DRIVERS OF MUSEUM VISITORS' WILLINGNESS TO PRACTICE GREEN ACTIVITIES

Abstract

Our objectives were to propose and test a single framework for the relationships among environmental awareness and positive and negative anticipated feelings in building museum visitors' green behavioral intentions, and also to identify the role of environmental awareness as an independent variable or a moderator in these relationships. The proposed model and hypotheses were in general supported by data collected from a field survey completed by 270 visitors to museums in Seoul, South Korea. Results of structural equation modeling analysis indicated that anticipated feelings had a significant direct impact on visitors' behavioral intentions and mediated the influence of environmental awareness on intentions. Moreover, through a test for metric invariance, we established that it was more suitable to use environmental awareness as an independent variable rather than as a moderator variable. As museum visitors' ecofriendly behavior had rarely been explored previously in research, our findings provide meaningful insights for museum researchers and practitioners.