Yes / Throughout the developed world, consumers are increasingly being encouraged to adopt cleaner, more
eco-friendly behaviours. However, hybrid car adoption remains low, which impedes the move towards a
lower carbon economy. In this paper, we examine the risks and drivers of hybrid car purchases, drawing
on consumer behaviour and cultural dimensions theory to account for the heterogeneous, segmented
nature of the market. As risk perceptions differ across cultures, and in order to address the lack of cross
cultural research on eco-friendly cars, we focus on Australian, South Korean, and Japanese consumers.
Based on a survey of 817 respondents we examine how five types of risk (social, psychological, time,
financial, and network externalities) and three factors that drive purchasing behaviour (product advantages,
product attractiveness, and product superiority) influence consumers perceptions of hybrid
cars. Four segments of consumers are identified (pessimists, realists, optimists, and casualists) that also
vary according to their environmental self-image, and underlying cultural values. Our results extend
theory by incorporating self-image and cultural dimension theories into a multi-country analysis of the
risks and drivers of hybrid car adoption. Our findings have practical implications in terms of marketing
strategies and potential policy interventions aimed at mitigating risk perceptions and promoting the
factors that drive hybrid car adoption.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/16632 |
| Date | 04 April 2018 |
| Creators | McLeay, F., Yoganathan, Vignesh, Osburg, V-S., Pandit, A. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Accepted manuscript |
| Rights | © 2018 Elsevier. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. |
Page generated in 0.0024 seconds