Vol 9, Issue 1, 2020 ISSN - 2347-5544 THE MEASUREMENT OF CONSUMER GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION DETERMINANTS TOWARD HYBRID CARS IN MALAYSIA SITI SALWANI MEOR AHMAD 1 , NOOR AZMAN ALI 2* 1 Putra Business School, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. 2 School of Business and Economics, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. Email: nazman@upm.edu.my Received: 30 October 2020, Revised and Accepted: 27 November 2020 ABSTRACT Transportation is acknowledged as one of the major sources of greenhouse gasses and air pollution. Thus, promoting cars with high efficiency in fuel consumption and reduce emission is required to replace conventional cars. In that case, encouraging consumer to purchase green car by identifying factors that affect green car purchase intention among Malaysian is important. This study provides some preliminary evidence on determinants of hybrid cars purchase intentionin Malaysia and green product attachment as a mediator.Hence, the validity and reliability of instrument were examined via pretest and a pilot test. The data normality also waschecked by using SPSS version 21. The findings suggest that the Green Trust and Green Product Attachment are the most significant factors on the influence toward Green Purchase Intention of hybrid cars in terms of reliability score. Keywords: Green product attachment, Green purchase intention, Hybrid cars. INTRODUCTION Today, the world is witnessing a lot of environmental issues at the global level, such as environmental degradation, global warming, ozone depletion, and climate change. All these environmental problems have significant consequences on human wellbeing and quality of life [1]. The high fossil fuel usage and consumption in transportation increase the emission of pollutants causing the emission of the greenhouse effect that can cause global warming [2,3]. The fact is, the transportation system brings a massive impact on the country’s socio-economic development especially in Malaysia. In directing to achieve developed country status and preserve the environment, Malaysia is committed to this transition toward sustainability and aims to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). Hence, the environmental issue will have to be resolved with advanced technology and environmental policy. In line with the National Automotive Policy (NAP) 2014 objectives, some options that the automotive industry can adopt are by introducing cleaner fuels and technologies or adjusting technologies to produce green vehicles such as electric car, hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), natural gas vehicle (NGV), and other alternative fuel vehicles. Shifting toward carbon reduction can be done through behavioral intervention. Therefore, green marketers should have a better insight into consumer purchase intention. Purchase intention is part of the consumer decision- making process that stimulates consumers to purchase a product in their purchase consideration [4]. Green purchase intention is defined as consumer consideration to purchase a product that has eco characteristics [5]. On the other hand, Chen and Chang [6] conceptualized green purchase intention as a consumer willingness to buy specific products that meet the environmental needs. One of the popular theories that explain behavioral intention is the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Based on the TPB, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral controls are formed as predictors of intention [7]. Many firms use purchase intention in forecasting new product sales, and repurchase an existing product, or forming marketing strategies [8,9]. The determinants of green purchase intention are green knowledge, green trust, green pricing, and social influence. Green knowledge has been viewed as people’s knowledge or understanding of the ecosystem and environmental impact [10]. Knowledge is linked with the cognitive process whereby commonly knowledgeable people will understand the situation and help them decide on particular issues [11]. However, the consumer-level of product knowledge will impact their information and decision-making. According to Chen [12], green trust is consumer belief that goods have credibility, benevolence, and the ability to protect the environment. In other words, the product or brand that has eco-attributes, green benefits, or safe for the environment may gain consumer trust. One of the alternatives to lead green behavior is by increasing consumer trust [13]. On the other hand, a good green pricing strategy should be applied by taking into consideration of environment and consumer willingness to purchase as the price is a main perceived hurdle to buy a green product [14]. Consumer willingness to purchase is defined as the maximum price that consumer willing to spend on a certain quantity of green products [15]. On another aspect related to green marketing, social influence is a person or group that influence other people, where someone follows and accepts other’s expectations and information [16,17]. Social influence role is crucial in sustainability behavior because environmental issues are abstract and less instantaneous. Hence, by looking at other’s reactions is a way to get immediate feedbacks [18]. In contrast, Gupta and Ogden [19] claimed individual will conform to group norms with the condition she or he has a higher trust in others. Green product attachment is an emotional bonds that consumer experiences toward environmentally-safe products [20]. On the subject of sustainability, green product attachment can be elucidated as an emotional tie that encounters between a person and a green product. Happiness, joy, security, anxiety, anger, and sadness are the types of emotions that people feel toward a product. That emotional attachment felt by the consumer may occur along any buying process, starting from the pre-purchase phase, buying phase, and post-purchase phase [21]. This is acknowledged earlier by Desmet and Hekkert [22] as feeling toward a product aesthetic may present before the product is bought. Besides, product attachment is developed from consumer interaction with the product. That makes sense why it could determine individual behavioral motivations and intentions toward the object [23]. A consumer who is emotionally attached to the product tends to purchase, spread the word of mouth, repurchase, revisit, patronage, and invest in the attached product or brand [24,25]. Review Article