Sustainable Manufacturing Practices: A Nepalese Consumer Perspective to Purchase

Abstract

Green manufacturing also termed as sustainable manufacturing focuses on producing goods in a way that minimizes environmental impacts while maximizing resource efficiency and this practices influence purchase decision of the customers. This paper aims to examine the adoption of sustainable manufacturing practices by companies and its influence on consumer purchase decision. The study focuses on investigating the moderating effect of consumer inhibitors as well as how brand image mediates the relationship between independent and dependent variables. The research is basically descriptive and correlational covering 235 Nepalese consumers using purposive sampling method. Analysis was done using SPSS and Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the relationship among the variables. The findings indicated a significant positive influence of environmental and societal concern, authenticity of product on purchase decision however, no effect of quality of product on purchase decision was seen. Further, findings revealed no moderating effect on consumer inhibitors on within the relationship of environmental and societal concern, quality of product with purchase decision whereas, moderating effect of consumer inhibitor was found to exist in between authenticity of product and purchase decision. Partial mediating effect was found to be present of firm image in each established relationship between independent and dependent variable. Understanding of the mediating role of perceptual image of firm may allow the companies to tailor their marketing strategies to resonate with environmentally conscious consumers and ma involve market segmentation based on consumer beliefs and values related to sustainability. Researcher admits that the study has been carried out only on educated consumers residing in urban area limiting the generalization all over Nepal as well as in context of other countries. Use of purposive sampling procedure has been used limiting representativeness of the sample. Sample size could have been increased and conducted in rural areas too to facilitate comparison. Further, the study used self-reported behavior instead of actual behavior of the consumers which may change with time.