The role of online information sources in enhancing circular consumption behaviour: Fostering sustainable consumption patterns in the digital age

Abstract

Circular consumption is an element of the circular economy that is vital for fostering economic progress whilst addressing environmental degradation and resource scarcity. The majority of the existing studies on the circular economy focus on its organisational aspects and examine circular business models, including approaches to enhance circular value propositions and their advantages. However, the link amongst responsible consumption, digital technologies, consumer behaviour and the circular economy model has received limited attention. We aim to fill this gap by employing behavioural reasoning theory to investigate the intentions of consumers to engage in circular consumption behaviour. We enhance the theoretical robustness of our findings by integrating the theory of consumption values as ‘reason for’ and status quo bias theory as ‘reason against’. We conducted a questionnaire survey in two phases to validate our model and test our hypotheses. We collected our survey data from 305 respondents in Bangladesh and used partial least squares–structural equation modelling to validate our model. Results show that exposure to online information sources significantly influences the ‘reasons for’ and ‘reasons against’ factors. These two factors also demonstrate positive and negative associations with circular consumption behaviour, respectively. These findings offer important insights for service providers, policymakers and government entities.