ResearchCurrent ResearchResearch Profiles

Al Sadat Ibne Ahmed

School of Business and Law
Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Dr Parves Sultan, Dr Galina Williams
Doctor of Philosophy
alsadat.ahmed@cqumail.com

Research Details

Thesis Name

Consumption Behaviour of Green Energy: An Examination and Extension of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Thesis Abstract

Green energy adoption is an important step towards less carbon-intensive and sustainable development. Green energy has attained important research attention across the globe due to its ability to reduce environmental devastation. But despite growing ecological awareness, green energy faces slow rates of diffusion in consumer markets. The paper informs about the predictors of consumers' green energy purchase behaviour and proposes a theoretical framework understanding consumers' perceptions and behaviour towards green energy. In line with the theoretical framework of theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and subsequent findings of green energy adoption factors, the study portrays the relationship among them and formulates eighteen research agenda items. By following these insights, researchers can examine the considered dimensions related to green energy consumer behaviour. In this way, it will help policy makers, marketers and behavioural researchers advance their understanding of environmentally significant individual behaviour related to green energy. The study can help explaining existing green energy attitude-behaviour gap phenomenon and can make contributions to the broader project of behavioural science.

Why my research is important/Impacts

Current research discussed the influence of multiple factors affecting consumers' green energy purchasing behaviour, but most of the research restricts its understanding of the relationship between them. The study finds a comprehensive research gap in Australian context analysing consumers' green electricity purchase intention, although empirical studies concerned with various dimensions of green electricity consumption were found. The gap persists in prior research including the wide-range of factors affecting consumers' green electricity purchase intentions, the inter relationship between them, their influence on environmentally responsible behaviour, the research methodology and behavioural theories and modelling consumer behaviour towards green electricity that can predict Australian consumers' green electricity purchase intention. In brief, the integrated relationship among the Australian green electricity household consumers' attitude, norms, control and preferences towards the green electricity industry is unexplored, incorporating a compendious behavioural model, which motivated the study conducting rigorous research in Australian context.