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Article

Antecedents and Consequences of Customers’ Engagement with Pro-Environmental Consumption-Related Content on Social Media

by
Md. Moddassir Alam
1,
Abdalwali Lutfi
2,3 and
Abdallah Alsaad
4,*
1
Department of Health Information Management and Technology, College of Applied Medical Sciences, University of Hafr Al Batin, Hafr Al Batin 39524, Saudi Arabia
2
Department of Accounting, College of Business, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
3
Applied Science Research Center, Applied Science Private University, Amman 11931, Jordan
4
Department of MIS, College of Business, University of Hafr Al Batin, Hafr Al Batin 39524, Saudi Arabia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(5), 3974; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15053974
Submission received: 18 October 2022 / Revised: 6 January 2023 / Accepted: 24 January 2023 / Published: 22 February 2023
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Abstract

:
Social media has been widely used to design and publish pro-environment campaigns; the goal is to spread awareness about environmental issues and explain how customers can change their consumption behavior to protect the environment. Customers’ engagement with pro-environmental campaigns (CEPC) on social media is crucial to achieving these objectives. Limited studies have examined the factors that could increase CEPC, and its effects, on pro-environmental consumption behavior. The available literature suggests the antecedents of social media engagement, but is restricted to brands/products. Based on these findings, this study explores the effects of advertising attractiveness, advertising-based skepticism, online interaction propensity, and privacy concerns on CEPC. This study also suggests that customers’ engagement with pro-environmental consumption-related content can be defined as a pro-environmental experience that could lead to pro-environmental consumption. The study was based on a sample of 262 responses from online users; the results indicated that CEPC is largely affected by advertising attractiveness, advertising skepticism, and online interaction propensity. The study further established that pro-environment consumption is a potential outcome of CPEC. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing insight into ways in which activist groups can inspire consumers to engage with pro-environment content and exploring whether that engagement translates into a pro-environment intention.

1. Introduction

In the information age, social media has become an indispensable part of human life. Social media platforms are used by social marketers to highlight concerns regarding deteriorating environmental conditions as well as attempts to rectify the problems via pro-environmental behavior [1,2,3]. Online groups managed by environmental activists and pro-environmental organizations run several pro-environmental campaigns to promote pro-environmental consumption culture among the masses [2]. Social media allows massive numbers of people to socialize with one another and enables users to create and share the content of their interest [4].
Consumers’ engagement with pro-environmental-related content on social media (CEPC) is at the heart of this type of online activism. CEPC is defined by the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of consumers’ interactive experiences with pro-environmental campaigns. In terms of social media, consumer engagement is defined as a set of observed actions by consumers in response to encountered content; this includes responding to content (e.g., likes, hearts), commenting on content (e.g., comments, replies), and sharing content with others (e.g., shares, retweets) [5,6,7,8].
Understanding the reasons why people engage, as well as the results of that engagement, can aid organizations in designing pro-environmental campaigns that effectively communicate the intended messages to the audiences. Successfully engaging viewers is essential to achieving the desired objective of promoting pro-environmental consumption culture. CEPC, in the forms of “Likes”, “Supportive comments”, and “Shares”, raise awareness and foster positive behavioral changes towards the environment [9,10], increase persuasion knowledge [11,12], and reinforce positive outcomes, including attitudes and intentions towards pro-environmental consumption [2,13,14,15]. It is important to note, though, that CEPC is not always present and further research is needed to better understand the factors that affect customers’ engagement and the results of such engagement [16].
Most social media-based literature has focused on online consumer engagement with a specific brand and has identified many factors that affect social media engagement, including advertising attractiveness [4,17,18,19,20,21], advertising skepticism [22,23], online interaction propensity [24,25], and privacy concerns [17,25]. Contrary to consumers’ engagement with other content on social media (for example, brands and products), the engagement of consumers with the pro-environment content may be due to other factors, such as ethical concerns and social norms [26].
Despite interesting advancements in studies related to drivers of social media engagement focused on specific brands [27], there is still confusion as to whether or not the antecedents for social media engagement are the same for CEPC. Moreover, a comprehensive model that incorporates all possible constructs within the context of CEPC has not been created.
In accordance with the above argument, this research proposes a conceptual framework, as depicted in Figure 1, to explore the antecedents of CEPC and its outcome. Based on the findings from prior research [4,17,18,19,20,22,23,24,25], we posit that CEPC is likely to be influenced by environmental concerns, content attractiveness, content skepticism, online interaction propensity, and privacy concerns.
This study contributes to the existing literature in several ways. The majority of the research on social media engagement has been conducted in the context of specific brands or products, while our study focuses on the broader concept of CEPC (rather than individual brands). Furthermore, the present study integrates the possible factors that influence customer engagement with social media, making the proposed model comprehensive in nature.

2. Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

2.1. Pro-Environmental Consumption Intention (PEC)

Pro-environmental consumption (PEC) is aimed at reducing the negative effects of one’s actions on the natural and built environment; examples include the reduced consumption of resources and energy, using non-toxic chemicals, and reducing waste creation [28]. In other words, pro-environmental behavior involves every day, environmentally beneficial habits or activities [29].
According to [30], environmentally responsible individuals will attempt to preserve the environment in several ways (e.g., recycling, ensuring that recycled materials are used in packaging, and buying only green products) and thus will either try to contribute positively to environmental protection or try to prevent the environment from experiencing further deterioration.
Existing research sees pro-environment consumption as being impacted by factors such as age, sex, knowledge and awareness, beliefs, politics and worldview, objectives, responsibilities, childhood experiences, perceived environmental danger, environmental knowledge, and other self-states and external perceptions [31]. Pro-environment consumption behavior can be initiated by the activation of norm perception; norms may be defined as the consciousness to perform what is regarded to be proper by members of a society [32].
In recent times, social media has impacted pro-environmental intention in a variety of ways [33]. One of the benefits of social media is that it encourages greater mass trust. This facilitates the formation of online communities and encourages pro-environmental consumption [34]. Instead of passively receiving messages from websites, individuals interact with social media by actively participating in online dialogues to develop collective intelligence [35]. Pro-environmental intention then translates into pro-environmental behavior [36]. Previous research has highlighted the role of social media in encouraging sustainable consumption behavior [37]. The next section discusses the notion of engagement in the context of social media.

2.2. CEPC

To understand CEPC, the notion of social media engagement as a whole must be examined. Social media engagement involves consumers’ favorable inclination toward the community and the specific brand or campaign in question, as exhibited through a variety of emotive, cognitive, and behavioral expressions that extend beyond trade settings [38]. Mirbagheri and Najmi [5] define consumers’ engagement with a social media activation campaign as, “the extent of cognitive, affective, and behavioral energies that consumers simultaneously and holistically devote to a campaign.”
In other words, social media engagement has three dimensions: cognitive, emotive, and behavioral [38,39,40]. Cognitive engagement involves the centering of an entire mental activity, such as attention and absorption, on something. Affective engagement is characterized by excitement and feeling gratified by the object of engagement. Finally, behavioral engagement refers to the concept’s active expressions, such as sharing, learning, and endorsing behaviors [38].
Another approach to social media engagement, which is utilized in this study, recognizes it as behavioral manifestations toward a campaign resulting from motivational drivers. The behavioral aspect of social media engagement, in terms of campaign-related activities (such as liking, commenting, posting, and sharing), has been previously used as a measure for engagement [6,19]. Muntinga et al. [41] classify social media behaviors into three usage forms, mirroring a series of campaign-related internet activities on the part of the consumer that depend on the extent to which the consumer interacts with social media and engages in the consumption, contribution, and creation of content ([6], p. 66). The three hierarchical components of social media engagement are consumption, contribution, and creation, and they represent the continuum of consumers’ engagement with the campaign-related post from lower levels (passive interaction) to higher levels (active interaction) [6,41]. In terms of passive involvement, consumption involves campaign-related behaviors, including viewing/watching postings and browsing content that other consumers post, but does not require active participation [6]. The contribution dimension involves interactions with either other customers or the brand, and it is the mid-level of behavioral engagement. Some examples include likes and endorsements of campaign-related material, as well as commenting, sharing, and reposting content [6,7,8]. Finally, the creation dimension represents the highest degree of involvement, and includes co-creating, generating, and posting new campaign-related material. Other creation activities include writing and publishing reviews [6,7,8].
In the context of pro-environmental behavior, CEPC (positive consumer responses such as likes, supportive comments, and shares) has been found to be the most critical factor in eliciting positive behavioral changes towards pro-environmental consumption. These positive behaviors are induced as a result of enhanced awareness [9,10], increased persuasion knowledge [11,12], and reinforced positive outcomes, such as attitudes and intentions regarding pro-environmental consumption [2,13,15,42]. The extant literature defines several factors, such as advertising attractiveness [4,17,18,19,20,21], advertising skepticism [22,23], and online interaction propensity [17,25], which influence the customer online engagement with brand and content. However, in the context of CEPC, a holistic model encompassing these components has not been explored. Based on earlier research [4,18,19,20,22,23,24,25], we believe that CEPC will be influenced by environmental concerns, content attractiveness, content skepticism, online interaction propensity, and privacy concerns. Furthermore, when considering the recent COVID-19 epidemic, engagement with social media on pro-environment content increased due to the uncertainty surrounding the crisis. People also used social media to compare information from a different media platform [43].
The following section discusses these variables in more detail.

2.3. Advertising Attractiveness and CEPC

In general, consumers’ engagement with social media is defined by the features of the content that they are exposed to [44]. Consumers’ propensity for interacting with social media posts is governed by the extent to which they find the information entertaining, informative, and interesting [19]. Huang et al. [44] found that an individual’s disposition towards content is the key element that influences social media sharing behavior. Consumers are more likely to engage with content that evokes emotional feelings and is not highly promotional [45]. It has also been demonstrated that people engage with social media that fulfills their needs and either helps them seek knowledge, provides entertainment and relaxation, or enhances social interaction [46]. This perspective is based on the uses and gratifications theory (UGT) which posits that consumers are active, rather than passive, receivers of media [47].
Advertising attractiveness will lead to advertising effectiveness, which is reflected in the ways in which consumers engage with social media content. Extant research suggests that advertising effectiveness is defined by the creativeness, informativeness [48,49], and emotional appeal [17] of the content. The emotional appeal of the message aids in persuasion by evoking an emotional reaction (e.g., horror movies, sad stories, triumphant music, etc.). Emotion represents an individual state of feeling which can be seen in positive (e.g., love, happiness) and negative (anxiety, anger, sorrow, etc.) forms. Additionally, informativeness is described as the ability to provide customers with information about the available product options so that they can make the right choice for them [50]. The desire to obtain different types of information from the internet [51] and attitudes toward the online platform as a whole [52] have been cited as reasons for social media engagement. Creativity is the degree to which an advertisement is unique and special [53]. Creative content draws consumer attention and helps them form a favorable attitude towards the messaging, which leads to a good attitude towards the advertised offerings [48].
The three components of advertising attractiveness, informativeness; emotional appeal; and creativity, have been found to positively affect consumers’ attitudes towards social advertising [17], resulting in positive evaluations of content and, ultimately, social media engagement.
When a consumer encounters an ad on social media, they first assess it (e.g., “Is it an intriguing ad?”) and then evaluate their engagement behavior towards the ad (e.g., “Is it worth hitting either the like or share button?”). The content of the ad will have a direct impact on the consumers’ engagement behavior with social media. In other words, the drivers of each consumer’s evaluative perceptions are important determinants of the ad’s evaluative perceptions. For example, a consumer will like or share a post to share his opinions and views with others if he thinks the advert resonates with him. As widely discussed in the advertising domain, factors such as informativeness, emotional appeal, and advertising creativity influence an individual’s behavior towards the CEPC. In sum, social media users show more interest in advertisements that possess both informative and creative value [48,49]. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis.
H1: 
CEPC is positively influenced by the attractiveness of the content.

2.4. Advertising Skepticism and CEPC

Green advertising, whether implicitly or explicitly, presents an image of environmental responsibility culture and stimulates a green lifestyle routine [54]. Activist organizations post pro-environment advertisements and campaigns on social media platforms, including Facebook, wikis, We Chat, microblogs, and multimedia sharing sites, for example YouTube, because of the growth of and global access to the internet.
Consumers may also look at pro-environment advertising with suspicion; this is referred to as green advertising skepticism. Green advertising skepticism is a negative, context-specific, cognitive aspect of a consumer’s opinion on green products [55]. Green advertising skepticism occurs when a consumer feels that they are being exposed to a deceptive, overstated campaign [54,55]. The degree of confidence consumers have in green products will inform their buying behavior [56]. A skeptical consumer will consider green advertising as merely a money-minting or image-building exercise by the organization [57,58]. As a result, that consumer’s engagement with social media will decrease. Such suspicion causes a negative product judgment and decreases the pro-environment consumption intention [22,23]. Based on the aforementioned argument, we develop the following hypothesis:
H2: 
CEPC is negatively influenced by advertising skepticism.

2.5. Online Interaction Propensity and CEPC

Online interaction propensity (OIP) is the general inclination of a person to engage with individuals that they have never met in person before in an online environment [59]. As a result, it is linked to the extent to which people like participating in online dialogues. Blazevic et al. [60] suggested that online interaction propensity is a personal attribute that determines the extent of one’s involvement in online interactions. An individual can be categorized as either a poster (willingness to interact) or a lurker (lack of willingness) based on their degree of involvement on social media platforms [61]. Individuals who tend to make online interactions are likely to make a useful contribution [62], and are therefore important for members’ participative behavior. Dessart [25] found a link between online interaction inclination and activities, such as conversing with others, sharing ideas, and promoting the official Facebook pages of brand communities. In line with the above arguments, the following hypothesis is proposed.
H3: 
CEPC is positively influenced by the OIP.

2.6. Environmental Concerns and CEPC

The environmental concerns definitions vary ranging from the explicit attitude of pro-environmental behaviors to a more incorporating values orientation. It ranges from the specific attitude that controls and regulates intent to more general attitudes. Environmental issues express self-consumers’ (member) interests concerning the environment [63]. In the present study, “environmental concerns” refers to a consumer’s feelings regarding pro-environmental activities and services. Such concerns are expected to affect that consumer’s decisions and attitudes toward pro-environmental activities. Those with a greater environmental awareness and consciousness are more likely to buy eco-friendly products to demonstrate their concern for the environment [64]. A pro-environment consumer will be motivated to protect the environment, and will therefore be more inclined towards pro-environment campaigns and products. Additionally, several studies have suggested that consumers nowadays are more environmentally conscious and are therefore more engaged with pro-environment content and campaigns [63,64,65]. This is a major influencer in their buying decision processes, drawing them more towards pro-environment products [66].
Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H4: 
CEPC is positively influenced by environmental concerns.

2.7. Privacy Concerns and CEPC

Privacy concerns play a critical role in social media engagement, especially when sharing either sensitive or personal information on either public or semi-public platforms. Privacy concerns are defined as the desire to keep one’s personal information away from other individuals. In that vein, Kim et al. [67] argued that members alleviate privacy concerns by regulating and adapting their social communications. Increasing technological sophistication in terms of data collection, mining, and retrieval has massively increased individuals’ privacy concerns. Privacy is mainly linked to data collection, data errors, unauthorized access, and the secondary usage of collected information [68]. Privacy is a negative attitude belief, and it can negatively affect individual attitudes towards technologies. In the context of social media engagement, the person might express several concerns, mostly related to the loss of their personal information, especially when this engagement is in a public space. Privacy concerns are subjective in nature and are based on individual perceptions and values [69].
Furthermore, in the social media context, individuals may not be able to accurately expect benefits due to privacy reasons, which may lead to greater levels of concern. As a result, these perceived concerns eliminate individuals’ communications with others and make them unwilling to share information or make any exchanges via online communities [70]. In this regard, Ref. [71] argued that, as social media consumers try to exploit positive values and decrease negative values, social media communities with greater privacy concerns are less likely to engage with their social media-based communities and are more likely to find a safer substitute in order to secure their sensitive personal information; they perceive that predictable privacy is considerably greater than the estimated benefits of the community. More specifically, individuals who are more concerned with privacy tend to suspect that their social media community’s members will misuse their information without their approval, which may lead to them minimizing their level of involvement in and satisfaction with the social media community and its activities and limiting their communications with other users [70]. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
H5: 
CEPC is negatively influenced by privacy concerns.

2.8. CEPC and Pro-Environmental Consumption Intention

Social media content has been shown to have a considerable influence on customers’ intentions to participate in the pro-environmental activity [72,73]. Consumer opinions and buying intentions toward green goods are heavily influenced by social media [74,75]. In sustainable consumption groups, consumers who are persuaded by social media marketing seem to be readily swayed by subjective campaigns. Further, individuals who have a high degree of social comparison are more likely to behave like others and to have higher subjective standards. Customers will then use social media to gather information and make purchasing choices based on that knowledge [72].
Social media platforms, such as Facebook, provide a creative, innovative environment that induce green behavioral intentions [76]. Social media is made up of display and recording functions; its display function increases one’s understanding of both one’s own behavior and the behavior of others while the recording function provides an intuitive feeling of their performance and stimulates environmental behavior [33]. Consumers’ engagement on social media evaluates their actions alongside those of others as a part of human social comparison psychology, which also induces pro-environment behavior. Social media engagement improves individual normative cognition which activates social comparison psychology [73]. Additionally, social media engagement also aids the influence of personal values, for example self-esteem, on social and personal norms; individuals who possess higher self-esteem are more inclined to compare their currents actions with their past actions. Furthermore, [34] expressed that user-generated content (UGC) is considered a more trustworthy source of information, and is therefore more likely to form positive feelings towards environmental products [73].
H6: 
CEPC positively influences pro-environment consumption intentions.

3. Method

The population of this study was social media users who had recently participated in pro-environmental campaigns on social media sites. A sample of social media users was obtained from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. To ensure that respondents had participated in the pro-environmental campaign, filter questions were incorporated into the survey instruments. A total of 512 valid responses were used for the study; of these, 66.5 % were male and 33.5 % were female. Their ages fell between 18 and 70, with a mean age of 34.5 (SD = 9.62).
Our experimental design utilized a self-reported data collection method; during this process, respondents were exposed to a stimulus in the form of some advert or campaign, and their responses were captured. In the present study, a stimulus was provided in the form of a Facebook ad page. A structured questionnaire was then used to collect the perceptions of the participants after they had been exposed to the Facebook ad page. The respondents were asked to assume that the Facebook ad page was a part of a pro-environmental campaign on social media. After that, the questionnaire reported on the participant’s feelings about the ad and what they would do if they were to come across this ad, or a similar one, on social media sites.

Measures

This study includes seven constructs, six of which are exogenous; these include advertising attractiveness, advertising skepticism, online interaction propensity, environmental concerns, privacy concerns, CEPC, and pro-environment consumption as the single endogenous construct. All of the manifest variables were measured using a 7-point Likert scale. As operationalized by [6], CEPC is made up of three sub-constructs: consumption, contribution, and creation. Consumption refers to a passive level of engagement with social media in the form of viewing or watching pro-environmental campaign content on social media without actively participating. Four items were adopted from [6] to measure this construct (e.g., If I come across this type of campaign on SNS, I always read the posts related to the SNS campaign). Contribution involves activities related to interactions with peers and/or pro-environmental campaign content, such as sharing, commenting, and discussing. Three additional items were adopted from [6] to measure this construct (e.g., If I come across this type of campaign on SNS, I always comment on posts related to the campaign). Creation conveys the act of actively producing, publishing, or co-developing pro-environmental content on social media; this includes initiating posts related to the campaigns. Three items were adopted from Schivinski et al. [6] to measure this construct (e.g., If I come across this type of campaign on SNS, I always initiate posts related to the SNS campaign).
The effectiveness of the advertisement was measured at three sub-levels: emotional appeal, informativeness, and creativity. All the items were adopted from [17]. Three items were used to measure emotional appeal (e.g., After seeing this ad, I had intense feelings; I was emotionally attracted by the key message of this ad).
Three items were used to measure informativeness (e.g., Information obtained from the SNS ad would be useful; I would learn a lot from the SNS ad). Creativity was also measured with three items (e.g., The SNS ad is unique; the SNS ad is really special).
The four measurements of the advertisement skepticism construct were adopted from [23] (e.g., Most of the environmental claims presented in the advertising are true; consumers would be better off if the claims of the advertising were removed because environmental claims are exaggerated).
The eight measurements of the online interaction propensity construct were adapted from [24] (e.g., In general, I am someone who, given the chance, seeks contact with others online).
The environmental concern construct was measured with the help of five items adapted from [77], including (e.g., I am very concerned about the environment; I would be willing to reduce my consumption to help protect the environment).
The privacy concern construct was measured with the help of three, including (e.g., I am concerned that my online usage behavior might be known to others while I use the Internet; I am concerned that my Facebook usage details might be known to other Facebook users). These were adopted from [17].
The endogenous construct was pro-environment consumption intention, which refers to a consumer’s perceived likelihood of engaging in consumption behaviors that are friendly to the environment. This construct was measured using 11 items adopted from Tam [67]. One example is, “How likely will you show each of these behaviors in near future? (1) looking for ways to reuse things.”

4. Data Analysis

4.1. Partial Least Squares (PLS) Path Modeling Approach

PLS is a variance-based technique used to predict the relationship between the endogenous and exogenous construct(s) [78,79]. One of the benefits of the PLS-SEM is that it is free of any distributional assumptions of the observed variables [80,81]. Additionally, the PLS technique maximizes the clarity of the variance of the dependent construct(s). Therefore, it is most suited in a situation in which the objective is to find the relationship between the constructs, especially when investigating lesser explored relationships [82].
Data analysis was performed with the help of ADANCO (v 2.2.3) software, which implements partial least square path modelling.

4.2. Reliability, Validity, and Overall Model Assessment

All of the constructs were evaluated for reliability and validity to determine the extent to which they characterize the construct that they are intended to measure. The composite reliability of the items was observed to be greater than 0.8, which is above the recommended cut-off value of 0.7 [83]. This suggests that all constructs met the criteria of internal consistency. The study further assessed the average variance extracted (AVE) and found that all of the constructs had an AVE greater than 0.5 [84], with the exception of one. Researchers have suggested that it is difficult to achieve an AVE greater than 0.5 in all circumstances; as such, a composite reliability that is greater than the cutoff value of 0.7 is sufficient to proceed with the analysis [85]. The advertising attractiveness construct was created to be a second-order construct; emotional appeal, informativeness, and creativity were its sub-dimensions. A repeated indicators approach was used to construct this variable, and the loading of each dimension was estimated. The loadings scored well above 0.7, demonstrating sufficient convergent validity for the advertising attractiveness construct.
It is also important to note that both outer loading and average variance extracted (AVE) should be greater than 0.5 [84]. The results showed that all of the items in this study met that criteria, thus establishing the presence of convergent validity (Refer to Table 1).
Discriminant validity was assessed based on the Heterotrait–Monotrait ratio of correlation (HTMT). The HTMT values for all constructs were found to be lower than one, suggesting the presence of discriminant validity, as presented in Table 2 [86].

4.3. Assessment of the Structural Model

To assess the structural model, bootstrapping was used to obtain inference statistics for all of the model’s parameters. Bootstrapping is a non-parametric inferential technique that draws a large number of sub-samples from the original sample. In the present study, bootstrapping with a sub-sample of 5000 was performed to test the hypotheses [87].
The output revealed that there is a significant relationship between advertising attractiveness and consumer engagement, H1 (β = 0.4342, t = 6.801, p < 0.001), advertising skepticism and consumer engagement, H2 (β = 0.3090, t = 7.5301, p < 0.001), online interaction propensity and consumer engagement, H3 (β = 0.2783, t =3.5395, p < 0.01), and consumer engagement and pro-environment consumption, H6 (β = 0.7616, t = 28.2268, p < 0.001). However, the relationship between environmental concerns and consumer engagement, H4 (β = −0.0338, t = −0.6975, p < 0.4856) and privacy concerns and consumer engagement, H5 (β = −0.0202, t = −0.3079, p < 0.7582) were not found to be significant. Table 3 shows the results of the path analysis. Figure 2 represent the structural model.

5. Discussion

The main goal of this study was to investigate the antecedents of CEPC and determine whether they could be translated into pro-environment consumption. Pro-environmental campaigns are usually run on social media to spread awareness and increase consumers’ inclinations toward pro-environment consumption. The success of this process depends, to a large extent, on CEPC.
For consumers to reflect pro-environment behavior, sustained social media engagement must be achieved. There have been growing bodies of research highlighting the antecedents and outcomes of social media engagement in general, but insignificant investigations have been made in the context of pro-environment behavior. Speculations have also been made that CEPC increases the probability of pro-environment consumption. However, the empirical investigation of such a relationship was still missing in the existing literature.
More specifically, these results explain each antecedent that induces CEPC and establish its advantages for pro-environment consumption intention. The findings show that factors such as advertisement effectiveness, online interaction propensity, and environmental concerns have a positive relationship with CEPC, while advertising skepticism and privacy concerns were found to have no significant effect on CEPC. Furthermore, the results also support the notion that CEPC leads to pro-environment consumption. This finding suggests that once customers have actively engaged with pro-environmental campaigns, they will be more likely to exhibit pro-environmental consumption intention in the future.
The evidentiary support of H1 suggests the critical role that advertising attractiveness plays in generating CEPC, as suggested by various studies [44]. Advertising attractiveness will lead to advertising effectiveness, which is reflected in the form of CEPC. Extant research suggests that advertising effectiveness is ensured based on the creativeness, informativeness [48,49], and emotional appeal [17] of the content.
A consumer that reacts skeptically to advertising feels that an organization will adopt green advertising as a money-making and image-building exercise [57,58]. As a result of this negative notion, their engagement with social media will decrease.
In the present study, environmental concerns (H4) and privacy concerns (H5) were found to not affect CEPC. The most plausible explanation for such a phenomenon is that factors such as content attractiveness and individuals’ online interaction propensity are more effective in engaging consumers with social media pro-environment content than environment concerns. Content attractiveness is based on the creativity, informativeness, and emotional appeal of the content. Additionally, a person’s online interaction propensity will not predispose them to browsing social media content; more attractive content will capture the consumer’s attention, leading to high engagement with social media content. A high interaction propensity will also undermine privacy concerns. Another important limiting factor for CEPC is privacy concerns, which will eliminate individuals’ communications with others and make them reluctant to share information or make any exchanges via online communities, thereby negatively impacting CEPC [70]. Even though social media is ubiquitous, it poses an increased privacy risk because of the potential threat of strangers knowing what they are doing online. The study also concluded that CEPC leads to pro-environmental consumption intention, as suggested by previous studies [72,73]. Engagement with social media platforms provides a creative, innovative environment that induces pro-environmental consumption intentions [76].

6. Implications

The most prevalent concern of our society is preserving the environment, as it impacts the quality of all human life. Social media offers an opportunity for activist groups to promote pro-environmental consumption culture among the masses. CEPC stands at the heart of this type of online activism, driving subsequent pro-environmental behavior. While most prior research has been focused on customers’ engagement with a specific brand, limited studies have been done to examine the factors that affect CEPC. Our study shows that CEPC is largely affected by online interaction propensity, advertising skepticism, and advertising attractiveness. Surprisingly, environmental concerns were not shown to significantly impact CEPC, implying CEPC could be activated even if the social media users do not have environmental concerns. While some practitioners doubt the effectiveness of online activists, our results show that CEPC contributes to the development of customers’ likelihood to consume more pro-environmentally.
Theoretically, this research adds to the existing body of knowledge by empirically investigating the causal model to establish the antecedents and consequences of social media engagement with pro-environment content.
Practically, the findings of this study may offer several useful insights to government agencies and socially conscious organizations regarding successful methods for engaging consumers with pro-environment content on social media platforms and inducing pro-environment consumption. This will help organizations design effective campaigns. As the present study shows, CEPC can be achieved by ensuring advertising effectiveness and increasing consumer online interaction propensity. Organizations should design pro-environment ads based on effective communication strategies and customize the ad campaign according to the target audience to enhance online interaction propensity. The campaign should also be designed in such a way that it does not evoke any advertisement skepticism and ensures the privacy of the shared information to assuage the concerns of the users. Advertising skepticism may lead to a consumer perceiving any pro-environment campaign as a means to deceive customers and to serve the interest of the firm.

7. Limitations and Future Research

Although this study has made significant contributions, it still has some shortcomings that should be discussed. The data used in the study was cross-sectional, which could impact the generalization of the results. The use of longitudinal data would better help clarify the complex relationship between the antecedents and outcomes of social media engagement with pro-environment campaigns/content. Several writers have suggested that social media engagement is a continuous, cyclical process [88] and that assessing engagement at several different periods in time can help us better comprehend this long-term process. Future research could explore other possible pathways, such as the mediation effect, that elicit pro-environment behavior as a result of consumer engagement with social media content. Future research could also examine whether online engagement with pro-environmental content could contribute to pro-environmental behavior by developing environmental concerns. Mediation analysis would answer this question. The impact of factors such as environmental consciousness, attitude, and ethical belief on consumer engagement with pro-environment content on social media could be another relevant area of further study as well. Another avenue for future research is to examine whether social media engagement contributes to perceived customer effectiveness and moral certainty. These variables are important antecedents of responsible consumption behavior [89,90,91]. Moreover, the impact of social media engagement on pro-environmental behavior may variate according to consumers’ cultural orientation differences [92,93]. Examination of this possibility offers significant insight into the role of social media engagement in promoting pro-environmental behavior.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.A.; methodology, M.M.A.; writing—original draft preparation, A.L.; writing—review and editing A.A.; supervision, A.A.; project administration, A.A.; funding acquisition, A.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by Deanship of Scientific Research, University of Hafr Al Batin, project No: 0011-1443-S.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of university of Hafr Al Batin (project No: 0011-1443-S).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Acknowledgments

The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research, University of Hafr Al Batin for funding this work through the research group project No: 0011-1443-S.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Sustainability 15 03974 g001 550
Figure 1. Research model. CEPC: Customers’ engagement with pro-environmental campaigns.
Figure 1. Research model. CEPC: Customers’ engagement with pro-environmental campaigns.
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Sustainability 15 03974 g002 550
Figure 2. Structural Model. CEPC: Customers’ engagement with pro-environmental campaigns; PECI—Pro-Environment Consumption Intention; *** p < 0.001, □ represents the number of items.
Figure 2. Structural Model. CEPC: Customers’ engagement with pro-environmental campaigns; PECI—Pro-Environment Consumption Intention; *** p < 0.001, □ represents the number of items.
Sustainability 15 03974 g002
Table
Table 1. Measurement Model Assessment.
Table 1. Measurement Model Assessment.
ConstructsAVE*CRIndicatorOIP
Online Interaction Propensity0.55430.8325OIP10.7751
OIP20.7442
OIP30.7121
OIP40.7454
Privacy Concerns0.63100.8358PVC10.8389
PVC20.6935
PVC30.8416
Environmental Concerns0.69270.8185EC20.8323
EC40.8323
Emotional Appeal0.52770.7689ADE10.7918
ADE20.6423
ADE30.7373
Informativeness0.57110.7989ADE40.7873
ADE50.6746
ADE60.7991
Creativity0.47710.7836ADE70.6863
ADE80.7386
ADE90.5907
ADE100.7368
Advertising Skepticism0.53790.8093SPK10.3235
SPK20.8005
SPK30.8302
SPK40.8467
CEPC0.53340.9014Eng10.7083
Eng30.7590
Eng40.7367
Eng50.7156
Eng60.7204
Eng70.7296
Eng80.7440
Eng90.7278
Pro-environment Consumption Intention 0.47600.8635Pro10.6506
Pro30.7043
Pro50.7344
Pro60.5992
Pro70.7573
Pro90.7095
Pro110.6617
*CR: composite reliability; AVE: average variance extracted; CEPC: customers’ engagement with pro-environmental campaigns.
Table
Table 2. Discriminant Validity (HTMT Criterion).
Table 2. Discriminant Validity (HTMT Criterion).
Constructs1234567
Online Interaction Propensity (1)
Privacy Concerns (2)0.7332
Advertising Attractiveness (3)0.80160.6345
Advertising Skepticism (4)0.64770.84160.5517
CEPC (5)0.82560.63500.82490.7683
Pro-Environment Consumption Intention (6)0.80330.62970.88660.71290.8736
Environmental Concerns (7)0.82100.61150.88050.51490.65280.7773
CEPC—Customers’ engagement with pro-environmental campaigns.
Table
Table 3. Path analysis.
Table 3. Path analysis.
PathsOriginal
Coefficient		Standard
Error		t-Valuep-ValueResults
Advertising Attractiveness → CEPC (H1)0.43420.06386.80810.0000Supported
Advertising Skepticism → CEPC (H2)0.30900.04107.53010.0000Supported
Online Interaction Propensity→ CEPC (H3)0.27830.07863.53950.0004Supported
Environmental Concerns → CEPC (H4)−0.03380.0484−0.69750.4856Not Supported
Privacy Concerns→ CEPC (H5)−0.02020.0658−0.30790.7582Not Supported
CEPC → Pro-Environment Consumption Intention (H6)0.76160.027028.22680.0000Supported
CEPC: Customers’ engagement with pro-environmental campaigns.
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Alam, M.M.; Lutfi, A.; Alsaad, A. Antecedents and Consequences of Customers’ Engagement with Pro-Environmental Consumption-Related Content on Social Media. Sustainability 2023, 15, 3974. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15053974

AMA Style

Alam MM, Lutfi A, Alsaad A. Antecedents and Consequences of Customers’ Engagement with Pro-Environmental Consumption-Related Content on Social Media. Sustainability. 2023; 15(5):3974. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15053974

Chicago/Turabian Style

Alam, Md. Moddassir, Abdalwali Lutfi, and Abdallah Alsaad. 2023. "Antecedents and Consequences of Customers’ Engagement with Pro-Environmental Consumption-Related Content on Social Media" Sustainability 15, no. 5: 3974. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15053974

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