Empirical Evidence on the Construct Validity and Reliability of an Instrument Assessing Antecedents to Willingness to Pay a Premium: A Pilot Study
Keywords:
environmental concern, perceived credibility, perceived relative advantage, sustainable labelling, willingness to pay a premiumAbstract
Research on sustainable and green consumption behaviour has been widely studied, including within the Malaysian context. However, there has been limited research on sustainable labelling on packaged food among Malaysian consumers. Therefore, there is a limited questionnaire specifically tailored to this sustainable labelling on packaged food products. A pilot test was carried out to support an investigation into the antecedents of consumers’ WTPP for sustainably labelled packaged food. Based on Signaling Theory and Diffusion of Innovation Theory, a conceptual framework comprising six constructs was formulated. In total, 34 questionnaire items were adopted or adapted from prior studies. Responses from 30 working adults were evaluated to assess the measurement instrument. All six constructs used to examine the antecedents of WTPP, Altruistic Concerns (AC), Biospheric Concerns (BC), Egoistic Concerns (EC), Perceived Credibility (PC), Perceived Relative Advantage (PRA), and WTPP, demonstrated strong internal consistency. At this pilot study stage, internal consistency reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha and corrected item-total correlations. Their alpha values are 0.899, 0.913, 0.904, 0.901, 0.860, and 0.890, respectively, exceeding the recommended minimum threshold of 0.70. In addition, the corrected item-total correlations for all items were above 0.30, confirming that each item contributes meaningfully to its respective construct and is psychometrically sound. These pilot results indicate the questionnaire items are suitable for use in future research and may offer useful evidence to inform sustainable labelling policies, certification standards, and incentives that promote greener manufacturing among Malaysian producers.
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