, eco-friendly cosmetic, organic food, green sportswear).

Survey instruments

This study employed multiple-item measurements that have been validated and determined as reliable. All six constructs (expectation, perception, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, attitude, and purchase intention) were adapted and modied from previous research (see Table 1) and measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree). Tseng and Hungs (2013) 11 items of sustainability attributes were adapted and modied to measure both expectation and perception variables. All measurement items were same for both variables, except the verb tense (e.g., will have vs. has). For each measurement item, the original phrase in Tseng and Hungs (2013) study, the green information product, was replaced to green sportswear for this study. For example, one of original items to measure perception, The green information product has eco-labels was modied as The green sportswear has eco-labels. One of original items to measure expectation, The green information product will have eco-labels, was modied to The green sportswear will have eco-labels. All of the rest items for these two variables, perception and expectation, were modied using the same procedure mentioned above.

Other measurement items were modied from 3-items of subjective norm (Fitzmau-rice 2005), 3-items of perceived behavioral control (Chang 1998), 7-items of attitude (Chang 1998; Fitzmaurice 2005; Madden etal. 1992), and 3-items of purchase intention (Madden etal. 1992). The survey also included a demographic information section (e.g., green product purchase experience, age, gender, ethnicity, education level).

Each expectation and perception measure consisted of 11 sustainability attribute-items within three sub-dimensions: (1) tangibility (4 items; visual or explicit information to measure green products consisting of appearance, eco-labels, labeling of product ingredients, and user-friendliness); (2) assurance (4 items; belief, trust, and condence in green products including environmental impact of materials, recyclability ratio, energy conservation rates, and recycling packing materials); and (3) reliability (3 items; green products promised ability to perform with respect to functional performance, conformance, and durability) (Tseng and Hung 2013).

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Table 1 Final measurement model testing results

Cronbachs ITCb

Expectation of green sportswear (5 items) .909The green sportswear will have a nice appearance .754 .718 The operation of the green sportswear will be user friendly .760 .723 The green sportswear will have good functional performance .883 .829 The design and operating characteristics of green sportswear will meetthe established standards

.793 .704

The people who I listen to could inuence me to buy green sportswear .686 .633 Important people in my life want me to buy green sportswear .910 .764 Perceived behavioral control (2 items) .896For me, to buy green sportswear is easy .901 .812 If I want to, I could easily buy green sportswear .901 .812 Attitude (7 items) .953Bad vs good .850 .824 Foolish vs wise .902 .874 Harmful vs benecial .826 .802 Unfavorable vs favorable .867 .845 Unsatisfactory vs satisfaction .865 .847 Not valuable vs valuable .864 .856 Worthless vs worthwhile .891 .870 Purchase intention (3 items) .964I intend to buy green sportswear in the future .912 .896 I will try to buy green sportswear in the future .972 .942 I will make an eort to buy green sportswear in the future .962 .933

a Items remaining after conrmatory factor analysis

b ITC item-total correlation

Data analysis procedures

Structural equation modeling using AMOS version 23 was performed to test the hypothesized paths. Each measurement model was rst validated by running a conrmatory factor analysis. Parameters were estimated using the maximum likelihood method. For model t, we used the goodness of t index (GFI), comparative t index (CFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). Sobel test was also performed for examining the degree of a mediation eect of attitude on other variables (Sobel 1986). For further in-depth analysis, SPSS version 23 was used to run an independent t test for examining signicant mean dierences between the two consumer groups (non-green and green product users) in 11 sustainability attribute-items of perception and expectation.

Constructs andmeasurement itemsa Standardized factor loading

.823 .777

The green sportswear will have good durability .871 .818 Perception of green sportswear (6 items) .903The green sportswear has labeled the product ingredients clearly .731 .688 The green sportswear has ecolabel .764 .721 The green sportswear is made from no polluted materials .822 .772 The green sportswear has high recyclability ratio .831 .780 The green sportswear has high energy conservation rate .758 .715 The green sportswear has used recycling packing materials .778 .733 Subjective norm (3 items) .835Close friends and family think it is a good idea for me to buy greensportswear

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Results anddiscussion

Sample characteristics

A total of 542 usable responses were obtained after removing a total of 89 incomplete responses. The participants ages ranged from 18 to 74 years with a mean age of 33. About 53% were women and 47% were men. The majority was Caucasian/European American (75.3%) followed by African American (8.4%), Asian (6.7%), and others (9.7%). Most (90%) had obtained a college degree. Among the 542 participants, 134 were non-green product users (NG1=134) and the rest (NG2=408) were green product users including those who had used green sportswear.

Measurement model testing results

The t indices of the measurement model indicated an acceptable t: ~2(257) = 438.414,

p<.001, GFI=.941, CFI=.985, RMSEA=.036 (Hair etal. 2009). As shown in Table1, standardized factor loadings ranged from .686 to .972 and Cronbachs values were all higher than .70 (Hair etal. 2009), ranging from .835 to .964. This was the result of removing several items performing below .50 for certain variables (6 expectation items, 5 perception items, and 1 perceived control behavior item). After removing those items, item-total correlations were all over .30 (Nunnally and Bernstein 1994). Convergent validity and internal consistency were also satised (Hair etal. 2009). Discriminant validity of each construct was tested using the average variance extracted (AVE) and ranged from .611 to .902. The AVE for each construct was higher than its correlations with any other construct at p<.01 (see Table2).

Structural model andhypothesis testing results

Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was rst performed to test the research hypotheses (H1H5) in an overall conceptual framework with all study participants (N = 542). The next step was to compare the two dierent groups (NG1 = 134 and

NG2=408) in the same framework with each hypothesis.

Overall path model test results

An acceptable model t was achieved for the overall conceptual framework: ~2(262) = 682.160, p<.001, GFI=.914, CFI=.965, RMSEA=.054 (see Fig.1). The H1 results demonstrated that expectation (a) had a positive inuence on consumers attitude

Table 2 Correlation coefficients amongfactors

Mean SD Expectation Perception SN PBC Attitude PI

Expectation 5.62 1.03

Perception 5.86 .90 .510**

SN 4.12 1.29 .323** .244**

PBC 4.37 1.56 .244** .210** .397**

Attitude 6.02 1.07 .515** .397** .395** .230**

PI 4.89 1.44 .492** .333** .520** .309** .621** AVE .672 .611 .643 .825 .751 .902

SN subjective norm, PBC perceived behavioral control, PI purchase intention, SD standard deviation, AVE average variance extracted** p<.01

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(=.404, t=9.273, p<.001) and (b) directly inuenced consumers purchase intention towards green sportswear (=.200, t=5.059, p<.001). Our study indicates that expectation is an important factor for inuencing consumers attitude towards and purchase intention for green sportswear, which supports previous ndings by Lee etal. (2014).

H2a was supported, indicating that perception had positive inuences on consumers attitude (=.184, t=4.380, p<.001), which is consistent with previous studies regarding apparel made of organic cotton (Han and Chung 2014). However, H2b was not supported;

perception did not directly inuence consumers purchase intention for green sportswear, which is inconsistent with a previous study on consumers previous experiences with green products (Kim and Chung 2011). This non-supported result may mean that consumers can form dierent perception toward dierent product categories; for instance, consumers perception may dier between green sportswear and other green products.

All H3s were supported, which predict that subjective norm (a) had a positive inuence on consumer attitude (=.432, t=5.682, p<.001); (b) had a signicant eect on perceived behavioral control (=.271, t=7.877, p<.001); and (c) directly inuenced purchase intention (=.318, t=7.334, p<.001). This conrms previous research ndings on the positive inuence of subjective norm on eco-friendly purchase behavior, attitude, and perceived behavior control (Cowan and Kinley 2014; Liobikiene etal. 2016; Paul etal. 2016). If consumers feel more pressure from signicant others to purchase green apparel, they may become more engaged in purchasing green apparel products (Ko 2012). Therefore, in this study peer pressure from families or close friends could have inuenced consumers purchase intention for green sportswear.

H4s, on predicting perceived behavioral control (PBC) signicantly inuencing (a) consumers attitude and (b) purchase intention for green sportswear, were not supported. The ndings are contradicted by Ajzen (2002) and previous studies, where PBC positively inuences consumers attitude and purchase intention (Gopi and Ramayah 2007; Kang etal. 2013; Kim and Chung 2011). It is possible that when purchasing green sportswear, particularly, consumers care not only about time, money, and capabilities, but also other factors, which may more heavily inuence their attitude and purchase intention.

H5, regarding the positive inuence of consumers attitude on their purchase intention for green sportswear, was supported (=.399, t=9.092, p<.001). Attitude partially mediated the eect of expectation and subjective norm on purchase intention. Attitude also fully mediated the eect of perception on purchase intention. However, attitude did not signicantly carry the inuence of PBC to purchase intention. This result presents the signicant role of consumers attitude as a mediator in consumer purchase intention for green sportswear, which is consistent with previous ndings stating the signicant correlation between attitude and green product purchase intention (Rahbar and Wahid 2011; Chen and Chai 2010). Kang etal. (2013) argued that if consumers have enough information and shopping experience with sustainable textiles and apparel, they would develop positive perception of and attitude towards consumption, which would lead them to have stronger intention to purchase the products. Findings from H5 provide some insights for apparel retailers. Retailers need to provide more information of green products and consumer experience campaigns of these products to consumers, which may further enhance consumer attitude towards purchasing green sportswear.

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Comparative model test results

Comparative model testing was conducted to investigate how dierent factors perform dierently between non-green and green product users purchase intention for green sportswear. The t indices demonstrated acceptable t: ~2(542) = 1076.912, p = .000,

GFI=.876, CFI=.954, RMSEA=.044. As shown in Table3, the hypotheses, in general, were more statistically supported by the green product users (G2) than non-green product users (G1). The ndings indicated signicant dierences between G1 and G2 in terms of the direct eects of expectation and perceived behavior control on participants green sportswear purchase intention. It is because green product users had a positive experience of green products. Also, perception directly inuenced attitude toward green sportswear for G2; but did not supported for G1.

H1a suggested the signicant inuence of expectation on consumers attitude towards green sportswear for both G1 (=.616, t=6.818, p<.001) and G2 (=.356, t=7.212, p<.001). For H1b, G2s expectation positively aected their purchase intention for green sportswear (=.220, t=4.946, p<.001) while G1s expectation did not directly aect their purchase intention for green sportswear (=.060, t=.653, p=.514). Expectation for green sportswear, therefore, could be positively raised with trust and belief regarding less negative environmental impact between both G1 and G2. However, it is possible that G1 lacked knowledge and information regarding green sportswear.

For H2 s, G1s perception did not signicantly impact either attitude ( = .037, t=.507, p=.612) or purchase intention for green sportswear (=.003, t=.211, p=.832). On the other hand, G2s perception positively inuenced attitude (=.175, t=3.591, p<.001), but not purchase intention (=.030, t=.709, p=.478). The results

Table 3 Hypothesis test results and mediation results between two dierent consumer groups

Hypothesis andmoderation Result

G1 (N=134) G2 (N=408)

P value Z value P value Z value

H1a: expectation attitude Supported*** Supported***

H1b: expectation PI Not supported Supported***

M1: expectation attitude PI Fully supported .001 Partially supported .001

H2a: perception attitude Not supported Supported***

H2b: perception PI Not supported Not supported

M2: perception attitude PI Not supported .614 Fully supported .001

H3a: SN attitude Supported*** Supported***

H3b: SN PBC Supported*** Supported***

H3c: SN PI Supported*** Supported***

M3: SN attitude PI Partially supported .011 Partially supported .001

H4a: PBC attitude Not supported Not supported

H4b: PBC PI Not supported Supported*

M4: PBC attitude PI Not supported .771 Not supported .083

H5: attitude PI Supported*** Supported***

G1 non-green product users, G2 green product uses, H hypothesis, M moderation, SN subjective norm, PBC perceived behavioral control, PI purchase intention* p<.05*** p<.001

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show that there is a dierence in the attitude of G1 and G2 regarding their perception of green sportswear quality.

All H3s were supported; subjective norm for both G1 and G2 (a) had a positive inuence on consumers attitude (=.253, t=2.903, p<.01; =.264, t=4.836, p<.001);

(b) had a signicant eect on PBC (=.436, t=4.205, p<.001; =.422, t=6.625, p<.001); and (c) directly inuenced purchase intention (=.294, t=3.432, p<.001;

=.328, t=6.599, p<.001). This is consistent with the previous nding suggesting that subjective norm is an important predictor of green purchasing behaviors (Moser 2015).

One of the motivations for consumers green consumption was to comply with other referents, and younger people are more easily aected by what others think about an issue than older populations (Coleman etal. 2011).

H4s were partially supported; for G1, their PBC did not have any eect on attitude (=.025, t=.295, p=.768) or purchase intention for green sportswear (=.005, t=.063, p=.950). For G2, furthermore, PBC did not have any signicant positive inuence on their attitude (=.082, t=1.751, p=.080); however, had a direct positive eect on their purchase intention for green sportswear (=.086, t=2.119, p<.05). In accordance with previous studies, PBC proved to be an antecedent of behavioral intention for ethical fashion consumption (Joergens 2006). In this study, PBC performed differently on purchase intention for the two consumer groups. According to Ajzen (1991), the eects of subjective norm, attitude, and PBC on purchase intention may be dierent across various consumer groups and their situations. Green products are often perceived to be more expensive than traditional products. It is obvious that the price of a product is an important factor in the decision-making process, especially for those unconcerned consumers who are not willing to pay higher prices for green products or for consumers with limited resources (Moser 2015). Therefore, for G2, the results of the positive eect of PBC on purchase intention indicate that they will form favorable attitude towards green sportswear consumption when they have the available resources.

The results of H5 presented the signicant eect of attitude on purchase intention for both G1 (=.360, t=5.271, p<.001) and G2 (=.541, t=7.368, p<.001). The ndings of this study supported the ndings from previous studies, conrming the strong relationships of attitude with future intention in terms of eco-friendly apparel consumption (Cowan and Kinley 2014). Attitude has been conrmed as an important factor for determining purchase intention among various studies on green apparel (Kim and Karpova 2010; Ko 2012), and played a role of mediator in organic consumerism (Johe and Bhullar 2016).

Sobel test was also performed for examining the degree of a mediation eect of attitude on other variables. The results presented that attitude toward green sportswear had the higher degree of mediation eect for G2 than G1. Relationships between perception and purchase intention, for example, were not mediated by attitude for G1 (see Table3).

Further analysis results

The results of hypothesis testing identied some important predictors of U.S. consumers purchase intention for green sportswear; however, two constructs (perception and expectation) generated dierent results by two dierent consumer groups (non-green product users vs. green product users). Therefore, an additional analysis was

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administered to explore the reasoning behind these dierences. Roles of 11 sustainability attribute-items of expectation and perception were also examined to understand the eect of key factors on consumers purchase intention for green sportswear between the two dierent consumer groups. An independent t-test was performed to examine whether there was any signicant mean dierence (MD) between the two consumer groups in 11 sustainability attribute-items under three sub-dimensions of perception and expectation (see Table4).

As shown in Table4, most attribute-items of all three sub-dimensions of both perception and expectation were not statistically signicant between the two groups. However, green product users had higher mean scores of attribute-items in all three sub-dimensions and every attribute of both expectation and perception as compared to those of non-green product users in general. For expectation, the reliability sub-dimension items had the largest MDs between the two groups, whereas for perception, the assurance sub-dimension items included the largest MDs between the two groups. Green product users not only held higher expectation of green sportswears ability to perform well, but also more deeply considered the trustworthiness of its environmental claims, compared to non-green product users. The lowest MDs between the two groups were tied with the conformance item (MD=.08) under reliability and the appearance item (MD=.09)

under tangibility. Although the results show the MDs between the two groups, the energy conservation item under assurance was the only statistically signicant one

Table 4 Mean dierences inperceptions andexpectations betweengreen andnon-green product users

Sub-dimensions/attribute items

Tangibility 5.64 (.91) 5.76 (.84) .12 5.64 (.91) 5.76 (.84) .12

Labeling of product

5.70 (1.12) 5.83 (1.08) .13 5.68 (1.18) 5.86 (1.06) .18

Ecolabel 5.95 (.98) 5.99 (.92) .04 5.80 (1.14) 5.99 (.96) .19

Appearance 5.31 (1.22) 5.46 (1.25) .15 5.29 (1.21) 5.38 (1.31) .09

User friendli ness

5.61 (1.03) 5.76 (1.05) .15 5.49 (1.18) 5.67 (1.12) .18

Assurance 5.85 (.92) 5.98 (.87) .13 5.70 (1.00) 5.86 (.98) .16

Environmental impact

5.92 (1.08) 6.00 (1.08) .08 5.77 (1.18) 5.91 (1.12) .14

Recycling ratio 6.09 (.99) 6.08 (1.02) .01 5.81 (1.10) 5.93 (1.11) .12

Energy conser vation

5.52 (1.21) 5.78 (1.14) .26* 5.43 (1.26) 5.67 (1.18) .24*

5.89 (1.09) 6.05 (1.03) .16 5.78 (1.15) 5.91 (1.11) .13

Reliability 5.50 (1.14) 5.71 (1.12) .21 5.37 (1.18) 5.51 (1.20) .14

Functional performance

5.49 (1.26) 5.72 (1.22) .23 5.29 (1.34) 5.51 (1.28) .22

Conformance 5.63 (1.08) 5.81 (1.13) .18 5.54 (1.13) 5.62 (1.20) .08

Durability 5.37 (1.40) 5.58 (1.33) .21 5.27 (1.44) 5.38 (1.41) .11

G1 non-green product users, G2 green product users, SD standard deviation * p<.05

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Expectation Perception

G1 mean (SD) (NG1=134)

G2 mean (SD) (NG2=408)

G1 mean (SD) (NG1=134)

G2 mean (SD) (NG2=408)

Mean difference

Mean dierence

Recycling packing material

Nam et al. Fash Text (2017) 4:2

(p<.05) between the two groups for both expectation and perception. This result can be explained as green product users, more than non-green consumers, believe that conserving energy during green sportswear production processes can lead to a reduction in energy consumption in general. This additional analysis did illuminate a great deal in explaining the non-supported hypotheses as well as providing some insights for future research.

In addition, based on consumers experiences within both groups, the main reasons for non-green product users to be unwilling to purchase green sportswear and/or green products were related to premium price (31.1%) followed by limited product availability (24.6%) and lack of product information (21.3%). On the other hand, the key reasons for green product users to be unwilling to purchase green sportswear and green products were more connected with a lack of product information (44.9%) followed by limited product availability (25.1%) and premium price (13.9%). In spite of apparel companies continuous eorts to incorporate sustainability practices in their product development processes and their strategic promotion of this movement via social media, both consumer groups in this study still feel like they lack product information about sustainable (or green) sportswear and think there are limited products available in green sportswear.

Conclusion andfuture implications

The ndings of this study suggest that creating a positive attitude toward buying green sportswear enables a signicant consideration for apparel retailers who aim to increase consumers purchase intention for green sportswear. As a result, this study suggests for apparel retailers to develop eective and dierent segment marketing strategies between non-green and green product users that meet consumers satisfaction and awareness for green sportswear. Numerous studies have been conducted to examine the eects of green products on consumers purchase intention within diverse disciplines; however, limited research has investigated on the eects of consumers expectation and perception on purchasing intention for green sportswear. Therefore, this study is unique in terms of proposing and testing an extended conceptual model by integrating antecedent variables (expectation and perception) with the concepts of the theory of planned behavior (subjective norm, perceived behavior control, attitude, and purchase intention). SEM analysis was performed to examine an overall path model using a whole sample of study participants and a comparative model using the two dierent consumer groups from the sample.

The results conrmed that signicant eects of expectation, perception, subjective norm, and attitude as a mediator variable, played important roles in purchasing green sportswear in the overall conception model; however, dierent from our original hypothesis, perceived behavior control (PBC) did not have any eect on attitude and purchase intention for green sportswear. In the comparative model testing, signicant dierences were found in the two groups in direct relation to both expectation and PBC towards purchase intention for green sportswear. Furthermore, moderating eect of attitude on the relationship between perception and purchase intention was signicantly dierent between the two groups due to positive prior purchasing experience of green product users. Therefore, expectation, subjective norm, and attitude emerged as important factors in the comparative model.

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More specically, when comparing the two consumer groups, a signicant dierence was found in an energy conservation item under the assurance sub-dimension for both expectation and perception. Interestingly, non-green product users were unwilling to purchase green sportswear due to the premium price, while green product users were unwilling to purchase green sportswear due to a lack of information about green products. From the ndings, we can conclude that consumers previous purchase experiences with green products facilitate their purchase intention for green sportswear.

The modied version of the theory of planned behavior, adding two additional variables (expectation and perception), was demonstrated to be eective for testing consumers purchase intention for green sportswear. This model can be a useful tool for examining consumers purchase intention for other types of green products available on the market. Future research should retest this model with other product categories and consider adding other variables (e.g., satisfaction) closely related to perception and expectation to test the eectiveness of this modied model.

The ndings of this study provide insights for practical implications considering the following variables: expectation, perception, and subjective norm. Consumer experience campaigns regarding environmental concerns and products can lead to greatly increasing consumers awareness about green sportswear and its consumption. Sales managers should make eort on educating consumers direct and indirect benets about the environmental preservation, energy conservation, and human well-being through social media and prior experience campaign. They can also use celebrity eects to conduct green-related campaign to form consumers favorable attitude towards green sportswear consumption. Therefore, increasing the level of subjective norm as well as attitude, thereby increasing the likelihood of purchasing green sportswear, it is important to enhance consumers expectation by applying green cause-related marketing in advertising and promotional activities.

Furthermore, given the important mediating eect of attitude, expectation, perception, and subjective norm in predicting consumers behavioral intention towards purchasing green sportswear, apparel retailers may consider providing all relevant information about green products upfront so that consumers awareness of the green sportswear can be eventually improved. What is more, it is vital to convince consumers that they can make a substantial dierence in the environment by using green products.

Although an online survey using MTurk provided a sample from diverse U.S. geographical locations, the sampling pool was limited to only those individuals who had access to MTurk. It is recommended that future researchers conduct a similar study with a U.S. representative sampling frame to obtain more comprehensive data. The small or uneven sample size between two consumer groups may be problematic for the SEM analysis. For future research, we recommend having an even number of sample size of more than 220 for each group (Hair et al. 2009). Although the quantitative approach allowed examination of the inuence of key factors on consumers purchase intention for green sportswear, it was unable to fully provide the underlying reasons to the phenomenon. In this regard, a qualitative research approach is useful for exploring more detailed reasons underlying the relationships among variables and green sportswear purchasing behavior through dierent consumer characteristics.

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Authors contributions

CN and YL originated the research idea. CN, HD, and YL designed and conducted the research. CN and HD collected and analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript. CN and HD drafted literature review. YL supervised research design and conduction, revised and improved the manuscript. CN and YL contributed on the improvement and revision of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the nal manuscript.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Received: 16 June 2016 Accepted: 1 November 2016

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