What Makes People Pay Premium Price for Eco-Friendly Products? The Effects of Ethical Consumption Consciousness, CSR, and Product Quality

With environmental issues rapidly emerging on a global scale, a growing number of the companies are paying greater attention to the behavioral outcome of general consumers who are more or less prone to purchasing eco-friendly products. Based on this background motivation, this study takes a new theory-driven approach to understanding what makes consumers purchase eco-friendly products at a premium price. For this purpose, this study drew on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to validate the factors affecting the purchase of eco-friendly products by employing variables such as attitude toward eco-friendly companies, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and ethical consumption consciousness. In addition, this study adopted the social responsibility of eco-friendly companies and the quality perception of eco-friendly products as moderating variables. The results indicate that attitudes toward eco-friendly products and ethical consumption consciousness have a positive impact on intention to buy eco-friendly products at a premium price. In addition, the social responsibility of environmentally friendly companies was found to moderate the effects of attitudes of eco-friendly products and the subjective norm on the intention to pay prem ium price. The results of this study may provide strategic directions as to how companies should create their corporate images not only as an environmentally friendly brand, but also an ethically responsible company.