The effect of social influence on consumers' hybrid electric vehicles adoption in Korea and China

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are alternatives to conventional vehicles, and have a critical role in migrating climate change and saving oil resources. Even though supported by government with several incentives, HEVs are still less accepted by consumers. Previous studies stated it mainly due to innovative perceived risks, such as perceived economic loss and psychology concern, but without considering the moderation effect of geographical culture and economic environment. Besides, the effect of social influence was argued important to HEVs market penetration, but with little experimental research. Hence, this study tries to identify the effect of social (altruism, image, subjective norm) influences on adoption intention, and estimate moderation effect of different culture and economic situation. Hypotheses are developed from literatures, and tested using questionnaires. Social influence, such as altruism and image motivations, are found to be significant in increasing consumers' purchase intention in both Korea and China, whereas different culture and economic background also have an significant effect on consumer intention, and particularly reflected by the difference of consumers' perceived financial and psychology risk. The findings from these two countries provide managerial insights for politicians and manufactures into potential consumers' behaviour of HEVs.