Do pro-environmental factors lead to purchase intention of hybrid vehicles? The moderating effects of environmental knowledge Muhammad Iskandar Hamzah * , Nurul Syafiqah Tanwir Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 42300, Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor, Malaysia article info Article history: Received 13 November 2019 Received in revised form 28 May 2020 Accepted 3 August 2020 Available online 9 August 2020 Handling Editor: Bin Chen Keywords: Environmental knowledge Ecological behavior Purchase intention Norm activation model Theory of planned behavior Hybrid vehicles abstract This research aimed to investigate the antecedents of Malaysians purchase intention of hybrid vehicles through the integration of the Norm Activation Model (NAM) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Data was collected from vehicle owners (n ¼ 256) across suburban areas of the Greater Kuala Lumpur and was analyzed using Partial-Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Specific pro- environmental factors, namely perceived green value, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm, were found to exert a positive influence over green purchase intention. Additionally, the results show that environmental knowledge has positive moderating effects on the link between perceived green value and green purchase intention. Perceived behavioral control was shown to mediate the effects of environmental concern and responsibility on green purchase intention. The findings reinforce the current view that pro-environmental factors overcome self-interest in buyers’ decision-making process. Given the limited literature integrating TPB and NAM within the hybrid vehicle market context, espe- cially in the developing economies, the findings provide a novel perspective for future research to build on. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction As the earth is repetitively experiencing record-breaking tem- peratures, science assures us that climate change is an inevitable outcome. In addition to the power sector and manufacturing in- dustry, road transport is accountable for a substantial portion of fossil fuel consumption and carbon emission that contributes to global warming. In order to mitigate and combat the adverse effects of climate change, electrified and hybrid vehicles are positioned as effective clean mobility solutions (Neves et al., 2019). In most developed economies, people are rapidly shifting from internal combustion engines’ based vehicles (ICEVs) to electric vehicles. In bold attempts to phase out ICEVs (or termed as “de-ICEing” ini- tiatives), cities such as Copenhagen, Oslo, London, Paris and Amsterdam have set deadlines to ban fossil-fuel-based vehicles from their roads (Ren and Jermain, 2019). While the numbers of newly released electric vehicle (EV) models are unprecedented, the pace of its adoption and its overall market share remains dismal (Egbue and Long, 2012). Excluding Japan, Asian countries have seen tremendous growth in their population rate and their economy over the past three decades. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of projected increases in greenhouse gas emissions is expected to come from this specific continent. By 2030, the share of Asia in the entire worldwide transport sectorerelated CO 2 emissions will increase to 31% (Asian Development Bank, 2018). In cognizant of the threats of climate change, Malaysia’s commitment to the reduction of CO 2 emissions was ratified by the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) in 2016. The country targets to reduce its GHG emission intensity of GDP by 45% by 2030 relative to the emission intensity of GDP in 2005 (Fulton et al., 2017). Despite the introduction of pol- icies to outline the emission reduction measures by Asian govern- ments, many of these projection targets are ambiguous and unquantified (Fulton et al., 2017). Considering that earlier adopters of hybrid and EVs originate from developed Western nations, the majority of scholarly work on hybrid vehicle adoption is focused on these countries. As the laggards in electrified private passenger vehicle adoption, developing countries are not well poised for the mass market of EV. This situation is ultimately due to charging infrastructure limita- tions (Neves et al., 2019), low-income levels (Yong and Park, 2017), and relatively higher costs of full EVs as compared to its ICE * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: iskandarh@uitm.edu.my, iskandar68@gmail.com (M.I. Hamzah), nsyafiqahtanwir@yahoo.com (N.S. Tanwir). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123643 0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production 279 (2021) 123643