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Intention to adopt bicycle-sharing in China: introducing environmental concern into the theory of planned behavior model

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Abstract

Bicycle-sharing is regarded as a new mode of transportation with low-carbon and low-cost advantages, which could effectively alleviate traffic congestion. Understanding the factors and influence paths that affect users’ willingness to adopt bicycle-sharing is of great importance. This study aims to investigate how users’ environmental concern affects their willingness to adopt bicycle-sharing through the impacts of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control. The research model was constructed based on the theory of planned behavior model and validated by empirical data collected from 988 users in China utilizing structural equation modeling technique. The results show that users’ environmental concern is positively and significantly related to their attitude (β = 0.593, p < 0.001), subjective norm (β = 0.358, p < 0.001), and perceived behavior control (β = 0.508, p < 0.001) toward adopting bicycle-sharing. In turn, users’ attitude (β = 0.496, p < 0.001), subjective norm (β = 0.209, p < 0.001), and perceived behavior control (β = 0.206, p < 0.01) toward adopting bicycle-sharing all positively affect the intention to adopt bicycle-sharing. Based on these results, policy implications for improving the users’ acceptance and usage rate of bicycle-sharing and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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Funding

The authors are grateful to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant numbers 71804174, 71601174, 71571172, and 71701193), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant number 2018 M632555), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities for their generous financial support (WK2040150015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, No. 485, Danxia Road, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Min Zhu

  2. School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, No. 96, JinZhai Road, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Min Zhu, Xianfeng Hu, Shanyong Wang & Chengyuan Wang

  3. School of Internet, Anhui University, No. 3, Feixi Road, Hefei, 230039, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Zhengzheng Lin

  4. School of Economics, Hefei University of Technology, No. 485, Danxia Road, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Jun Li

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  1. Min Zhu
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  2. Xianfeng Hu
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  3. Zhengzheng Lin
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  4. Jun Li
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Correspondence to Zhengzheng Lin.

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Responsible editor: Baojing Gu

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Zhu, M., Hu, X., Lin, Z. et al. Intention to adopt bicycle-sharing in China: introducing environmental concern into the theory of planned behavior model. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 41740–41750 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10135-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10135-1

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