An empirical study of consumer purchase intention for responsible enterprises in Chile

Abstract

Although there have been many studies on responsible enterprises, they have been mostly conducted in high-income societies and focused on organizational issues. Scant research has addressed consumer preferences for responsible enterprises, particularly in less developed regions. This study addresses this gap by examining the antecedents of consumer purchase intentions for products and services from responsible enterprises in Chile, a Latin American country. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), a conceptual model is developed, and hypotheses are tested with structural equation modeling (SEM). Data was collected from 200 Chilean consumers of B-Corps, a type of responsible enterprise. The findings reveal four main drivers that are related to consumers’ intention to purchase from responsible enterprises in Chile: (1) consumer attitude toward purchasing from responsible enterprises, (2) perceived behavioral control, (3) consumer involvement in responsible enterprises, and (4) consumer environmental consciousness. These results show that the main drivers of purchase intention for these firms are mostly related to consumer personal values and intrinsic motivations of being responsible with society and the environment. The findings of this study offer valuable insights to the literature on environmental management and are also useful for managers of responsible enterprises, B-Corps and public policymakers.

Keywords:

• responsible enterprises
• B-Corps
• consumer
• purchase intention
• Chile

Acknowledgments

We thank the editor and the reviewers for comments and suggestions that have greatly improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).