Abstract:

This study examined the influence of personal values on purchase intention of eco-furniture among Thai consumers. It tested certain dimensions of personal values that were linked to environmental attitudes and explored which personal values underlined consumer traits relating to product design (centrality of visual product aesthetics (CVPA)). Furthermore, the study investigated whether high environmental attitude consumers preferred environmentally friendly product and high CVPA consumers preferred beautiful product design. The research utilized 2x2 quasi-experimental design with two levels of two product attributes (environmentally friendly and aesthetics) to observe the main and interaction effects on consumer's attitude toward product and intention to purchase.

The study revealed that certain personal value structures were linked to environment attitude and CVPA. Individuals with ST/COI and SE/CO values had favorable attitudes toward the environment; on the other hand, individuals with ST/OP values were design conscious. Ecologically and design conscious persons did not share similar value structures. Even though the findings were inconclusive, it showed that individuals with favorable environmental attitude tended to like environmentally friendly chairs and high CVPA individuals tended to like beautiful chairs. In general, products with better attributes were preferred by participants. For green products, the results showed that aesthetics attribute was important to consumer preference and liking. At the same time, environmentally friendly products were well-liked by the subjects. It was likely that consumers might not trade one attribute for another, but they might prefer environmentally friendly product and not the beautiful, less environmentally friendly one.