Determinants of Sustainable Waste Management Behavior of Malaysian Academics

Gangga Muniandy, Marhana Mohamed Anuar, Bob Foster, Jumadil Saputra, Muhamad Deni Johansyah, Tran Tien Khoa and Zafar U. Ahmed
Additional contact information
Gangga Muniandy: Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Development, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Terengganu 21030, Malaysia
Marhana Mohamed Anuar: Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Development, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Terengganu 21030, Malaysia
Bob Foster: Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Informatika dan Bisnis Indonesia, West Java 40285, Indonesia
Jumadil Saputra: Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Development, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Terengganu 21030, Malaysia
Muhamad Deni Johansyah: Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, West Java 45363, Indonesia
Tran Tien Khoa: Department of Marketing, School of Business, International University, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City 100000, Vietnam
Zafar U. Ahmed: Department of Marketing, School of Business, International University, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City 100000, Vietnam

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: The global increase of urban solid waste in developing countries is creating highly significant challenges. There is a lack of research on sustainable waste management behavior (SWMB) among university academic staff. Hence, this study aims to examine the effect of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control on SWMB. This study employed the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as the underlying theory. This study’s sample consisted of 252 academic staff from the top three sustainable universities in Malaysia listed by the UiGreenMetric in 2018. The academic staff were surveyed by using an online and self-administered survey and analyzed by using PLS-SEMThe results showed that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control positively affect SWMB. This study makes significant contributions to both theory and practice. The study fills in the literature gap and supports the TPB theory. This study provides empirical evidence on the effect of main TPB variables, such as attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control on SWMB through a quantitative research approach, exploring all three of the 3Rs to study academic staff’s waste management behavior on campus. From the managerial perspective, this study’s results provide empirical evidence on factors that affect SWMB among academic staff. This information is crucial to managers and policymakers to plan strategies to engage academic staff with SWMB. Managers and policymakers should focus on conducting more campaigns on sustainable waste management for academic staff. The campaigns would enhance academic staff’s attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control towards practicing SWMB for a more sustainable campus in the future.

Keywords: sustainable waste management behavior; attitude; subjective norms; perceived behavioral control; theory of planned behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/8/4424/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/8/4424/ (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:13:y:2021:i:8:p:4424-:d:536954

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 ().