Impacts of consumer innovativeness on the intention to purchase sustainable products

Abstract Consumer innovativeness refers to the tendency to purchase and use new products more quickly and more often than other people, which reflects an important personality trait. Although past studies have found the direct effect of consumer innovativeness on the intention to purchase new products, little is known about the mechanism behind this relationship, especially in the context of sustainable products. To fill this gap, based on the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we examine the mechanisms of two sub-dimensions of consumer innovativeness (i.e., social and hedonist innovativeness) across high-involvement and low-involvement sustainable product domains. Through a mediation analysis, the empirical results from 1,853 consumers reveal that, for high-involvement sustainable products (e.g., electric vehicles), all factors derived from the TPB (i.e., attitude, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and personal norms) partially mediate the relationships between social innovativeness and purchase intention and between hedonist innovativeness and purchase intention. Surprisingly, for low-involvement sustainable products (e.g., organic food), all factors derived from the TPB fully mediate the relationships between social innovativeness and purchase intention. In contrast, only attitude and personal norms fully mediate the relationships between hedonist innovativeness and purchase intention. We contribute to the literature on sustainability research by revealing the mechanism of consumer innovativeness. Our findings also help marketers develop marketing strategies to attract potential consumers.