Influencia de las prácticas ecológicas y el carácter mediador de la percepción de la imagen verde.

Abstract

How important are green practices for retail customers today? Are they enough to be able to generate decisive ecological images in the minds of individuals, and in turn generate changes in attitudes towards hypermarkets? The main objective of this work is to analyze whether the perceived ecological practices influence the idealization of a green image in the mind of the customer and in turn modify the attitudes towards the hypermarkets considered in this study. All this through the analysis of the relationships between the constructs: perceived ecological practices, perception of green image and attitudes towards hypermarkets, based on the application of an exploratory and confirmatory methodology with a sample of 384 clients from the two main hypermarkets positioned in the equator. The results confirmed the acceptance of the hypotheses put forward in the study, demonstrating that perceptions of green practices generate positive attitudes towards the hypermarket. In addition, the perception of the green image acts as a mediating variable in this relationship. Based on this work, further research can be conducted in other provinces, where the retail sector is a dynamic sector of the Ecuadorian economy, in order to study consumer behavior, not only in the local context, and which can serve as a basis for green marketing and sustainable development projects at the national level.