The Relationship Between Collectivism and Green Product Purchase Intention: The Role of Attitude, Subjective Norms, and Willingness to Pay a Premium.

Environmental degradation caused by the unsustainable consumption behavior of consumers puts a strain on the environment and is hindering sustainable development. One approach is to reduce or change consumption from traditional products to green products to avoid this negative impact and encourage a more sustainable economy. This paper examines the impact of culture over the consumer’s green purchase intention in Jordan by examining the collectivist cultural dimension to the Jordanian consumer and applying attitudes towards green products, subjective norms towards green products, and willingness to pay a premium. A conceptual model is developed in this research by linking collectivism with green product purchase intention and applying the effect of attitude toward green products, subjective norms towards green products, and WPP to see if these mediators affect the direct relation between collectivism and green product purchase intention. By contacting data from 143 consumers, the result of this study revealed that collectivism plays a significant role in enhancing green product purchase intention and that such a relationship is mediated by attitude toward green products, subjective norms towards green products, and willingness to pay a premium.


Introduction
Consumers' concern about sustainability issues and eco-friendly products has been widely increased in the last decade. According to a recent study by Unilever-a UK-based company-a third of consumers are now buying from brands based on their social and environmental impact (Unilever, 2017). The study also revealed that an estimated €966 billion opportunity exists for brands that make their sustainability credentials clear. Green consumers reflect the levels of environmentally concerned consumer behavior, as well as impact businesses by improving their public and brand images (Chen, 2010). The green product purchase intention is affected by various factor including demographic backgrounds of the consumers, consumer attitudes and preferences towards green products and sustainability, as well as the cultural contexts that live in (Kim & Choi, 2005).
Past studies about green product purchase intention argued several antecedents that motivate consumer environmental behavior, including individual knowledge about the brand and its green positioning (Suki, 2016), consumer expectations and perception about a company (Nam et al., 2017), consumers environmental concerns (Chaudhary, 2018), self-image congruence with green product consumers (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2020), and customer green product experience (Zahid et al., 2018). However, little attention has been paid to examine the collectivism-one of Hofstede (1980) cultural dimension-as one of the antecedents of green product purchase intention-particularly in Arabic countries such as Jordan. According to the UN Environment Program, Jordan is on the right path towards being eco-friendly, especially regarding the absolute abolition of support of oil, and is beginning to adapt to the renewable energy law and the formation of an "Eco-Cities Forum, Eco-Financing Seminar and the Zarqa River Rehabilitation Project". Moreover, ever since the beginning of this decade, the government of Jordan has been willing to work towards the development of a "green economy" by reasserting the urge to launch a program for green services and industries to meet the requirements for adhering to environmental standards and turning Jordan into a regional center for green services and industries. It is clear then that the Jordanian government is working seriously towards a greener economy, but what is not so clear is the Jordanian customer's behavior regarding the purchase of environmentally friendly goods. This study is necessary because it sheds light on an important topic that has not been examined before in Jordan. It investigates the effect of the level of collectivism among Jordanian customers on green product purchase intentions. Moreover, it explores the mechanism of how such relationships work by invoking customers' attitudes toward green products, subjective norms, and willingness to pay a premium as mediator variables that may explain the nature of the relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention in Jordanian customers.
Therefore, the study's main objectives are to shed light on green consumerism in Jordan and to analyze and study how culture's collectivism impacts the green purchase intention in Jordan. This work is built on the knowledge that culture does affect the consumer's green purchase intention and their ethical behavior when it comes to decision-making or ethical purchasing. Further, this study explores the mechanism of how such effect occurs by examining the mediation effect of three variables that are expected to play a critical role in assimilating the effect of collectivism and transform it to purchase intention; namely attitude toward the green product, subjective norms, and willingness to pay a premium. Thus, this study aims to answer the following questions: Does collectivism affect green product purchase intention? If yes, then does attitude toward the green product, subjective norms toward green products, and willingness to pay premium mediated the relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention?
The rest of this paper is structured as follows: theoretical background and the hypotheses development are provided in the next section, followed by a detailed explanation of the research design and the results. Then, the theoretical and managerial implications of the study are discussed. We conclude with recommendations and suggestions for future studies.

Theoretical background
2.1. Customer culture and green product purchase intention A crucial aspect of this research is culture, which is the main explanation of consumer behavior differentiation across countries; therefore, research on the effect of culture on consumer behavior is critical. To start with, we must have a clear understanding of what culture is and how it has been explained in previous studies. There have been many definitions of culture; however, all the definitions are in the same direction. Culture, according to Durmaz (2014), is what ties and keeps groups together. People of his viewpoint would have difficulties living together if it were not for the shared culture. He also adds that a human community is defined through culture, from the individual to society as a whole. The most acceptable definition of culture proposed by Hofstede (2001) is that culture is a set of controlled mechanisms -plans, rules, recipes, instructions -that distinguish one group of people from another. It is the collective experiences of several people who have had similar upbringing and education share. Hence, the individual is the product of such a common environment, and their acts are conditioned by their social culture. We can safely say then that it is not possible to separate culture from people. Its role in society is just like the role of memory to every single one of us. Thus, it contains all the common beliefs, behaviors, values, and traditions from people who use a particular language and who also share a geographical location in a specific period.
Five different types of culture have been proposed by Hofstede (2001) including power distance, individualism/collectivism, Masculinity/Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance, and long-term/short-term orientation. In this study, we only focused on the individualism-collectivism dimension of the culture as it has been well understood and has been widely argued in the sustainability literature (Aljarah, 2020;Eisingerich & Rubera, 2010;Smith et al., 2006). Individualist-collectivist reflects an individual's relationship with his/her fellow individuals. It has been defined as "the subordination of personal interests to the interest of the group (collectivism) vs emotional independence and pursuit of personal goals, irrespective of group goals (individualism) (Fischer and Mansell (2009, p. 1340). According to the study of Swaidan (2012), the identity of a collectivist is built around the group, not on the individual. Thus, it can be said that the group acts as an intrusive force, canceling out the self, but in reality, it may provide its members with defense and security. Therefore, a collectivistic culture emphasizes shared responsibilities and needs within the community before that of the individuals. Individualism, on the other hand, stands for a society where the bonds between its members are loose (Hofstede, 1980). We could well say that each member looks for his/ her own needs or those of the family in the scenario. People who are individualists considered their independence, delight, time, and their expression of utmost importance; they tend to permit individual initiatives and excel in unilateral decision making (Crossland & Hambrick, 2011). The aim is to attain the personal goals and rights of the individual. From the point of view of the customer's attitude, individualism has defined behavior that values personal objectives over those of the whole and is more autonomous (Choi & Nisbett, 1998;Lim et al., 2018). Further, consumers from individualistic societies are more likely to assume that the individual is deemed to be the source of moral authority and is quite capable of evaluating the consequences of personal conduct while in collectivist societies, customers are more likely to describe themselves based on group membership with a dependent perception of more group benefits rather than personal ones (Schumann et al., 2010).
Green product purchase intention has been widely argued in the literature among scholars (Suki, 2016;Paul et al., 2016). It has been defined as "the ones who take into consideration the environmental consequences of their consumption patterns and intend to modify their purchase and consumption behavior for reducing the environmental impact" (Kumar and Ghodeswar, 2015, p. 331). In other words, it is the process of buying a product that is qualified to be environmentally friendly instead of buying products that harm our environment (Chan, 2001). Previous studies have reported a gap between consumers expressing attitudes that favor green purchasing and actual purchasing practices (Joshi & Rahman, 2015). For instance, the study of Foster et al. (2006) shows that thirty percent of the UK customers did report their environmental concerns; however, their concerns were rarely shown when it came to green purchase, thus, confirming the gap that exists between consumers who are actually worried about the environment and then making a stand by purchasing green products. Hence, we might say the gap exists between the consumer's thinking and feeling and their actions. Such a gap could be due to economical, institutional, social, and cultural factors (Wiederhold & Martinez, 2018). Provided that the continued growth of consumption leads to climate change, draining of natural resources, pollution of the air, and the creation of a waste generation, the disposal of which could have a disastrous effect on our environment (Liobikiene et al., 2016), consuming green products has several benefits to the society such as increasing the quality of life, the greater chance of leading a safe and stable life concerning lifetime, sickness, and ill-nesses (Smith, 2016).
This study argues that collectivism plays a critical role in enhancing green product purchase intention. In this regard, several studies have argued the positive impact of customer culture on consuming green products. For instance, the study of Kim and Choi (2005) employs a framework of value-attitude-behavior and found that the collectivist value orientations of customers play a significant role in enhancing their beliefs about their effectiveness, which in turn boost their green product purchase intention. Similarly, the study of McCarty and Shrum (2001) argues and empirically found that customers who have collectivist orientations are more willing to consume eco-friendly products. Thus, we expect that collectivism will have a positive impact on green product purchase intention. The study of Samarasinghe (2012) found that collectivism is a strong indicator of the development of environmental attitudes. Further, the study of McCarty and Shrum (1994) argues that collectivism is for individuals who think in a collectivist manner and are likely to preserve the world so that prosperity can be enjoyed by society as a whole. Other studies (Chan, 2001;Ling-Yee, 1997) have also argued the positive effect of collectivism on consumer green behavior. People pursue their interests and aspirations in an individualistic society, give importance to individuality and self-reliance, and avoid external social or institutional intervention (Gagnier, 2010). Therefore, it seems that individuals from individualistic cultures appear to be autonomous and selforiented, whereas collectivist cultures appear to be more interdependent and group-oriented. Thus, the following is hypothesized: H1. Customer culture (Collectivism) has a positive impact on green product purchase intention

The mediation effects
The theory of reason-action was first developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1980). It is based on the premise that individuals make reasoned decisions to engage in specific behavior based on a set of theoretical constructs, namely attitudes and subjective norms (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Attitudes have been defined as a psychological path that determines favor or disfavor of an individual towards a specific object (Eagly & Chaiken, 2007), while subjective norms are defined as the social pressure that individuals perceive from people important to them to do or not to do a specific behavior (Zhang et al., 2019). In this study, we argue that attitude and subjective norms toward green products mediate the positive relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention. On one hand, collectivism has been considered one of the critical antecedents of attitude toward green products. For instance, the study of Cho et al. (2013) revealed that the collectivist orientation of individuals plays a significant role in determining their environmental attitude. While other studies have argued the significant role of collectivism on subjective norms. For instance, the study of Lee and Green (1991) empirically confirmed the effect of collectivism on subjective norms. On the other hand, both attitude and subjective norms have been considered as two key antecedents of purchase intention according to the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Such a relationship has been well documented in the study of Nam et al. (2017) and the study of Suki (2016). Thus, we might say that the positive effect of collectivism on green product purchase intention is due to attitude and subjective norms toward green products. Therefore, we propose the following two hypotheses: H2. The positive relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention is mediated by attitude toward green products.
H3. The positive relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention is mediated by subjective norms toward green products.
Willingness to pay premium has been defined as being ready to pay more for a particular product brand than for comparable alternative brands (Casidy & Wymer, 2016;Netemeyer et al., 2004). On one hand, collectivist customers have been found as customers that are willing to pay more for a premium price for green products in the study of Tsen et al. (2006). On the other hand, the willingness to pay a premium for green products, as has been found in other studies, has a significant effect on green product purchase intention. For instance, the study of Xu et al. (2012) has argued the positive effect of willingness to pay a premium for green products and green product purchase intention. Thus, in this study, we assume that the positive relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention is also mediated by a willingness to pay a premium. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: H4. The positive relationship between customer culture and green product purchase intention is mediated by a willingness to pay a premium. The research conceptual model is illustrated in Figure 1.

Sampling
The sampling technique that was applied to the current study to collect the main data was purposive/nonrandom sampling because it involved participants who agreed and volunteered to participate. The population of the study is consumers in Jordan from all over the country and of different nationalities within the same country. 143 participants of various ages agreed to participate in the survey. The survey was conducted in both Arabic and English, and participants were given the choice to choose the version that suited them better.

Data collection
The participants took part in an online questionnaire with a focus on cultural collectivism and green products and their green product purchase intention. The online survey questionnaires were distributed via social media platforms and e-mails; the questionnaire was also sent to social and university groups in Jordan, and they were free to participate or not. The participants selected to participate were consumers living in Jordan of different ages and nationalities. The questionnaire was conducted during the period of Covid-19, and the questions were designed by applying models from previous researches.

Measurements
Earlier works developed scales that were used to develop the current study's questionnaire. The items/measures of most constructs were measured by the usage of a 5-point Likert Scale. 1 stood for strongly disagree and 5 stood for strongly agree. Participants submitted their answers and completed the survey within 10-15 minutes so it was not time-consuming for them. The current study is based on a questionnaire adopted from previous studies. The Armitage and Conner (1999) scale was adapted for green purchase intention measures; three measures were used to determine the possibility and desire of consumers to purchase green products. Measures for attitudes towards green products were adopted by the usage of the scale evolved by McCarty and Shrum (1994). The attitude toward green products measures assisted in clarifying if the consumer's care for the environment is present with him when purchasing and if he believes that green products help to save the environment. Measures for subjective norms were employed from a scale evolved by Armitage and Conner (1999). There are also three types of measures used for subjective norms in this study that assisted in estimating the effect of the customer's surrounding whether family members, friends, or work colleagues on his buying behavior. Willingness to pay premium measures were adapted through the usage of a scale evolved by Yadav and Pathak (2017). Only two measures were used which helped understand if the consumer has the intention of paying an extra amount of money to get a green good and, if yes, how much they would he be willing to pay. Yoo et al. (2011) created measures for collectivism that were used in this study. The questionnaire applied six measures for collectivism that assisted in testing the characteristics of a consumer regarding group goals over individual goals, the well-being of group members, and the willingness of group members to stick together despite all the difficulties.

Demographic profile
This type of statistic provides a comprehension of the participant's demographics (Table 1). The demographics that were applied in the current research are educational level, age, gender, nationality, employment status, and monthly income. The following tables provide the details of the demographics of the people who participated in this work. For gender, the participants showed that (44.8%) were males, and (55.2%) of the participants were females. This distribution in terms of gender demonstrates that gender was almost equally distributed, and the reason the word 'almost' was used is that females have a 12% advantage over male participants regarding the number of participants, so there is a small portion of the advantage of one gender over the other. In terms of age, participants as showed that out of 143 people who participated, the most dominant age group was the 25 -34 years group with (37.8 %), then the group of 18-24 years with a (34.3 %), and the group with the least percent was 35 and above, which had (28.0 %). So, in total, the age groups' results were quite close to each other with a difference of 3-4 percentile from each one. Moreover, the education levels of the participants showed that the bigger percentage of participants have a bachelor's degree (69.9%) followed by (23.8%) for master/Ph.D. and a small percentage for a high school education or bellow, with only (6.3%). The participants as shown in Table 1. demonstrates that the majority of the participants were from Jordan (72.7%), which is the dominant group in this study, followed by (18.2%) for participants from Palestine, and participants who chose 'other' represented (6.3%) of the participants, and with participants from Syria with (5.3%), who represented the smallest group. The level of employment as provided in the above table demonstrates that (46.9%) of the participants are employed full time, (17.5%) are employed part-time, (30.1%) are students and (3.5%) are retired and a (2.1%) didn't answer. And finally, within these respondents, (20.3%) make less than JD 250 as monthly income, (13.3%) make between JD 250-350, (19.6%) between JD 351-600, (18.2%) between JD 601-1000, (19.6%) JD 1001 and above, and (9.1%) didn't answer.

Validity and reliability analysis
Before the hypotheses testing using linear regression testing, the initial factor structure of the variables was contacted using exploratory factor analysis to examine the construct validity. The resulting dimensions and factor loading values of each item are illustrated in Table  1. As the table shows, all items had a strong loading level on their respective constructs (loadings above 0.60) (Hair et al., 2009). The internal consistency of the variables was examined using Cronbach's alpha value. Cronbach's alpha value of each construct ranged from acceptable to moderate (0.86 to 0.68) (Taber, 2018).

Hypotheses testing
Linear regression has been applied to examine the research hypotheses. As shown in Table 3, collectivism is a significant predictor of green purchase intention for Jordanian customers (β = 0.19; p <0.05). Thus, we accept the study's first hypothesis which claims that collectivism positively affects green product purchase intention. Hypotheses 2, 3, and 4 have been examine by (β = 0.19; p <0.05). This means that collectivism is a significant predictor of green product purchase intention. Thus, we accept hypothesis 1.
Linear regression has been applied to examine the Individuals should only pursue their goals after considering the welfare of the group .594 CC6 Group loyalty should be encouraged even if individual goals suffer .773 Green product purchase intention (α = 0.86) GPPI1 I intend to buy green products .880 GPPI2 I plan to purchase green products .884 GPPI3 I will purchase green products in my next purchase .857 Attitude toward the green product (α = 0.78) ATGP2 I believe that green products help to reduce pollution .940 ATGP3 I believe that green products help nature and its resources .987 Subject norm toward the green product (α = 0.77) SNGP1 People who are important to me think that I should buy green products .716 SNGP2 My interaction with people influences me to buy green products .823 SNGP3 My acquaintances would approve of my decision to buy green products .810 Willingness to pay premium (α = 0.68) WPP1 I would pay more for a green product that is making efforts to be environmentally sustainable .722 WPP2 I would be willing to pay this extra percentage on the green products to support the organization's product efforts to be environmentally sustainable .907 research hypotheses. Several steps have been applied to test the hypotheses. First, the direct relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention has been examined. As shown in Table 3, the results reported a significant relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention (β = 0.19; p <0.05). This means that collectivism is a significant predictor of green product purchase intention. Thus, we accept hypothesis 1. Second, the method of Baron and Kenny (1986) has been applied to examine the mediation effects. The direct relationship between collectivism and each of the mediators has been examined; as shown in Table 3, the standardized coefficient between collectivism and each of the mediators reported for a significant value (β = 0.32, p <0.05 for collectivism-attituded toward green product relationship; β = 0.29, p <0.05 for collectivism-subjective norms toward green product relationship; β = 0.21, p <0.05 for collectivism-attituded toward green product relationship).In addition, the direct relationship between each of the mediators and green product purchase intention has also been examined. The result reported a significant standardized coefficient between each of the study's mediators and green product purchase intention (β = 0.49, p <0.05 for attituded toward green product and green product purchase intention relationship; β = 0.55, p <0.05 for subjective norms toward green product and green product purchase intention relationship; β = 0.34, p <0.05 for attituded toward green product and green product purchase intention relationship). Finally, the indirect relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention through the mediators has been examined. The results revealed that the indirect relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention through attitude toward green products, subjective norms toward green products, and willingness to pay premium has been reduced (β = 0.07, p<0.05; β = 0.29, p <0.05; β = 0.21, p <0.05 respectively). Sobel's (1986) method has been applied to examine the significance of the mediators. As shown in Table 4, Sobel's test results indicated that all indirect paths are statistically significant at level 0.05. Thus, we accept Hypotheses 2, 3, and 4.

Discussion
The current research goal is to investigate and explore the relationship between consumer culture and green product purchase intention in the Jordanian context. Furthermore, it tries to uncover factors that explain such a relationship by examining the mediator role of attitudes towards green products, subjective norms towards green products, and willingness to pay a premium. The findings of this study revealed collectivism's positive effect on green product purchase intention. Further, the positive relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention is mediated by attitudes toward the green product, subjective norms, and willingness to pay a premium for green products.
The findings of this study have several theoretical and managerial implications. Theoretically, the current study responds to the most recent call of many scholars (Halder et al., 2020) to investigate, in more depth, the effect of cultural dimensions over green purchase intention by focusing on collectivism. In parallel with the findings of the study of Halder et al. (2020), the findings of this study confirmed the positive effect of collectivism on green product purchase intention. However, this study extends the current understanding of collectivism on green product purchase intention by examining such relationships in Eastern society -Jordan in particular. Moreover, the findings of this study confirmed the findings of study S Sreen et al. (2018) that collectivist consumers tend to purchase green products to sacrifice personal good for the good of all. Further, the findings of this study contribute to the literature by investigating the elements of the theory of reasoned actions; namely attitude and subjective norms as mediator variables the assimilate the effect of collectivism and convert it to green product purchase intention. Thus, the findings of this study extend the work of previous studies (Halder et al., 2020;Kim & Choi, 2005) by uncovering the mechanism of how collectivism can affect green product purchase intention. According to  lectivism and green product purchase intention. The findings illustrate that willingness to pay a premium also mediates the relationship between collectivism and green product purchase intention.
Practically, the findings of this study provide several managerial implications. Consumers from Jordan are high in collectivism, and its relationship with green product purchase intention was positive. This means that customers are ready to sacrifice their benefit and interest for the good of all, thus affecting their ethical purchase decisions. This means that the greater the collectivism feeling in Jordan, the higher the possibility of purchasing green products will be. Thus, for companies in Jordan to increase the purchase intentions of their customer, they should take into consideration producing green products. Further, the findings of the study also revealed that for collectivism to be effective on green product purchase intention in Jordan, consumer attitudes, subjective norms, and willingness to pay a premium of customers should be taken into the consideration. Thus, companies should invest more in increasing consumers' attitudes toward a green product, subjective norms toward green products, and willingness to pay a premium.

Limitation and directions for future studies
The limitations of this research depend on access, time, and financial constraints. Other limitations that have to be addressed are the number of samples and sampling. Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the sample size was limited, and reaching people to participate was also a difficulty; otherwise more participants would have made this research more precise. Time was another limitation-with more time, the sample size would have been greater. Apart from that, there is no opinion that different findings will show if different methods were applied to the actual research. Findings in this paper are strained to the model of this research. Further, more variables could be tested for this research that could improve the model such as including the generation, product relevance in the research conceptual model. Finally, the study was conducted in Jordan; improvements could be done if a study also tested Jordanian consumers that are living abroad and compare their results to the results of consumers living in Jordan and see in which ways culture is affected. Future research could make a compression study between Jordan and a contrasting culture and find out in which areas exactly culture impacts consumers differently. It must be noted that the current study was done under the circumstances of the Covid-19 Pandemic, so to find out if these circumstances affected the consumer's behavior a similar study could be done when this pandemic is over and compare and contrast the results.