Purpose: In an effort to extend current literature on consumers’ sustainable consumption, this study intends to examine consumers’ buying intentions of green products by looking at the difference between recycling and upcycling products. In doing so, four major predictors are identified: environmental engagement, climate change awareness, future-oriented time perspective, and social norms. The effects of these variables on buying intentions are compared between the two types of green products, and as well as the relationship between buying intentions and actual buying behavior. In addition, the gap between buying intentions and behavior is further examined by looking at the moderating roles of perceived self-control, self-construal, and price sensitivity. Research design, data, and methodology: Data are collected through an online survey with a sample of 300 adult consumers. A guideline is given to help participants understand the concept of green products, and reliability test and confirmatory factor analysis are performed to check for measurement validity and reliability. Most of the measurement items are borrowed from the literature and measured using a 5-point Likert scale. Results: Results show that for upcycling products, future-oriented time perspective has the largest effect on buying intentions while social norm has a significant effect for recycling products. Also, purchase intention of green products is found to have a significant effect on actual buying behavior, however, no difference exists in the effects of buying intentions between the two product types. Lastly, it is found that the moderating role of self-construal in explaining the causal relationship between intentions and behavior is significant for recycling products while price sensitivity has a significant moderating effect for upcycling products. Implications: Theoretically, this study suggest that the type of green products need to be considered in understanding the complex nature of green product consumption behavior and, especially, the moderating roles of self-construal and price sensitivity provide further insights in explaining intention-behavior gap. Practically, managers may need to consider visible differences between product types when developing marketing strategies for promoting green products and, perhaps, differentiated market segmentation and positioning strategies are suggested between recycling and upcycling products.
Park et al. (2024) studied this question.