Developing the Profile of Green Consumer and Family Decision Making Model: A Review

Ecopreneur’s business activity involves the understanding of the relationships between creating and selling ecological products to eco-consumers and the environmental consequences associated with the purchase. In order to comprehend the market impact of their business, sales growth and market share, ecopreneur needs to know the demand of the green consumer. One effective method is to establish consumer profile modelling. Cross examining two related articles, we found the authors used socio-demographic variables and psychographic variables for profiling. They included ecologically conscious consumer behaviour to determine purchase intention and purchase behaviour. While the authors may have determined the factors influencing purchase behaviour, we discerned that the participants were students. In reality, eco-consumers are mainly widespread. Little is known about the market in Malaysia. As such, we intend to re-examine and extend their works. At this stage, we aim to review three areas: green consumer profiling, family decision model and research methods to determine the eco-consumers’ purchase intention and behaviour. In the review, we found that socioeconomic status to be included as third variable to socio-demographics. These three constructs provide a clearer discrimination of green consumers and their demand for the types of green products and an efficient way to segment consumer green attitudes and behaviour. In research design, survey instruments were commonly used for data collection and analysed using chi-square test, regression, structural equation modelling, and data mining. Nowadays, nontraditional family with dual-income and children has changed the role of family decision making. Accordingly, we adopt the sex-role orientation and children decision in our model. In decision making model, past studies used qualitative research such as interview and focus group. In this study, we propose to use sequential mixed method of qualitative interview follow by survey for our research design. This method provides the researcher to elaborate and validate the findings.