Why People Do Not Keep Their Promise: Understanding the Pro-Environmental Behavior in China

Jingling Chen, Rob van Tulder, Tao Eric Hu and Thorben Kwakkenbos
Additional contact information
Jingling Chen: Department of Business, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Rob van Tulder: Partnerships Resource Center, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Tao Eric Hu: Department of Accounting & Information Systems, California State University, Northridge, Los Angeles, CA 91330, USA
Thorben Kwakkenbos: Partnerships Resource Center, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-18

Abstract: The promise-implementation gap is a particularly salient feature in promoting individuals’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Many individuals are becoming aware that their past behavior has not actually been in line with the norms they have made promise to. Prior studies have suggested an array of constraints restricting individuals’ pro-environmental involvement. In addition to individuals’ behavioral incapability, the said inconsistency can also be traced back to the affected willingness, hard trade-off decisions, and/or the failure of stakeholders’ collaboration. Based on the line of reasoning, this research develops an attitude model and frames the potential types of gaps from the perspective of attitude formation and transition surrounding PEBs. The promise-implementation gap is closely related to a sequence of attitudes showing great motivation differences from being reactive to reactive-active transition and to the active-proactive transition. The paper contextualizes the model to examine the promise-implementation gap in the Chinese environmental context. Importance of this context is high with quite mixed economic and social development across the country, which is the same across the world. The application of the model in the Chinese context justifies the validity and generalizability of the theoretic framework. The paper contributes a novel understanding of the promise-implementation gap, and illuminates potential analytic measures and managerial implications for literature of this stream.

Keywords: pro-environmental behavior; promise-implementation gap; environmental attitude; attitudinal transition; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6720/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6720/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:6720-:d:401038

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().