IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v174y2024ics0148296323008214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Online product returns: The role of perceived environmental efficacy and post-purchase entrepreneurial cognitive dissonance

Author

Listed:
  • Fernandez-Lores, S.
  • Crespo-Tejero, N.
  • Fernández-Hernández, R.
  • García-Muiña, F.E.

Abstract

Social concern regarding environmental impact is gradually increasing. E-commerce development has led to a large increase in online purchases and, consequently, the number of online returns has also gone up, causing a significant impact on the environment. This study identifies the factors that drive consumers’ intention to return products purchased on the Internet. The existing literature shows post-purchase cognitive dissonance as one of the main factors that explain the intention to return products. We studied the variables that describe online purchases and explained the level of dissonance. Dissonance is shown to be a mediating variable between the online purchase context and the intention to return products. Further, the moderating effect of perceived environmental efficacy is also analyzed. The results demonstrate that there is a mediating effect of post-purchase cognitive dissonance. Additionally, perceived environmental efficacy partly inhibits the intention to return products when there is some level of post-purchase cognitive dissonance.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernandez-Lores, S. & Crespo-Tejero, N. & Fernández-Hernández, R. & García-Muiña, F.E., 2024. "Online product returns: The role of perceived environmental efficacy and post-purchase entrepreneurial cognitive dissonance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:174:y:2024:i:c:s0148296323008214
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114462
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296323008214
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114462?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Necati Ertekin, 2018. "Immediate and Long†Term Benefits of In†Store Return Experience," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 27(1), pages 121-142, January.
    2. Cornelissen, Gert & Pandelaere, Mario & Warlop, Luk & Dewitte, Siegfried, 2008. "Positive cueing: Promoting sustainable consumer behavior by cueing common environmental behaviors as environmental," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 46-55.
    3. Leary, R. Bret & Vann, Richard J. & Mittelstaedt, John D. & Murphy, Patrick E. & Sherry,, John F., 2014. "Changing the marketplace one behavior at a time: Perceived marketplace influence and sustainable consumption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1953-1958.
    4. Minnema, Alec & Bijmolt, Tammo H.A. & Gensler, Sonja & Wiesel, Thorsten, 2016. "To Keep or Not to Keep: Effects of Online Customer Reviews on Product Returns," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 253-267.
    5. Leela Nageswaran & Soo-Haeng Cho & Alan Scheller-Wolf, 2020. "Consumer Return Policies in Omnichannel Operations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5558-5575, December.
    6. Nachiketa Sahoo & Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Shuba Srinivasan, 2018. "The Impact of Online Product Reviews on Product Returns," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 723-738, September.
    7. Bin Shen & Qingying Li, 2015. "Impacts of Returning Unsold Products in Retail Outsourcing Fashion Supply Chain: A Sustainability Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-14, January.
    8. D. Veena Parboteeah & Joseph S. Valacich & John D. Wells, 2009. "The Influence of Website Characteristics on a Consumer's Urge to Buy Impulsively," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 60-78, March.
    9. Wiese, Melanie & Martínez-Climent, Carla & Botella-Carrubi, Dolores, 2020. "A framework for Facebook advertising effectiveness: A behavioral perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 76-87.
    10. Saari, Ulla A. & Damberg, Svenja & Frömbling, Lena & Ringle, Christian M., 2021. "Sustainable consumption behavior of Europeans: The influence of environmental knowledge and risk perception on environmental concern and behavioral intention," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    11. Ismagilova, Elvira & Dwivedi, Yogesh K. & Slade, Emma, 2020. "Perceived helpfulness of eWOM: Emotions, fairness and rationality," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    12. Gianfranco Walsh & Michael Möhring, 2017. "Effectiveness of product return-prevention instruments: Empirical evidence," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 27(4), pages 341-350, November.
    13. Warut Khern-am-nuai & Karthik Kannan & Hossein Ghasemkhani, 2018. "Extrinsic versus Intrinsic Rewards for Contributing Reviews in an Online Platform," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 871-892, December.
    14. Jackson, Thomas W. & Farzaneh, Pourya, 2012. "Theory-based model of factors affecting information overload," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 523-532.
    15. Ampadu, Seth & Jiang, Yuanchun & Debrah, Emmanuel & Antwi, Collins Opoku & Amankwa, Eric & Gyamfi, Samuel Adu & Amoako, Richard, 2022. "Online personalized recommended product quality and e-impulse buying: A conditional mediation analysis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    16. Marios Koufaris, 2002. "Applying the Technology Acceptance Model and Flow Theory to Online Consumer Behavior," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(2), pages 205-223, June.
    17. Jun Lv & Xuan Liu, 2022. "The Impact of Information Overload of E-Commerce Platform on Consumer Return Intention: Considering the Moderating Role of Perceived Environmental Effectiveness," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-21, June.
    18. Ta-Ching Liang & Rospita Odorlina P. Situmorang & Mei-Chi Liao & Shu-Chun Chang, 2020. "The Relationship of Perceived Consumer Effectiveness, Subjective Knowledge, and Purchase Intention on Carbon Label Products—A Case Study of Carbon-Labeled Packaged Tea Products in Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-12, September.
    19. Rokonuzzaman, Md & Iyer, Pramod & Harun, Ahasan, 2021. "Return policy, No joke: An investigation into the impact of a retailer's return policy on consumers' decision making," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zafar, Abaid Ullah & Shahzad, Mohsin & Ashfaq, Muhammad & Shahzad, Khuram, 2023. "Forecasting impulsive consumers driven by macro-influencers posts: Intervention of followers' flow state and perceived informativeness," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    2. Jun Lv & Xuan Liu, 2022. "The Impact of Information Overload of E-Commerce Platform on Consumer Return Intention: Considering the Moderating Role of Perceived Environmental Effectiveness," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-21, June.
    3. Danni Zhang & Regina Frei & Gary Wills & Enrico Gerding & Steffen Bayer & Prince Kwame Senyo, 2023. "Strategies and practices to reduce the ecological impact of product returns: An environmental sustainability framework for multichannel retail," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7), pages 4636-4661, November.
    4. Huang, Shupeng & Potter, Andrew & Eyers, Daniel & Li, Qinyun, 2021. "The influence of online review adoption on the profitability of capacitated supply chains," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    5. Bingsheng Liu & Wenwen Zhu & Yinghua Shen & Yuan Chen & Tao Wang & Fengwen Chen & Maggie Wenjing Liu & Shi‐Hao Zhou, 2022. "A study about return policies in the presence of consumer social learning," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(6), pages 2571-2587, June.
    6. Un-Kon Lee, 2021. "The Effect of Confirmation of Nation Brand Image in International Tourism Advertisement on Travel Intention of Foreign Tourists: The Case of Korean ITA for Chinese Tourists," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    7. Un-Kon Lee, 2017. "International Tourism Advertisements on Social Media: Impact of Argument Quality and Source," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-18, August.
    8. Shabnam H. A. Zanjani & George R. Milne & Elizabeth G. Miller, 2016. "Procrastinators’ online experience and purchase behavior," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(5), pages 568-585, September.
    9. Wu, Ing-Long & Chen, Kuei-Wan & Chiu, Mai-Lun, 2016. "Defining key drivers of online impulse purchasing: A perspective of both impulse shoppers and system users," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 284-296.
    10. Schulz, Petra & Shehu, Edlira & Clement, Michel, 2019. "When consumers can return digital products: Influence of firm- and consumer-induced communication on the returns and profitability of news articles," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 454-470.
    11. Duong, Quang Huy & Zhou, Li & Meng, Meng & Nguyen, Truong Van & Ieromonachou, Petros & Nguyen, Duy Tiep, 2022. "Understanding product returns: A systematic literature review using machine learning and bibliometric analysis," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    12. Maduku, Daniel K., 2024. "How environmental concerns influence consumers’ anticipated emotions towards sustainable consumption: The moderating role of regulatory focus," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    13. Rokonuzzaman, Md & Iyer, Pramod & Harun, Ahasan, 2021. "Return policy, No joke: An investigation into the impact of a retailer's return policy on consumers' decision making," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    14. Ulph, Alistair & Panzone, Luca & Hilton, Denis, 2023. "Do rational people sometimes act irrationally? A dynamic self-regulation model of sustainable consumer behavior," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    15. Muhammad Danish Habib, Abdul Qayyum, 2018. "Cognitive Emotion Theory and Emotion-Action Tendency in Online Impulsive Buying Behavior," Journal of Management Sciences, Geist Science, Iqra University, Faculty of Business Administration, vol. 5(1), pages 86-99, March.
    16. Xue‐ge Guo & Yong Liu & Zhen‐juan Xia, 2023. "Decision analysis and coordination of dual supply chain with retailer's offline return service and online reviews," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 322-335, January.
    17. Björn Stöcker & Daniel Baier & Benedikt M. Brand, 2021. "New insights in online fashion retail returns from a customers’ perspective and their dynamics," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(8), pages 1149-1187, October.
    18. Fang, Jiaming & Zhao, Zhirong & Wen, Chao & Wang, Ruping, 2017. "Design and performance attributes driving mobile travel application engagement," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 269-283.
    19. Xueming Luo & Xianghua Lu & Jing Li, 2019. "When and How to Leverage E-commerce Cart Targeting: The Relative and Moderated Effects of Scarcity and Price Incentives with a Two-Stage Field Experiment and Causal Forest Optimization," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(4), pages 1203-1227, December.
    20. Matthew B. Lunde, 2018. "Sustainability in marketing: a systematic review unifying 20 years of theoretical and substantive contributions (1997–2016)," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 8(3), pages 85-110, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:174:y:2024:i:c:s0148296323008214. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.