Greenwash, moral decoupling, and brand loyalty

Along with the prevalence of green marketing, greenwash has also grown in the past decade. We investigated whether greenwash undermines consumers' brand loyalty, and how moral decoupling moderates this effect. Data were collected from a survey of 427 consumers, and the hypotheses were tested by...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social behavior and personality 2021-04, Vol.49 (4), p.1-8
Main Authors: Xiao, Zengrui, Wang, Ying, Ji, Xiaofen, Cai, Liling
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Brand choice
Brand image
Brand Loyalty
Brands
Consumer education
Consumers
Corporate Environmental Responsibility
Corporate governance
Education
Environmental groups
Ethics
Green Branding
Green Marketing
Greenwash
Greenwashing
Hypotheses
Loyalty
Marketing
Marketing research
Moral Decoupling
Moral education
Morality
Organizational Ethics
Product quality
Researchers
Scandals
Transparency
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Along with the prevalence of green marketing, greenwash has also grown in the past decade. We investigated whether greenwash undermines consumers' brand loyalty, and how moral decoupling moderates this effect. Data were collected from a survey of 427 consumers, and the hypotheses were tested by regression analysis. The empirical results show that greenwash had a negative effect on consumers' brand loyalty, the effect of which was stronger at lower levels of moral decoupling. Thus, we recommend that brands eliminate the detrimental greenwash practice and increase the transparency of their environmental performance, and that governments and environmental organizations enhance consumer education to prevent moral decoupling.
ISSN:0301-2212
1179-6391
DOI:10.2224/sbp.10038