Promoting remanufactured heavy-truck engine purchase in China: Influencing factors and their effects

Due to the ever-increasing quantity of produced and sold automobiles in China, many side effects such as resource depletion, energy shortages and air pollution have emerged. Remanufacturing, as the highest form of the recycling economy, has been promoted by the Chinese government as a major measure to save resources and energy. The remanufactured products, however, get very low market recognition from Chinese consumers. Thus, understanding how to cultivate consumers potential behavior of purchasing remanufactured products is the first step and also very important for developing the remanufacturing industry. This paper, focusing on heavy truck engines due to their short life expectancy and repair frequency, aims to identify the factors influencing remanufactured heavy truck engine (RHTE) potential purchase and analyze the relationship among those factors and potential purchasing behavior. Based on 301 questionnaires from Chinese heavy truck drivers, this paper develops a conceptual model to hypothesize how the influencing factors affect RHTE potential purchasing behavior. Hierarchical regression results show that individual factors (including product knowledge, product trust and environmental values) mediate the relationship between environmental factors (including product attribute and advertisement) and RHTE purchasing intention. Contextual factors (including incentive policy and purchasing convenience) moderate the relationship between RHTE purchasing intention and potential purchasing behavior. Our results indicate that individual factors are essential in cultivating RHTE purchasing intention and environmental factors are helpful for improving individual factors. Contextual factors can motivate the transformation from RHTE purchasing intention to potential purchasing behavior.