Lindqvist & Andersson (2015), moral obligation is refer to a particular a behavior that an individual willing to perform based on their feelings of responsibility. In other words, moral obligation refers to an individual’s personal norm that illustrates his/ her readiness to perform a specific behavior based on his/ her personal duty or responsibility (Chen and Tung, 2014). Chen and Tung (2014) suggested that while examining a person’s willingness to perform certain behaviors, personal feelings of moral obligation are required to be considered.
Moreover, moral intention can be significantly affected by a person’s perceived moral obligation. Furthermore, Verma and Chandra (2018) posit that morality act as a prominent role in forming a consumer’s ecological behavior and intention. Pragmatic studies have found that individuals who make their decision under the consideration of morality tend to be more concerned for other’s welfare and have a tendency to be more engage in more pro-social behavior at work (Verma and Chandra, 2018). Han and Hyun (2018) indicate that moral norm is one’s internal moral obligation to carry out/ hold back from particular actions. In addition, moral norms play a prominent role in enhancing the likelihood of an individual to take preservation actions that trim down environmentally harmful behaviors.
For instance, decreasing the use of personal vehicles by using public transportation, energy conservation (Schultz et al., 2007), travel mode choice (Doran and Larsen, 2016), consume of local/ organic food (Han and Hyun, 2018). Moreover, distinct morality is considered one of the components that trigger personal concern and commitment to environmental problems. Thus, moral obligation is perceived as a proximal motivational factor of green behavior (Verma and Chandra, 2018). Environmental awareness Throughout the last decades, the seriousness of the environmental problems has been recognized by the society (Han & Kim, 2010) and has caused a significant increase in the number of individuals who are enormously aware of and concern about the severity of environmental problems (Han & Yoon, 2015).
Han & Yoon (2015) define that environmental knowledge as a person’s general knowledge about actualities, concepts, and relationships concerning the environment and ecological systems which includes the awareness of people towards the environment. For instance, the effect of certain behavior towards the environment, global warming and changes that is essential for a sustainable development. According to Chan et al., (2014), environmental awareness is defined as one’s recognition of the impact of human behaviors on the environment. In other viewpoint, environment awareness can be considered as the attention and sensitivity of an individual towards the environmental problems.
Besides, Chan et al., (2014) also posits that an individual’s environment awareness would motivates his or her environmental concern to perform a particular action to tackles issues, an activity that later increase with his or her ecological behavior. Furthermore, the awareness of the seriousness of ecological issues had made a significant impact on people’s knowledge of the environment, and would further affect one’s decision-making processes (Gaibee, 2014). In addition, Lindqvist ; Andersson (2015) reported that consumers’ buying behaviors and attitudes towards green business establishments has gone through great changes due to the environmental concerns among today’s consumers. Such awareness normally arises from the basis of personal experiences, others experiences, and media information and it is likely to trigger the eco-conscious behaviors and green consumption/ activities among customers in their daily lives (Han ; Yoon, 2015). Moreover, consumers have different level of conscious on the environment consciousness. Consumers who are concern about the environmental consequences related to products or services and who are committed to environmental actions are defined as environmentally concerned consumers (Jackson, 2010).
These consumers usually believe in the effectiveness of eco-friendly behaviors, participate in green activities, and demand for products and services offered by those environmentally responsible companies (Lindqvist ; Andersson, 2015). Chan, E., Hon, A., Okumus, F. and Chan, W. (2014). An Empirical Study of Environmental Practices and Employee Ecological Behavior in the Hotel Industry.
