How Contextual Signals Shape Green Purchase Intention: The Roles of Perceived Usefulness and Green Skepticism

This study examines how contextual signals and consumers’ economic evaluations shape consumers’ evaluation and purchase intention toward green products. Prior research has not clearly distinguished external signals from consumers’ appraisals of them. Addressing this gap, this study distinguishes three contextual signals—social influence and diffusion (SID), technical and informational transparency (TIT), and policy and institutional assurance (PIA)—from economic evaluation (EE), a consumer-level appraisal, and examines their relationships with perceived usefulness (PU) and purchase intention (PI). Drawing on survey data from 1173 Chinese consumers and employing PLS-SEM, the results show that EE, PIA, and SID significantly enhance PU, whereas TIT does not exert a direct effect. PU, in turn, positively predicts PI, and the specific indirect effects of EE, PIA, and SID through PU are significant, whereas the indirect effect of TIT is not. Although GS shows a positive conditional main effect, it weakens the relationship between PU and PI, indicating that the contribution of usefulness evaluations to purchase intention diminishes as skepticism increases. Exploratory MGA detects no significant gender differences but identifies differences across parental status and product type. This study contributes to the literature by distinguishing external contextual signals from consumer economic appraisal, identifying PU as an indirect evaluative mechanism, and clarifying GS as a boundary condition on the PU–PI relationship. The findings offer implications for understanding green consumption as a decision process shaped by differentiated sources of evidence, consumer appraisal, and skepticism.