Environmental self-identity, self-efficacy, and the emergence of green opinion leaders: An exploratory study
Environmental issues have gradually become one of the most challenging global issues. In this Information Age where individualism is on the rise and self-media is prevalent, if we can use the power of individuals and make ordinary people become self-driven Green ambassadors to influence everyone aro...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2023-06-01
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| Series: | Heliyon |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844023045590 |
| _version_ | 1797795267681976320 |
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| author | Wei-Ting Chen Ming-Huei Hsieh |
| author_facet | Wei-Ting Chen Ming-Huei Hsieh |
| author_sort | Wei-Ting Chen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Environmental issues have gradually become one of the most challenging global issues. In this Information Age where individualism is on the rise and self-media is prevalent, if we can use the power of individuals and make ordinary people become self-driven Green ambassadors to influence everyone around them, their power will be incomparable. This bottom-up force may even shake the entire society. However, how these “Green Opinion Leaders (GOLs)” are created is still an unresolved question. If we can understand the formation process of these GOLs, we may have the opportunity to generate more GOLs in the future. Therefore, this study applied participant observation methods to penetrate three local mountain hiking societies in Taiwan and conduct long-term tracking and unstructured in-depth interviews with five mountain hikers to understand why they eventually became Green Opinion Leaders (GOLs). The results show that “environmental self-identity” and the related “self-efficacies” of social and marketing abilities are the key elements making ordinary mountain hikers become GOLs. The four essential elements that form an environmental self-identity include (1) love of nature, (2) environmental consciousness, (3) environmental self-efficacy, and (4) nature self-identity. Finally, the research summarizes a series of efficient prescriptions for encouraging ordinary people to become Green Opinion Leaders (GOLs). |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T03:15:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c4c092386a4c4925b65bbd0a133daf77 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2405-8440 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T03:15:21Z |
| publishDate | 2023-06-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Heliyon |
| spelling | doaj.art-c4c092386a4c4925b65bbd0a133daf772023-06-26T04:14:10ZengElsevierHeliyon2405-84402023-06-0196e17351Environmental self-identity, self-efficacy, and the emergence of green opinion leaders: An exploratory studyWei-Ting Chen0Ming-Huei Hsieh1Corresponding author.; Department of International Business, National Taiwan University, 8F., No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Rd., Da’an Dist., Taipei City 106319, Taiwan (R.O.C.)Department of International Business, National Taiwan University, 8F., No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Rd., Da’an Dist., Taipei City 106319, Taiwan (R.O.C.)Environmental issues have gradually become one of the most challenging global issues. In this Information Age where individualism is on the rise and self-media is prevalent, if we can use the power of individuals and make ordinary people become self-driven Green ambassadors to influence everyone around them, their power will be incomparable. This bottom-up force may even shake the entire society. However, how these “Green Opinion Leaders (GOLs)” are created is still an unresolved question. If we can understand the formation process of these GOLs, we may have the opportunity to generate more GOLs in the future. Therefore, this study applied participant observation methods to penetrate three local mountain hiking societies in Taiwan and conduct long-term tracking and unstructured in-depth interviews with five mountain hikers to understand why they eventually became Green Opinion Leaders (GOLs). The results show that “environmental self-identity” and the related “self-efficacies” of social and marketing abilities are the key elements making ordinary mountain hikers become GOLs. The four essential elements that form an environmental self-identity include (1) love of nature, (2) environmental consciousness, (3) environmental self-efficacy, and (4) nature self-identity. Finally, the research summarizes a series of efficient prescriptions for encouraging ordinary people to become Green Opinion Leaders (GOLs).http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844023045590Social marketingOpinion leadersSelf-identityEnvironmental self-identitySelf-efficacyGreen behavior |
| spellingShingle | Wei-Ting Chen Ming-Huei Hsieh Environmental self-identity, self-efficacy, and the emergence of green opinion leaders: An exploratory study Heliyon Social marketing Opinion leaders Self-identity Environmental self-identity Self-efficacy Green behavior |
| title | Environmental self-identity, self-efficacy, and the emergence of green opinion leaders: An exploratory study |
| title_full | Environmental self-identity, self-efficacy, and the emergence of green opinion leaders: An exploratory study |
| title_fullStr | Environmental self-identity, self-efficacy, and the emergence of green opinion leaders: An exploratory study |
| title_full_unstemmed | Environmental self-identity, self-efficacy, and the emergence of green opinion leaders: An exploratory study |
| title_short | Environmental self-identity, self-efficacy, and the emergence of green opinion leaders: An exploratory study |
| title_sort | environmental self identity self efficacy and the emergence of green opinion leaders an exploratory study |
| topic | Social marketing Opinion leaders Self-identity Environmental self-identity Self-efficacy Green behavior |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844023045590 |
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