Antecedentes da intenção de economizar água: um estudo longitudinal

Abstract

Water is a natural resource that is essential for surviving, but there can be a water shortage if people are not conscious of its importance and do not use Sustainable Environmental Practices (SEP). Taking into account the problem presented, this thesis aimed to analyze the antecedents behind the behavior of saving water, considering the intention and the real behavior, besides situational factors such as the increase of the water bill, rationing and direct impact. To develop the research, the mixed method was used, combining three independent studies, comprising an exploratory study with 18 participants, a survey with 1,073 students and an experiment with 480 participants. The research was longitudinal, since the experiment participants had already taken part of the previous step (the survey). During all the steps, the subjects were students of eight courses of UNEMAT, Tangará da Serra Campus. The analysis of the results was done as follows: exploratory qualitative analysis for Study 1 (exploratory study), Structural Equation Modeling for Study 2 (survey) and Anova for Study 3 (experiment). Later, Studies 2 and 3 were analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling (a combination of survey and experiment). The results showed that the intention to save water does not reflect in the real behavior: financial motivation is a strong antecedent for the behavioral intention, but for simpler daily practices; the most common antecedent were subjective norms, perceived control, frequency, attitude, and previous real consumption. This thesis contributes to the literature of marketing and consumer’s behavior by offering and testing an adapted model of the Action Theories to explain the intention to save water and the real behavior of water consumption; longitudinally analyzing, collecting data of the same individuals in two periods of time; using both behavioral answers (the participants’ opinion in a range from 1 to 7) and objective data (the real value of consumption in cubic meters present in the water bill). Combining the two studies, analyzing the results of the survey along with the experiment, a single concept model was obtained.