Why People Do Not Keep Their Promise: Understanding the Pro-Environmental Behavior in China

The promise-implementation gap is a particularly salient feature in promoting individuals’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Many individuals are becoming aware that their past behavior has not actually been in line with the norms they have made promise to. Prior studies have suggested an array of c...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2020-09, Vol.12 (17), p.6720
Main Authors: Chen, Jingling, van Tulder, Rob, Hu, Tao Eric, Kwakkenbos, Thorben
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Behavior
Developing countries
Economic development
Environmental behavior
Game theory
LDCs
Motivation
Norms
Sustainability
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The promise-implementation gap is a particularly salient feature in promoting individuals’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Many individuals are becoming aware that their past behavior has not actually been in line with the norms they have made promise to. Prior studies have suggested an array of constraints restricting individuals’ pro-environmental involvement. In addition to individuals’ behavioral incapability, the said inconsistency can also be traced back to the affected willingness, hard trade-off decisions, and/or the failure of stakeholders’ collaboration. Based on the line of reasoning, this research develops an attitude model and frames the potential types of gaps from the perspective of attitude formation and transition surrounding PEBs. The promise-implementation gap is closely related to a sequence of attitudes showing great motivation differences from being reactive to reactive-active transition and to the active-proactive transition. The paper contextualizes the model to examine the promise-implementation gap in the Chinese environmental context. Importance of this context is high with quite mixed economic and social development across the country, which is the same across the world. The application of the model in the Chinese context justifies the validity and generalizability of the theoretic framework. The paper contributes a novel understanding of the promise-implementation gap, and illuminates potential analytic measures and managerial implications for literature of this stream.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su12176720