Investigating the determinants of green restaurant patronage intention

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the influence of five environment-related factors on green restaurant patronage intention (IN) among restaurant patrons in Malaysiaxd. Design/methodology/approach The unit of analysis was individual restaurant patrons who dined at casual dining restaurants when the survey was conducted. Among the 600 questionnaires distributed, a total of 500 were deemed usable and sufficient for data analysis. Descriptive, reliability, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to analyze the data. Findings Respondents were concerned about the welfare and interests of others and demonstrated a positive attitude toward the environment and green purchasing. However, these three factors do not influence IN. Conversely, specific attitudes toward green restaurant practices and green purchase behavior determine such intention. This shows that a specific attitude measure serves as a better and closer predictor to predict a specific behavioral intention in a green restaurant setting, as compared to the general attitude measures. The results also indicated that green buyers who were engaged in purchasing green products will continue to dine at green restaurants in the future. Practical implications The finding provides an insight to the restaurant operators to access the feasibility of entering in the green market. Originality/value Although the predictive power of physiological factors such as environmental values, attitudes and behavior on the pro-environment-related behavior has been researched extensively in the past, very limited studies had investigated those factors simultaneously in the context of IN.